Two rhetorical terms that I have used this semester and that have had a noticeable impact on my writing were audience and purpose. Audience and purpose go hand in hand because once an intended audience is determined, the purpose then becomes for that audience. Both of these rhetorical terms helped me tremendously when writing my source based essay. In order to write the source based essay I needed to evaluate different sources and analyze them rhetorically. Once I knew the audience and purpose of a text, the tone and stance became clearer. To illustrate what I mean, one specific example from my essay would be when discussing my fourth source, a blog post titled, “A List Of Fast Fashion Brands To Avoid & Why.” The author’s purpose was to convince the audience to refrain from certain fashion brands. The author also made it clear that the intended audience are people who desire a more sustainable and ethical lifestyle. This specific purpose and audience explained why the author had such a passionate tone, honestly stating the brands that her audience should not support. The stance that fast fashion brands should be completely avoided is also made abundantly clear with the audience and tone taken into consideration.

In the future, I might use the rhetorical concepts of audience, tone, purpose, stance and others in writing for other classes. When writing essays that require the use of outside sources for future classes, it will most definitely help if I perform a rhetorical analysis on each source to determine credibility and whether it is important in my essay or not. Nonetheless, I think that some aspect of rhetoric will be a part of every piece of writing I complete in the future.

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