Though Trupe does a great job explaining to writers that they need to establish connection with the readers, it brings up the entire age-old battle of the evils of rhetoric. Clearly explaining a term or two will not alter the writer's opinion of what they write about, but I feel that a writer should write without the reader in mind, then revise his or her piece. If we were to think about the reader from the beginning, we alter our perception: perhaps our imagined audience does not like this idea, or perhaps this is too personal to share with my professor (the usual audience member for writers in college).
I personally believe that one should write to express him or herself, not express what they want the readers to perceive of them. If a writer writes to alter the perception of the readers, then rhetoric is evil and manipulative. Most artists hardly received credit when they were alive because their pieces of work were not understandable to the audience of the time. Decades later, they are masterminds. Should they have made their work understandable to an audience at that time, they would have gone without credit today. Writing should follow the same pattern. Most writers of yesteryear were harshly criticized for pieces that weren't "reader-based." Lo and behold, they are the greatest writers of today.
If we ever want the art of rhetoric to resubmerge from its grave, we must allow for the art of writing to rise first. Bring art back into writing!
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Richard, I can understand your hesitancy about Trupe's suggestion to keep the reader in mind, but I wonder if you want to revisit her ideas about purpose--she seems to be suggesting that writers who don't have a clear sense of their purpose for writing can't clearly express themselves or do anything else. Once they've decided on a purpose such as, say, persuading an audience to support a certain issue, then it does make sense for them to keep the reader in mind as they write or revise.
I think another way to look at this is to consider stages of writing: the writer's first writing for himself or herself, which is then reshaped into something a reader can look at. This is not robbing the writer of freedom of expression: rather, it helps the writer both get these things out and then find a way to communicate them clearly.
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