Exigence is...
Exigence is part of the rhetorical situation - which includes exigence, rhetor, audience, purpose, context, time, genre, and medium.
Exigence is typically the moment or event that motivates someone to write or to speak about a specific issue, problem, or situation.
From your textbook, The Panther Guide to Writing:
"The exigence is the “ignition” for text creation. It’s like a switch that turns the conversation “on.” An exigence is that which starts an information cycle. An exigence can be “big” like a major tragedy or discovery, or an exigence can be “small” and more localized, like a controversy on campus, or an offensive online post, or a development in a particular area of an academic field that not many people know about (such as new findings about stereotype threat, or the origin of eukaryotic cells, or a new collection of historical documents). Thinking about the exigence for the text you’re reading can help you understand where it came from and why it was created in the first place, which in turn, can help with comprehension."
- Chapter 5, pg 64
How to determine what it is
In the the book, Rhetoric: How We Examine Writing in the World, Justin Jory's chapter "Exigence," provides a list of great questions to ask yourself to find the exigence:
- What has moved the writer to create the text?
- What is the writer, and the text, responding to?
- What was the perceived need for the text?
- What urgent problem, or issue, does this text try to solve or address?
- How does the writer, or text, construct exigence—something that prompts response—for the audience?
Linked with this answer is a short video from YouTube that provides several examples of exigence - closed captions are available. The video was created for students who are taking the AP Composition exam but the content is still relevant!
This FAQ is for Milwaukee campus English 102 students.
