Rhetorical Situation vs. Rhetorical Analysis

If a friend were to ask me to explain the difference between a rhetorical situation and rhetorical analysis my immediate response would be "Google it?", but lets pretend that Google doesn't have an answer that fully satisfies this friend's needs. I would begin by stating that rhetorical analysis is a rhetorical situation's partner in crime. A rhetorical situation is a circumstance in which we communicate, using language effectively to persuade, inform, educate, or entertain. It's the basic concept of having a writer, reader, text, and medium. Once the rhetorical situation is set, rhetorical analysis comes in to make sure that the rhetorical situation is most effective as possible. Finally, I would give my friend some examples of analytical questions to show the correlation between a rhetorical situation and rhetorical analysis, such as the following:

1) Why are you writing, and how might your goals in this writing situation influence the form, content, and medium of the text?
2) Who is your audience and how will you appeal to the audience's interests, values, and beliefs?
3) Does the nature of your subject implicitly or explicitly require that you provide certain kinds of evidence or explore certain issues?
4) Does the kind of text you are composing suggest that some media might be more appropriate and effective than others?


When it comes to writing online I think that I appeal to pathos more than anything. I value myself as really moral and compassionate, so I'm hyper sensitive to other's emotions. I try to get my point across by using my audiences' emotions as a platform while staying aware of the line that shouldn't be crossed.