Kevin Roozen’s “Writing Is a Social and Rhetorical Activity” discusses how writers are constantly connected to other people while they compose and create meaning for their target audience. Roozen also explains how writing must engage the audience by providing information to meet their interests or needs. When writers accomplish this composition task, they are doing so by building off of others’ ideas, experiences, or technology to form the message and reach the audience with their purpose. Therefore, it is a social activity since it connects people to each other’s works. Moreover, writers are shaped and influenced by the works of others, whether they realize it or not.
In addition, writers must understand what persuades the target audience, which is accomplished by knowing their needs or interests. For that reason, writing is rhetorical since writers must know the audience’s situation to create a meaningful message which fulfills the author’s purpose.
While reading, I learned that even though writing seems like an isolated task, it actually is the exact opposite. I usually think of writing as just one person doing some research on a topic and writing about it, which seems like a lonely activity.
Roozen’s profound words made me realize that although there is typically no direct communication between the writer and the people he borrows ideas from, there is still a connection between them. As the writer relates to and understands the source from which he draws from, I believe there is some sort of collaboration between the two in order to create new meaning. Therefore, I now realize that this makes writing a social activity because it is accomplished by the combined efforts of the writer and his inspiration in order to reach his audience and fulfill his purpose of writing. Overall, this is significant because it brings me some comfort to know that I am never alone in the difficult writing process.
