This week, we will think about the exigency of our writing and make final decisions about the issue we want to write about. As authors, we must keep our audiences in mind and think about why they might want to read what we write. This means thinking about who our audience might be, what their needs and interests are, and what actions we might want them to take after reading. Why are we writing this?

For the purposes of this course, I am requiring you to have exigency beyond the assignment and grades in this course. Why does what you are researching and writing about in our class matter? Who are you writing to and for? Why does the information you are presenting matter to them? And what should they do about it?

This week's reading is Quentin Vieregge's  "Exigency: What Makes My Message Indispensable to My Reader." This essay is an introduction to the concept of exigency. It also includes several tactics for expressing and including exigency in your writing. As you read, think about your own purposes as an author. Consider your intended audience. Who might need to hear this and how can you appeal directly to them?  Remember, ultimately, we will be bringing our academic research to a public audience, which means we will need to think about how to capture their attention and make our work matter to them.  

After you've done the reading, you can use what you learn to help create this week's writing assignment: a proposal. In this proposal, you will build on your work from Week 2 and the ideas you had about your place. Get specific and outline the question you plan to explore in your research. You will make an argument about why this question matters to you. You will also outline who your audience might be and why this question might also matter to them. For now, you do not need an answer to your question (That will come after we do our research!). However, you do want to have some idea of the exigency of your writing.