Bitzer and the Rhetorical Situation

It took me a few times through to start to grasp some of the significance of what Bitzer was trying to say. I don’t know if I truly understand what he really wanted his readers to take away from this particular reading, but I believe at a minimum I’ve made my own significant discoveries through it.

Bitzer seems to say, that though rhetoric takes place in a situation, a situation doesn’t necessarily mean that rhetoric will occur. It is not a one-to-one thing, nor is it cause and effect. I liked the way he says, “Each reader can recall a specific time and place when there was opportunity to speak on some urgent matter, and after the opportunity as gone he created in private thought the speech he should have uttered” (2). I really liked this because I think it was the first idea that really explained what he was trying to say about a rhetorical situation.

Rhetoric needs to address the situation that it is born from. Any John Doe can step forward in a situation and present rhetoric, but if that rhetoric doesn’t connect with the situation, it will not do as intended. I believe that this is the tie with Web Design. We have to create our websites based on the guidelines and situations that they are grown from. If we stray from those guidelines or go outside of the situation the website will not be what we intend it to be.