Lloyd Bitzer wrote "The Rhetorical Situation", to explain and define how rhetorical discourse if called into existence by situation. He defined the rhetorical situation as, “A complex of persons, events, objects, and relations presenting an actual or potential exigence, which can be completely or partially removed if discourse, introduced into the situation, can so constrain human decision or action as to bring about the significant modification of the exigence.” During this article he defines the three consituent of rhetorical situation, which are: exigence, audience, and constraints. Bitzer defines exigence as any imperfection marked by urgency. In other words, an exigence is an obstacle that one must overcome. In order for an exigence to be rhetorical it must be “capable of positive modification and when positive modification requires discourse or can be associated by discourse.” An example of this is would be a natural disaster.

The second constituent is audience. Audience is important to a rhetorical situation because the audience decides how to perceive he text. For example, an audience of four year olds would perceive a text completely different then a group of middle-aged people.

On top of needing exigence and a constituent every rhetorical situation needs constraints. These constinuent can be made up of people, places, events, objects, and relations. These are all important to the situation because they have the power to constrain decisions and actions in order to modify exigence. An example of this could be religious beliefs. A writers religious beliefs could constrain his or hers style of writing. For example, they might steer away from topics such as the Big Bang Theory and other topics that challenge their beliefs.