Why Rhetoric & Composition?

Rhetoric and composition is a field that investigates writing and its many complexities.
For instance, rhetoric and composition asks:

• What do we know about writing? Must it always happen because of inspiration? Is it strictly a form of self-expression?
• What do successful writers do and think while in the process of writing?
• What are the historical traditions of writing?
• How is writing shaped by different purposes, audiences, situations, and genres? To what extent does culture (or gender, or class, or identity) determine or condition writing?
• What is the relationship between writing and other kinds of texts?
• Is it possible to teach others how to write, and if so, what are the best practices for doing so?
• How does multimodality and composing in digital spaces impact our understanding of what it means to write?
• These kinds of questions and many more are explored in the field of rhetoric and composition.