Rhetorical Situation Activities

This weeks activity is a little difficult for me as I don’t do much writing outside of work and school. The nature of my work is highly secure so I can’t go into great detail about my workplace writing and unfortunately I’m only in one class this semester (this class) and you all have already seen what I write about in here. So to complete this task I’ll have to describe two pieces I wrote in my recent past.

The first piece was from my previous role at GE. I ran a vibration testing lab and I wanted to acquire a new piece of equipment that would be used to take measurements. I sent an email to my manager that laid out why I was requesting the funding necessary, what the equipment was used for and why it would be an improvement over our old system. The email was written in a very professional and formal matter but I refrained from using overly technical terminology as I was trying to get the approval of my manager who was more of a “bean counter”. To win his approval I phrased my request to focus more on how the new equipment would actually save us time and money in the one run.

The second piece is actually very personal so I won’t go into great detail about the content but I’ll share it’s purpose. I had lost a relative with whom I had a troubled past. I was never able to get closure with this person while they were alive so a therapist suggested I write a letter to them expressing my feelings. The letter was addressed to the deceased relative and was written as though I fully expected them to read it but it’s true purpose was to give me an outlet to relieve myself of some emotional baggage. In some ways I suppose I was the audience as well as the writer.