A “rhetorical situation” can sound like an academic invention, but every piece of writing, from restaurant menus to office emails to doctoral dissertations, has a rhetorical situation. This chapter breaks down the complex and interwoven factors that impact writing—who is delivering the rhetoric, what their purpose is, who their audience is, what genre they’re writing in, and who the rhetoric is built around—as key elements that define every rhetorical situation. Whether you’re the reader or the deliverer, understanding these contextual factors is crucial to understanding the work.

In the classical tradition, the art of persuasion is called rhetoric. In ancient Greece, this practice referred to spoken communication; now, rhetoric encompasses all forms of communication: written, verbal, and nonverbal.

Your understanding of the rhetorical situation will guide you as you employ various strategies to guide your readers/listeners as they perceive and interpret your message. We communicate through the lens of personal experience, and it’s only natural that we would relate what others say to our own needs and wants. Several of the first questions audience members ask themselves are:

• “Why should I listen to you?”
• “What does what you are saying have to do with me?”
• “How does this help me?”

The rhetorical situation involves six elements that will be explored in greater depth throughout this section: topic, deliverer, purpose, genre/form, context, audience:^[1]

Topic. The specific focus of a rhetorical situation. Both the deliverer and audience typically have a relationship with the topic, and there are often conventions for discussing them.

Deliverer. Also referred to as the “author,” “writer,” “speaker,” or “creator,” depending on the type or medium of communication. The person composing and sending a message on the topic, who may assume a particular identity (ethos) to do so effectively.

Purpose. The deliverer’s goal in relation to the topic and for addressing the audience. In technical and professional communication, the goal is almost always to persuade or inform.

Genre/Form. How the deliverer is transmitting the message and employing the conventions that accompany that textual form (“text” can refer to a variety of media, not just written forms).

Context. The broader background information in which the specific rhetorical interaction is situated.

Audience. The person(s), teams, organizations, or departments who may be receiving/consuming the deliverer’s message. The deliverer’s understanding of their audience is crucial.

By understanding the rhetorical situation, you can gauge the best ways to reach your readers or listeners and get your points across. In so doing, you’ll make the transition from your viewpoint to that of your audience. Remember that in order for communication to be effective, you require an audience to listen and respond to you. By looking to your audience and addressing their needs, you shift your attention from an internal focus (on yourself) to an external one (on them/others). This “other orientation” is key to your success as an effective communicator.

Deliverer

The deliverer engages the audience in communication. Deliverers are a key part to consider in any rhetorical situation, reflecting their perspective on a concept while also appealing to the audience’s perspective and interests in that concept. The deliverer will change tone or content depending on who their audience is. If they are delivering a work presentation, their tone will probably be more respectful; if they are addressing their friends, their tone will be more informal.

Deliverers will also frame their own identities as part of this process. The persona that a deliverer uses in any communication to promote their credibility is called their “ethos.” A consultant might identify themself as an expert on the topic of diversity in hiring. They might identify themself as someone with work experience on diversity in hiring similar to that of their audience. The consultant could even identify themself as someone who has benefited from diversity in hiring or suffered unfairly because of a lack of diverse hiring. They might employ a combination of some or all of these strategies. Ultimately, when we are analyzing a rhetorical situation, focusing on deliverers helps us understand both the choices that are available to them and the choices they make, as well as better understand ourselves when we occupy the role of deliverer. Deliverers can also build ethos for the companies they work for. For example, when someone writes a corporate mission statement that discusses the values of the company they work for, they are promoting their company’s ethos.

Purpose

The purpose of your writing piece is what is being conveyed to the reader, and what the reader is meant to get out of it. This can be communicated through a variety of ways, such as through an informative or entertaining lens, and is dependent on the aspects of the writing itself. Incorporating different functions within a piece of writing, such as making it entertaining to help persuade readers, can help to enhance the overall effect of the document.

The purpose is dependent on multiple other factors, including the other rhetorical situation components. For example, if a document’s purpose is to persuade or inform the reader, its ability to do so is largely dependent on the deliverer’s ethos, or the persona they’ve taken on to enhance credibility, which impacts the credibility of the overall writing piece. No matter what the goal of a document is, the contents within the writing determine how this is communicated to readers, and how effectively the piece of writing serves its specific purpose to its readers.

A presentation, report, application, or other document may be designed to inform, demonstrate, persuade, motivate, or even entertain. Purposes may also be combined, depending on the topic and goals of the document. For example, your primary purpose may be to persuade, but the audience may want to be entertained, and your ability to adapt can make use of a little entertainment that leads to persuasion.

The purpose of your document is central to its formation. Much as you would with an effective thesis statement in an essay, you should be able to state your main purpose in one sentence.

As is true of all six components of a rhetorical situation, purpose is relationally bound to the other five. For instance, as discussed above, a deliverer’s ethos will be tied to purpose. Again, consider the hypothetical scenario in which a company has hired a consultant to improve its hiring practices in terms of diversity. In this situation, the consultant’s purpose is likely to inform and persuade, since they want the audience to change their hiring practices and also to be enthusiastic about this change. To accomplish this, the consultant may focus on establishing an expert ethos, referencing outside experts, and/or persuading by using the ethos of someone who has benefited from similar changes.

Purpose also connects heavily to genre and form. This connection exists because all textual forms privilege some rhetorical choices over others, and genres reflect audience expectations. For example, in our scenario, imagine that the company’s management wants to email their employees about changes in their hiring practices, so the speaker’s purpose is likely going to be informational. This purpose will be reflected in the use of formal language, shorter paragraphs, and short, informative subject lines.

By contrast, if the company is announcing these changes to the general public on a social media platform, their purpose is likely going to be to motivate or entertain, since that form of communication is much more casual, and there is far more competition for their audience’s attention. This purpose might be reflected in the use of exclamation points or all caps, the use of emojis or hashtags, or the inclusion of memes or gifs—none of which are common in professional emails.

Genre/Form

When you hear or read the word “genre,” what comes to mind? For most of us, the word makes us think of types of music, books, or films. Typically, we use this word to differentiate between country, rock, classical, or hip-hop music; between science fiction, romance, biography, or self-help books; between comedies, dramas, action/adventure films, or documentaries. However, when professional writers use the term “genre,” they mean something a little different.

Genre in professional writing is how the writer delivers a message within a specific form of text. For example, many texts in one genre will often have a similar format that allows the audience and the writers to recognize it as said genre. This can include anything from a complaint letter to a restaurant menu. A writer needs to keep in mind what the audience expects from a text so they can decide on the best genre for it. In professional writing, genres are guided by principles but are not specific formulas. This means that texts in the same genre will not all necessarily look the same but will have similar properties. Due to this, it is essential that writers pay attention to these principles and how they are applied in their workplace. This will help the text connect with the audience as well as with the overall message of the business or workplace.

For example, we often think of résumés as being documents that have bullet points and multiple headings for education, work experience, or special skills. Of course, anyone who has created a résumé knows that these rules have some flexibility. Some résumés may start with an Objective or Summary statement; others may choose to put Education at the end of the document rather than near the top. Still others may opt for the use of color or customized layouts, especially in design fields. Alternatively, take your course syllabus as an example. This genre is used by teachers and students to facilitate communication about course expectations. Students are the primary audience for the course syllabus, but there are also additional audiences for the syllabus: other teachers of the course, the instructor’s supervisor, administrators, etc. This one document is actually responsible for a tremendous amount of work. In these examples, you can easily imagine who uses the text, where, when, and for what purposes.

Knowing who uses a text and why they use it can help you figure out what the content of a piece of writing needs to be, as well as how to present that content. Consider a job description: it typically begins with an overview of the job as well as minimum qualifications for applicants. Why does it begin there? Why isn’t this information at the end or in the middle somewhere? The overview acts as a kind of advertisement; it is there to attract candidates to the position. However, the minimum qualifications quickly help potential candidates to consider whether or not they should apply, which in turn saves the company extra work identifying people who do not qualify. In that sense, the minimum qualifications help both the job seeker and the company work more efficiently.

Sometimes, however, the minimum qualifications are found later in the job description. Can you imagine a reason for that? If so, then you are conducting genre analysis. Moreover, you have identified another important principle that applies to genres: they are not formulas. In other words, there is no one exact way to write them. Instead, genres are governed by what are called “conventions” or guiding principles. Regardless of genre, there are always likely to be exceptions to these conventions, which is why adopting a curious attitude about writing, instead of looking for the “right way” to write something, will serve you better as a writer and a professional. It will also help alleviate frustration when what you thought was the “right way” to write something ends up requiring editing or modification.

Genre Systems

The more you can think about how your writing will be read, the better your writing will be. Imagining your audience is an important part of that process, and so is thinking about the other genres your writing will interact with. For example, a job description often prompts a job applicant to put together a cover letter and résumé. The candidate will be informed—typically through a phone call or email—that they have been selected and will perhaps be asked to provide further application materials of other genres, such as letters of recommendation or documentation of training/experience.

The term given to the intersecting genres that facilitate a particular kind of work is genre system or genre set. Often this term is used to refer to the genres that work together as part of a larger organization. While you may never actually use the term “genre system,” the idea of a genre system is something that all writers in workplace settings are aware of to some degree. For example, an organization might use content from a report you have written to create new policies, procedures, or bylaws, or perhaps as evidence supporting a new initiative or grant. If you know what genres your writing might become part of later, then you can design documents anticipating the needs of those genres. The more you can anticipate the different rhetorical situations that might be impacted by the writing you do, the more quickly you will advance as a writing professional.

Table 2.1 below presents examples of some different genre sets to help you think about the amount and diversity of writing/communication work that is involved in any profession, even ones that are not normally thought of as writing intensive.

Table 2.1. Examples of genre sets.

Teacher	Nurse	Engineer
Syllabi	Shift Reports	Analyses
Course Schedules and Calendars	Patient Notes	Project Descriptions
Learning Outcomes	Patient Charts	Action Reviews
Lesson Plans	Patient Narratives	Progress Reports
Assignment Sheets	Care plans	Incident Reports
Handouts	Discharge Instructions	Inspection Reports
Presentations	Orders	Presentations
Student Assessments/Progress Reports/Grading Comments	Incident Reports	Proposals/Plans
Lecture Notes	Policies and Procedures	Recommendations
Discussion Notes	Training/Continuing Education Exams	Patents
Recommendation Letters	Grants	Meeting Notes
Reports	Staff Performance Appraisals	Memos
Emails	Emails	Emails

In short, writing is everywhere in professional life. The genres that you use will vary, but they are often interconnected within a broader system based on the priorities of the job itself, the employer, and the field at large. By paying attention to what the unwritten genre rules of a workplace (or school, organization, or home) are and how the genres encountered in that workplace connect with each other, you will improve your writing skills in those genres.

Context

Context refers to all the surrounding factors that impact a document’s creation and presentation. These factors include physical considerations, such as the location of a speech or whether a document is electronic or printed. Other surrounding factors could be social, cultural, and political considerations, such as political climate, current events, and how different groups of people interact. For example, if you are going to be presenting a speech in class, your context will include the familiar space of your classroom, the time of day you are presenting, the time limit of your presentation, whether you can (or must) use visual aids such as slides or handouts, and any current events, such as the football team winning a game the night before or a global pandemic resulting in half the class participating virtually.

Context draws on understanding the other five main elements of the rhetorical situation and many more issues in creating quality communication. Writers must consider the historical and social surroundings, but also the topic, audience, genre, and purpose of their work, as well as how readers might access the work—whether through digital formats, physical copies, or audio recordings. Other aspects affecting access to the work like paywalls or physical spaces inform the reader’s experience as well. If the work might be read by many readers of various cultural backgrounds, or only by a small and homogeneous group of the writer’s peers, this will make a crucial difference in the appropriate tone, jokes employed, and expectations for the audience’s previous knowledge. And what is the audience seeking to get or experience from this writing? Considering factors like these helps writers to create more appropriate tone and content.

For example, a chemical company might own plants in the United States and Japan. If a manager from the U.S. plant plans to conduct a conference call, face-to-face meeting, or presentation with their colleagues in Japan, they likely will not approach these rhetorical situations exactly as they would for an all-American audience. Instead, they will have to be mindful of both cultural contexts in order to adapt their communication effectively to their audience’s expectations.

Genre conventions themselves emerge from specific contexts that change over time. Context can determine what topics are important to potential audiences and deliverers in a given moment (in rhetoric, this is called “kairos,” which refers to a particularly favorable moment for an action or decision to occur).

As a functional example of context, you can analyze the rhetorical situation of a recommendation report for a business:

• First, the context of the report will include the issue that the company wants investigated and addressed (i.e., the topic).
• The culture and business practices of the company are likely connected to the issue, so they are also contextual factors that shape the audience’s needs and expectations regarding the report, as well as the deliverer and their purpose.
• Recommendation reports typically follow project proposals, progress reports, and/or forms of correspondence; all of these prior documents and exchanges will shape the report’s context.
• The roles and responsibilities the audience and deliverer have within the company will contextualize the report as well.
• Further still, the way the report is structured and formatted will also be influenced by genre conventions, which can be contextualized both by the company and the larger industry in which it participates.

As this example illustrates, the layers of context that shape and influence a rhetorical situation are wide in scope, with broader layers like industry standards and culture influencing narrower ones like the deliverer-audience relationship. Concretizing these dynamics helps writers determine which ones are more important, particularly the ones that may be less obvious at first glance. Whenever you craft technical documents, always take context into account.

Audience

The audience is the intended potential readers or listeners receiving the deliverer’s message. A writer needs to be able to adapt their writing to meet the interests and needs of the reader. Gaining insight into the audience before creating the text is very important. Audience analysis is when you look for the traits of your readers before writing the piece, which helps you to connect with the audience better and produce a piece that speaks to them. There are different types of audiences, such as experts, technicians, and non-specialists. Considering the background of the reader is important in building a connection with them. Audience analysis is a key factor in creating the proper piece of writing because it allows the writer to select the best genre and context for that piece in light of the audience, as choosing the wrong way to deliver information to an audience can lead to misunderstandings.

Audience Analysis

Analysis is the process of breaking something larger down into its smaller parts. In audience analysis, you are looking for traits that your audience possesses in order to better appeal to them in your written or spoken communication. Every audience has expectations, prior knowledge, and experience. When they read your documents or listen to your speech, they have a purpose or reason for doing so, such as needing to know the schedule for next week’s lab meeting or finding sources for a research report. They also have a wide range of demographic characteristics including social class, gender, age, race and ethnicity, cultural background, and language that make them unique and diverse. What kind of audience will you be speaking to? What do you know about their expectations, prior knowledge, or backgrounds? How do they plan to use your information?

The lack of audience analysis and the failure to adapt to audience needs and expectations are major causes of most problems you will find in professional and technical documents.

Types of Audiences

One of the first things to do when you analyze an audience is to identify its type or types. The following categories describe some of the main audiences you will encounter in professional writing:

Experts. Experts know the theory, business, organization, subject, or product inside and out. They design it, they test it, they run it, they know everything about it. Often, they have advanced degrees and operate in academic settings or in research and development areas of the government and technology worlds.

Technicians. Technicians build, operate, maintain, and repair the items that the experts design and about which experts theorize. Technicians possess highly technical knowledge, but of a more practical, hands-on nature than that of theoretical experts.

Executives. Executives make business, economic, administrative, legal, governmental, and political decisions about the products of the experts and technicians. Executives are likely to have as little technical knowledge about the subject as non-specialists. For many writers, this will be a primary audience.

Non-specialists. Non-specialists have the least technical knowledge of all. They want to use the new product to accomplish their tasks, want to understand the new technology enough to know whether to vote for or against it, or they may just be curious about a specific technical matter and want to learn about it. Chances are these readers will represent a secondary audience for you.

Important Audience Characteristics

It is important to determine which of the preceding four categories represents your potential audience(s), but that’s not the end of it. Audiences, regardless of category, must also be analyzed in terms of other characteristics such as those listed below.

Background (Knowledge, Experience, Training)

As a writer, you will want to know just how much knowledge, experience, or training you can expect your readers to have. If you expect some of your readers to lack certain background, do you automatically supply it in your document? Consider an example: imagine you are writing a guide to using a software product that runs on Microsoft Windows. How much can you expect your readers to know about Windows? If some are likely to know little about Windows, should you provide the background information? If you say no, then you run the risk of customers getting frustrated with your product. If you say yes to adding background information on Windows, then you increase your work effort and add to the page count of the document (and thus to the cost). Obviously, there is no easy answer to the question of whether to include background information—part of the solution may involve just how small or large a segment of the audience needs that information.

Needs and Interests

To plan your document, you need to know what your audience is going to expect from that document. Consider how readers will want to use your document and what they will demand from it. For example, imagine you are writing a manual on how to use a new smartphone—what are your readers going to expect to find in it? Or imagine you are under contract to write a background report on global warming for a national real estate association—what do the readers want to read about, and equally important, what do they not want to read about in that report?

Demographic Characteristics

And, of course, there are many other characteristics about your readers that might have an influence on how you should design and write your document—for example, age groups, type of residence, area of residence, gender, political preferences, and so on.

More Than One Audience

You are likely to find that your report is for more than one audience. The people whom you are directly addressing are your primary audience. Other people who are involved in the situation and who can be expected to read the document (such as technicians, experts, administrators, or people in another department) make up your secondary audience. The tertiary audience might consist of people who are somewhat removed from the situation but may have cause to read the document at some point. Depending on the context, these readers might include lawyers, accountants, journalists, shareholders, or the public.

Either you can write all the sections so that all the audiences of your document can understand them, or you can write each section strictly for the audience who would be interested in it and then use headings and section introductions to alert your audience about where to find the information most relevant to their area of interest within your report.

Wide Variability in an Audience

You may realize that although you have an audience that fits into only one category, the backgrounds of its members vary widely. If you write to the readers with very little or no technical knowledge, you are likely to end up with a cumbersome, tedious, book-like report that will turn off the majority of readers. However, if you do not address the needs of those readers, you will lose that segment of your audience.

What should you do? Most writers focus on the majority of readers and sacrifice that minority who needs more help. Others put supplemental information in appendices or insert cross-references to beginners’ books.

Reader-Centered Writing

In professional writing, it is important to take a more reader-centered approach. Reader-centered writing keeps in mind the demographics of its audience and how the information can best be relayed. This means thinking through all of the elements of the rhetorical situation. It is important to know who the target audience is, what their goal is in reading your document, the genre they will expect, what they already know about the subject, and what other elements or context will influence how the text is understood.

To craft an easily comprehensible text, it is essential that only relevant, need-to-know information is included. Leave out any information that the readers will not need to comprehend the text. It is also helpful to include examples and graphics that support the subject matter. Also, make sure to maintain a professional tone that is straightforward, and use positive phrasing. This means using words such as “understood,” “pleased,” and “empowered.” Furthermore, be sure to remain genuine and apologize for any mistakes you have made. Maintaining a reader-centered way of writing is important in professional writing because it allows the reader to better understand and connect with the text.

Consider the following questions:

Who is your target audience? Are they internal or external readers? Are they your manager or supervisor? Are they your subordinate? Or are they lateral in relation to you? Are there multiple readers?

What is your goal or purpose in writing to these readers? What do you want your audience to do as a result of reading this document or hearing your presentation? How does the content and organization meet the audience’s needs?

What is your reader’s goal? Why does this audience want or need to read this document? What are they expecting to do with the document? Getting a clear understanding of your audience is important in communicating effectively. It also enables you to imagine your audience as you write and revise.

What form/genre will the audience expect? What are the qualities and expectations related to this particular genre or form? How can the layout be designed to make it as easy as possible for the reader to use and follow the content?

What does the audience already know or accept about the topic? Appealing to your readers means presenting content in a way that is accessible for their level of knowledge. You can also use the information on their background to determine what sources will be most convincing and understandable.

What external contexts will influence how your text is understood? Are there any major national or global events, such as a pandemic, occurring? Were there any recent major changes to the organization? What is the status of your audience relative to other layers in their organization or in the professional world? How will your text be presented and read? Will it be in hard copies that can only be read at the office? In a PDF file?

Reader-Centered Approach: Adapting Your Writing to Meet Your Audience’s Needs

Once you have analyzed your audience, how do you plan to use this information? How do you keep from writing something that may potentially still be incomprehensible or useless to your readers? The lists below are some of the ways you can adapt your writing to your audience’s needs.

The following suggestions deal with making technical information more understandable for non-specialist audiences, and they refer to information you will refine as you begin to put your final document together.

Provide the Right Information

Add information that readers need in order to understand your document. Check to see whether certain key information is missing—for example, a critical series of steps from a set of instructions; important background information that helps beginners understand the main discussion; definitions of key terms.

Omit information your readers do not need. Unnecessary information can confuse and frustrate readers. After all, if something is present in a document, readers feel obligated to read it. For example, you can probably remove complex theoretical discussion from basic instructions.

Change the level of the information you currently provide. You may have the right information, but it may be pitched at too high or too low a technical level. Alternatively, the information may be targeted at the wrong kind of audience, such as at an expert audience rather than a technician audience. This issue happens most often when product design notes are passed off as instructions.

Add examples. Examples are one of the most powerful ways to connect with audiences, particularly in instructions. Even in a non-instructional text—for instance, when you are trying to explain a technical concept—examples (analogies, in particular) are a major source of help.

Change the level of your examples. You may be using examples, but the technical content or level may not be appropriate to your readers. Personal anecdotes or stories may not be useful to experts; highly technical examples may totally miss your non-specialist readers.

Reader-Centered Approach: Guide Your Reader Through Your Writing

Write strong, to-the-point introductions. Audiences have more confidence in a writer and their document when they have the “big picture” view of what’s coming and how it relates to what they’ve just read or heard. Therefore, write a strong introduction to the entire document that clearly identifies the topic and purpose, and foregrounds the contents of the document. In each major section within your document, use mini-introductions that indicate at least the topic of the section and give an overview of the subtopics to be covered in that section.

Reorganize your information. Sometimes, you can have all the right information but arrange it in the wrong way. For instance, there can be too much background information up front (or too little), causing certain readers to get lost. Sometimes, background information needs to be consolidated into the main information rather than placed in an introduction or separate section. In instructions, for example, it is sometimes more effective to insert chunks of background at the points where they are immediately needed.

Create topic sentences for paragraphs and paragraph groups. A sentence identifying the main focus of a paragraph or section is immensely helpful for orienting readers. Typically, a “topic sentence” is the first sentence of the paragraph. In it, readers should be able to identify what the focus of the paragraph is and the paragraph’s relationship to a preceding paragraph or section.

Strengthen transitions. It may be difficult for readers, particularly non-specialists, to see the connections between the main sections of your report, between individual paragraphs, and sometimes even between individual sentences. To help readers with these connections, use transitions—words or phrases that indicate the relationship between ideas, sentences, and paragraphs. Words such as “therefore,” “for example,” and “however” are transition words; they indicate the logic connecting the previous thought to the upcoming thought. You can also strengthen transitions by thoughtfully echoing the same keywords. A report describing new software for architects might use the word “software” several times on the same page or even in the same paragraph. In technical prose, it is preferable to use the same terminology throughout the document rather than to insert less precise synonyms.

Professional Tone. “Tone” refers to the attitude that a document conveys toward the topic and/or the reader. You have likely read texts that sounded angry, humorous, cynical, or enthusiastic. These words characterize the tone. Technical communication tends to avoid displaying an obvious emotion and instead strives for a neutral tone.

Tone is created through diction (word choice), syntax (word order), sentence construction, and viewpoint. Consider a piece of academic writing that you have read. It creates a formal tone through its use of specialized terminology, sophisticated vocabulary, complex sentence structures, and third-person voice. This style suits the genre because it is directed at experts and scholars in the field, and seeks to convey complex information densely and objectively, with an emphasis on reason, logic, and evidence.

Now consider a piece of business writing that you have read. The tone may be slightly less formal but not colloquial. The language is direct and plain, and the sentences are shorter and more straightforward. It may make use of the second person (“you”). This style suits business writing because it is directed at colleagues, management, or clients who are seeking clear information quickly, and who may need to take action on it.

Additional Resources:

“Rhetorical Situation,” YouTube Video, University of Jamestown Writing Center.

“Rhetorical Analysis,” University of Illinois Writing Workshop.

“Genre and Medium,” Purdue University Online Writing Lab.

 

 

This chapter was derived from:

Gross, Allison, Annemarie Hamlin, Billy Merck, Chris Rubio, Jodi Naas, Megan Savage, and Michele DeSilva. Technical Writing. Open Oregon Educational Materials, n.d. https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/technicalwriting/. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Last, Suzan, with contributors Candice Neveu and Monika Smith. Technical Writing Essentials: Introduction to Professional Communications in Technical Fields. Victoria, BC: University of Victoria, 2019. https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/technicalwriting/. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

McKinney, Matt, Nicole Hagstrom-Schmidt, and Anonymous. Howdy or Hello: Technical and Professional Communication. 2nd Edition. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Libraries, n.d. https://pressbooks.library.tamu.edu/howdyorhello/front-matter/introduction/. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

McMurrey, David. Online Technical Writing. n.d. https://www.prismnet.com/~hcexres/textbook/. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

University of Minnesota. Business Communication for Success. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing, 2015. https://open.lib.umn.edu/businesscommunication/. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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