Reading through Bitzer's article, I wanted to focus on what I could take away from it that was relevant to this course. Bitzer made several interesting arguments in terms of philosophy and other related fields, but I wanted to maintain focus on the core question in the back of my mind: why this article for this class? What can I take from it that will make me a better web designer?
In the end, I would suppose that reading Bitzer made a positive change in my development views, so with written discourse I believe his rhetorical situation took place with me. Of course, that's just my reflecting on Bitzer from other angles. It doesn't really get to the core of what I took away from reading his paper.
As I reflected on the discussions Bitzer had on rhetorical situations, such as their existence, fruition, purpose, and the like, I realized that much of the web is composed in the same ways. As he pursued the idea of an answer being conducive to a question, much like a rhetoric is conducive to a rhetorical situation, I began to see the parallels in web design. Each website is an opportunity for a rhetoric, and each question or desire one has that they seek out a website to fulfill faciliates that rhetorical situation.
Much like the fishermen, who understood the meaning of a few short words based on the context, a website conveys a world of meaning and rhetoric in the context that one has pursued it. When we stumble onto a site from a search engine in the hopes of answering some question or finding some piece of information, what the website offers us facilitates whether or not the rhetorical situation occurs. The tone, layout, design, and structure of a website can all aid in the rhetoric being received favorably, or it can muddy the message and cause the potential rhetoric to decay as the user struggles to understand.
As we begin to design and build websites in this class, we need to become the lead fisherman the Bitzer describes and be able to convey our message to our users in a short, meaningful way, that is understood by the context. That context - the rhetorical situation - and our strong rhetoric within it through design and execution, will lead to effective web design for our intended audience.
Solid application-what specific things must we attend to as web designers to make fitting responses through our website design?
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