3.2 Finding an Issue: Invention and Exigency
Jackie Hendricks; Amy Lueck; Loring Pfeiffer; and Maura Tarnoff
Finding an Issue: Invention and Exigency
Being an effective public writer starts with addressing a “good” issue. When you think of all the many things you could write about, what does it mean to have a “good” issue, and how can you find one? Holmes recommends choosing an issue that meets the following criteria:
- Public: It’s being discussed and debated in the public realm or has implications for public audiences and communities.
- Personally relevant: It’s something that you care about or that interests you.
- Timely: It’s currently relevant.
Choosing a public issue does not mean that you need to ignore personal concerns. In fact, it can present an opportunity to make your personal viewpoint public by using your interests, experiences, and beliefs to guide your writing. To aid in your public writing journey, let me tell you about two rhetorical concepts: invention and exigency.
Invention—one of the five rhetorical canons (the others are arrangement, style, memory, and delivery)—is a valuable rhetorical tool. It involves a process of discovery that can help you figure out what to say or write. Invention is meant to be generative. In other words, it’s meant to help you come up with lots of ideas that could be useful in your writing and research. Eventually, you will need to narrow those ideas down for your argument, selecting and arranging the ones that help you most persuasively make your case. However, during invention, “you are trying to come up with as many ideas as the situation and topic will allow. So turn your judgment down to zero while inventing. Keep an open mind” (Pullman 112).
As you are trying to find a public issue and decide what you will say about it, you might try various invention strategies, like the “Writing on Location” activity explained below, to help you generate more ideas.
Writing on Location—Try it!
Choose a local, public location where you can observe and write for a short amount of time. Places with interesting visuals or bustling activity can be especially helpful in the brainstorming or freewriting phase. While visiting your location, find a spot to sit, stand, or lie down where you can write for a few minutes. Compose a freewrite or reflection that informally captures whatever comes to your mind while you are in that location. What do you see? What do you hear? What is intriguing? What seems surprising? You are encouraged to take pictures, videos, or both to capture your experiences in this location. These can be especially helpful for digital, multimodal assignments. When taking pictures or videos in public, you should be respectful of the privacy of people around you by either protecting their anonymity or getting their consent to be filmed or photographed.
Apply It
Your instructor may invite you to share your experience with your classmates to help build a writing community. If they do, you might discuss the following, keeping in mind that writing is a process and that not everyone is at the same stage or comfortable with sharing their work:
- Discuss your drafting process. Did you use any strategies for generating ideas, such as free writing? Are there any habits or factors that typically help or hinder your writing process?
- What aspect of this assignment has been the most challenging for you so far? Is there anything you’re struggling with?
- Identify one area of the assignment you would like to work on—what goal would you like to set for revision or expansion?
Attribution
“Finding an Issue: Invention and Exigency” by Jackie Hendricks, Amy Lueck, Loring Pfeiffer, and Maura Tarnoff is adapted from “Public Writing for Social Change” by Ashley J. Holmes, used under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 with special permission from the author. “Finding an Issue: Invention and Exigency” is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
