Exigence is the reason the writer is creating this document. It what prompts us to address a situation or subject matter in forms of writing.

Before this class, I did not even know there was a term for the reasoning to write. I never considered it in my writing, I just took it as something that comes along when writing a document. This course changed that for me, as not only do I know what exigence means, I also know how I can consider it in my writing. This class has had me directly face why I wanted to write a document, and the reasoning as to how it affects my writing. Exigence in itself determines the stance I want to take, and also the purpose of my documents as it would not be possible without it.

This was heavily apparent when working on the reflection portion of my memo. As Figure 1 shows, my exigence for writing that specific memo was because there were distinct problems with the way academic advising was being handled and there were not any discussions to fix it. Upon writing that, I realized it directly my purpose for writing that memo, which was to address it, come up with solutions, and start a dialogue with my audience.