There are many reasons why you might be composing a piece of writing. It might be a research paper for your biology class, a script for a conference, or simply a toast for your best friends’ wedding. Whatever the purpose is, whatever the genre, story telling enhances the composition. Is it unexpected and a little out of place sometimes? Probably, but storytelling can be an effective rhetorical strategy even when you least expect it.

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Everything we write about, everything we communicate, is based on personal experience. That experience might be getting informed on a matter and then “translating” what you understood into your text, in a sense this is story telling as it was processed by you and is being told through your mind and language. In Ron Christiansen’s text called: "You Will Never Believe What Happened! Stories We Tell" he says "We are naturally rhetorical beings who attempt to engage those around us through narrative." Expressing an idea or passed experience through storytelling is powerful and engaging to others. Different situations and genres call for different ways of telling your story but that doesn’t mean that this strategy is ineffective for some cases. As an example, you would think that in a formal work conference nobody would be storytelling, but to support what you are saying, personal experiences could be what you need to make your point clear and come across as you need it to.

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As Marjorie Stewart clarifies in one of her chapter’s called: “Weaving Personal Experience into Academic Writings”, “Her [the writer] stories give the readers context and help them connect with her.” In this text she explains that story telling may have several purposes, in this case to give context. More important is that connection that is created between the reader and the writer, storytelling is a great way to engage your audience.

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The belief that storytelling is not always appropriate is something that we should detach ourselves from, our compositions could be enriched by this rhetorical strategy, storytelling is something that comes naturally to us and should be used to engage our audience.

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References:

Christiansen, R. (n.d.). You Will Never Believe What Happened!” Stories We Tell. In Open English. Idaho Press Book.

Stewart, M. (2020). Weaving Personal Experience into Academic Writing. In Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing (p. 165). Parlor Press.