SPAM is a simple but potent acronym that helps writers - or anyone trying to compose a text. Each letter of the acronym provides you a "filter" through which to think through the writing task. SPAM gives writers a place to start when planning and plotting a composition.

"S" stands for "situation", or more precisely, the rhetorical situation. But to make the acronym work, let's just say situation! Situation is the context for writing. Emails are a situation. College essays are another situation. A Facebook status update is another. So is a graduation speech. Notice that each situation calls for a different tone or style. Knowing the situation helps writers choose either a formal or informal tone. Situation also helps determine diction, i.e., the appropriate words to use for a particular situation.

"P" stand for "purpose". Purpose asks writers to consider their aim. Knowing purpose means understanding what we want our audience to think, feel, or do. A text may have more than one purpose. Regardless of how many aims a text has, purpose statements often begin with a verb. Here are some examples:
1) My purpose is to entertain my readers.
2) My aim is to dissuade my readers from quitting school.
3) My goal is to warn employees about potential risks.
These are general goals, but notice the verb: to entertain, to dissuade, to warn. The more specific your purpose, the easier it will be to generate focused content.

"A" has to do with audience. Who are you planning to address? What do they think or feel about your topic? Figuring out who audience helps writers attune to the readers state of mind. It means figuring out the audience's thoughts, feelings, prejudices, attitudes, anxieties, or dreams. The better you "suss out" your audience, the more strategic you can be about using rhetorical appeals: pathos, logos, and ethos. If you know what readers think or feel, you'll know just what kind of emotions to nurture, what kind of reasoning to use, and what you'll need to do to gain their trust.

"M" stands for "medium" - what genre will you use? Are you writing a digital text? Or is this a three minute PSA? Will you be using Powerpoint, Prezi, or Haiku Deck. Is the medium purely textual? Or will you be able to use images? What will different genres allow you to do or say? Which medium or genre provides you the best vehicle to deliver your message?

Each letter of the SPAM acronym provides a filter, a set of questions to consider when composing a text. But these individual questions often overlap, intersect, and interact. It's as if these functions braid together like sets of chromosomes on a DNA strand. They are mutually constitutive, integrated into the each other. To be sure, there is value in knowing the discrete function each letter represents. And it's just as important to pay attention to the ways these filters affect and condition each other.