Stance is one of the rhetorical elements that I had a decent understanding of from the beginning, at least conceptually if not in regard to implementation.  It is essentially the writer’s attitude towards the topic at hand in a given document, and it comes out in both tone and framing of content.  Attitude towards the subject was a central concern in our consideration of audience, and likewise, the writer’s attitude also plays a role, it just happens that you as the writer have the ability to alter that attitude (or at least write as if you have).  In fact, a different audience can necessitate a different tone, especially if it is known that they have different feelings towards the subject that the writer potentially wants to change.  This also complicates writing to multiple audiences, as a different tone can be more appropriate for different audiences.  This could even lead to multiple versions of the document being made, or could at least be relevant to modular documents.  Stance describes the intersection of these concerns, and ideally the stance a writer takes reflects their purpose and at the same time persuades every audience (which can be part of the purpose).  At the beginning, I might have understood stance more singularly as tone (figure 7), but it seems that I had at least an idea of its dual composition of tone and approach from the get-go.  In later projects, I definitely understood it not just as tone but also as the writer’s specific approach to a specific exigence and towards a specific purpose (figure 8).

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