Unlike other types of writing, professional writing uses rhetoric purposely to argue or persuade implicitly and explicitly. Also, professional writing has a huge emphasis on the audience. In other words, it accommodates an actual, concrete audience while also conforming the audience to a set standard to make decisions and perform actions. The reading uses the example of “ethical and legal standards”. The author of a professionally written document is under the obligation make the media user friendly as a well as possible for the audience as well as persuade or inform the audience to conform under one idea. Usually, this idea is that of the authors own personal ideas within regards to some higher power (ethics or the government).
The study of rhetoric helps to understand the operation or function of professional writing. For example, the reading discusses rhetorician Lloyd Bitzer’s “rhetorical situation” or the “context of persons, events, objects, relationships, and an exigence which strongly invites”; or plainly, the rhetorical situation is a set of circumstances that calls discourse into action [31]. I particularly enjoy this term to define professional writing, because when a professional paper is written, it is under the circumstance that a call to action is required. For instance, climate change affects the agriculture of the planet; therefore, people are called to action to write and argue or persuade their ideas on what should be done.
Bowdon and Scott discretely focus on the role of the writer. A concept they have defined to analyze the role of the writer is discourse community, or a group of people bound by a common interest who share and regulate specialized kinds of knowledge and ways of communicating [33]. In other terms, Bowdon and Scott realize that the writer has responsibilities to advisers and coworkers, but also they have a responsibility to the audience. The role of the writer is to keep all of these thinking humans in balance by the way ideas and thoughts are communicated, while presenting the cause or purpose that all these people have in general interest. This is a difficult task considering not everyone is of equal power, and maintaining good relations with each person is a discourse community is essential for persuasion.
Another concept brought up to better understand professional writing is the concept of audience invoked versus audience addressed [35]. Bowden and Scott recognize that the relationship between the communicators and the audience is one of the most important elements in any rhetorical situation. Therefore, two specific ways the communicators can reach out to the audience are: audience invoked, the audience the writers call to and help shape through the language of the text, and audience addressed, the actual readers who encounter and use the text [35]. To be more general, audience invoked is when the authors go to the audience, and audience addressed is when the audience goes to the author. I personally thing that audience invoked would be the better method for professional writing, especially if cause or idea must be known.
I can produce professional writing from my public interest narrative in two main ways: by finding my discourse community and utilizing audience invoked. Once I have found a community of people that share my same interest, it will be easier to invoke my audience. I will know exactly who my audience is and my role for writing my professional statement. Thinking about rhetoric in this way will assist my work in that I will be more consciousness about the presentation of my ideals and thoughts. In my public interest narrative, I only considered myself and used first person tense; however, realizing that rhetoric involves the persuasion and communication between numerous amounts of people under one general idea, I must consider their specific ideals and my writing for not for me, but for the public.