The idea of evaluating the author's background, possible bias, intentions for the piece, the medium in which the text was published, all have validity when reading rhetorically. When using this perspective, the maximum amount of comprehension is possible as a student.
It is one thing to be able to read a professional's publication, but it is something different altogether to have the skill set to assemble a collegiate-level report with reliable sources to confirm the validity of your ideas. When one has the ability to communicate efficiently and effectively, many doors will open in life. "I spend a great deal of my time thinking about the power of language-the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth" (Tan). The ability to support claims with professional citations can absolutely be the difference in persuading a reader about any given topic. Inversely to reading rhetorically, the author of a text must consider their purpose for the piece and generate a plan of executing the composition at hand. This additional depth of evaluation keeps everything on topic, and makes for a professional, purposeful final product. In my own experience, I was never exposed to the idea of rhetoric until the beginning of WRA 150. At the end of high school, most of my papers were relatively well put together and flowed nicely. However, I was a bit awkward with my use of citations, and the audience could clearly tell the quotations I would include seemed forced for assignment purposes, and not an asset in the papers. This changed with my exposure to researching rhetorically, which frequently uses scholarly evidence to support ideas. Likewise, this semester has made me significantly more comfortable with the approach of writing rhetorically, which makes appealing to audiences much more likely.
Thirdly, my semester in WRA 150 has given me exposure and practice with researching rhetorically.
