One of the biggest things I took away from these readings is that good professional communication depends a lot on your audience, purpose, situation, your tone and how you choose to communicate.  Anderson’s ideas about audience made a lot of sense to me because at work I talk to homeowners, contractors, vendors, and coworkers, and I definitely do not speak to all of them the same way.  Bitzer’s rhetorical situation also connects to my job because there is usually a specific reason a conversation needs to happen  like a damaged cabinet, a change in measurements, or a customer misunderstanding something. The situation and the person I am talking to usually affect how I handle the conversation.

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These readings were also a good reminder that communication is not just about getting information across. The way you say something and the method you use can completely change how it is received. There are so many times at work where an email or text makes something more confusing, when a quick phone call or face to face conversation could fix it way faster and take out the risk of any miscommunication. These ideas made me realize that I already use a lot of these communication strategies at work without really thinking about them as rhetorical concepts.