A rhetorical situation is essentially the context that makes up a certain text. It serves to narrow down the specifics of a text, such as what they’re aiming to achieve, the significance/purpose, and even helps in determining the reason for this text’s existence. Using “Bad ideas About Writing” as an example, one could see that in the section titled “Texting Ruins Students’ Grammar Skills,” written by Scott Warnock, the rhetorical situation is responding to a long-time misbelief that digital technology is negatively affecting todays’ students. Within the specific section, Warnock addresses how texting and digital technology in general can’t carry bad habits over to real writing and that it’s more helpful to students by making them more literate. You can tell from his writing that he’s portraying these ideas to an older audience who believe digital technology is bad and wants to disprove this common misbelief amongst the old generation.
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