Stance is writer’s attitude towards the subject matter. It directly correlates with the purpose of the document, the tone of the document, as well as the subject matter of the content. This can include having an objective, persuasive, passionate, or neutral tone. This is also another rhetorical element that I mostly understood before this course, as many of my previous writing assignments required me to take different stances in writing. This course however allowed me to experiment with several other stances, as previously I had only mostly written in a persuasive tone towards the audience. I also now understand that stance can come in more forms than in tone, as it can be substantiated by the content of the document as well.

A good example of how stance can be important in a document’s creation was when working on the technical description. Technical descriptions are merely just in-depth descriptions and instructions on a product. As figure 1 depicts, I have displayed my instructions in a completely neutral tone, not trying to persuade the reader into purchasing the product. Due to this, my instructions reflect that as I merely just provide a descriptive set of instructions on how to use a keyboard, showing no bias towards the product itself as it can hurt the integrity of the technical description.