In the article “The Cognition of discovery: Defining a Rhetorical Problem,” Flower and Hayes declare that “problem-finding” inspires creative thinking.
They also claim that better writers consider more aspects of the rhetorical situation when setting their goals for the writing task and thinking about their purpose than novice writers. They suggest that this creativity happens because “people will solve only the problem they give themselves to solve”;
in fact, they predict that while “an audience and exigency can jolt a writer into action,..the force which drives composing is the writer’s own set of goals, purposes, or intentions. [And] a major part of defining the rhetorical problem then is representing one’s own goals”
?What are “rhetorical problems” that good writers will think about before launching into a writing task? How do you prepare for a writing task?
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