1. What is rhetoric?
Rhetoric (n) - the art of speaking or writing effectively.
Content = WHAT
Rhetoric = HOW

2. What is exigence?
Exigence is the event/issue/situation a text or speech is responding to

3. What is the exigence for Lac Su’s article?

4. What should we know about the communicator?
What are his/her demographics and do these provide clues about the communicator’s relation to the subject?
What does the communicator have to gain or lose as a result of the communication?
What are the communicator’s investments in the issue?

5. Ethos! The communicator must be trustworthy!
What’s the most important appeal (ethos, pathos, logos) for a communicator?
Ethos! The communicator must be trustworthy!
Ethos requires authority on a subject, a virtuous character, and good will

6. What do we know about Lac Su?

7. Purpose: What does the Communicator want?
Purpose is often multilayered and can typically contain several purposes

8. Purposes of informing
To inform people about the existence and purpose of a certain events that will enable them to decide whether to attend or not
To inform them about developments that help them with their well-being
To provide information to help people solve a problem or complete a task
To provide information that will help them make a decision about something

9. Purposes of Persuasion
To persuade people to adopt a certain position on a topic
To persuade them to act in a certain way
To set policy on an issue
To critique or condemn things or actions
To provoke comments
To make people think differently about a topic
To prompt them to reflect on their own actions

10. Aesthetic and Literary Purposes
To make people laugh
To appeal to their sense of wonder, mystery, or fantasy
To help them understand more deeply a particular person or way of being

11. Purposes of Scholarly Inquiry
To present new knowledge to a scientific or scholarly community
To challenge established views with new evidence and arguments

12. What is Lac Su’s purpose(s) for writing “Tiger Mothers” Leave Lifelong Scars?

13. Audience: Who is the communication for?
Addressed audience—people who actually receive a text and interact with it
Intended audience—people imagined by the author. The text creates roles and invites the audience to occupy those roles.

14. Answer the following 5 questions to help you think about the audience’s role in communication
What does the intended audience know or believe about this topic?
What is the audience’s purpose in reading the text?
What does the audience think of the communicator?
What is at stake for the audience? What do they stand to gain or lose as a result of the communication?
In what circumstances will audience use communication and how does that influence its format?

15. Genre
a category of artistic composition characterized by similarities in form, style, or subject matter.
For example: letters, blog posts, contracts, advertisements, novels, textbooks, etc.