As my assignment for class is gathering journal sources and reflecting on the academic conversation which is already being discussed. One important factor to consider when looking at sources is the rhetorical context. This is, to whom is the author attempting to talk to? What is the purpose of the article in the first place?

Wait…who’s talking to who?? (Source)

To understand this concept, we were assigned a reading by Margaret Kantz, a English Professor at Central Missouri State University. This article, which aims to be a guide for students to “use textual sources persuasively.” She explains that we can did this by drawing meaning from the text based on context, not just from the textual information. We need to understand why a argument is being made, not only what the argument is.

I tried to incorporate this strategy closely as I was compiling more and more sources and creating annotated bibliographies for each of them. When describing each of the sources, I not only listed the author’s main points, but also the audience of the articles. I often looked at the journals the articles were published in to see what the targets of the papers were. I also researched the authors themselves; a lot of times they were college professors in specific fields, revealing the purpose of their research.

Anyhow, through Kantz’ article we can see how it is necessary not only to understand the textual information of articles, but all other information surrounding it. This could be the authors, the journal it’s published in, when it was published, all of the other factors which can change how the claims were perceived. By understanding all of this we can finally make sense of these articles as a comprehensive information source.