The Rhetorical Triangle and Me

First off, I thought this lesson was interesting because I have seen a similar triangle before, but the vertices were labeled differently. My Comm 210 lecture professor drew a triangle and labeled the top part as "the thing in the head," the left part as "the thing itself," and the right part as "the symbol." His point was to illustrate that meanings are not in words but in people. When someone says "dog," it is a verbal symbol that represents the real thing and also all of the connotations related to dogs that are in the person's (and other people's) head(s). That was an interesting concept, but I think that the rhetorical triangle is much more sensible and a lot more applicable to life. I like how it has the ability to illustrate the relationship between the writer, the audience, and the subject. I also thought it was helpful when we came up with a few words to describe each of those three aspects of literature. Oddly enough, I used the various techniques we learned the very next day while I was working on my chapter for the Writing Center book. I'd been stumbling along through a first draft, and it was going all right. I had a very detailed outline that helped me to organize my thoughts and include meaningful content, but an overall vision for the paper was nonexistent. After I drew the triangle in a scalene manner (placing myself closer to the topic than the audience), I used a few words to describe each of the three parts. With this relationship in mind, I was able to concoct a clearer vision of what I ultimately wanted to accomplish with the chapter. It is now coming along much more easily and clearly. Wonderful!