Rhetorical Analysis

Rhetoric

• Rhetoric is using words in speech or writing to persuade an audience 

• Whenever you write an essay trying to support a claim (thesis), you use rhetoric

• Whenever you read an essay, editorial, or article you consider an author’s attempt to persuade you to accept his or her claim and support

  \n What is a Rhetorical Analysis

• A rhetorical analysis invited you to evaluate an essay to see how well it works

  • What does an author do exactly to persuade an audience?
  • You examine the context of the writing
  • How and when it was written
  • Where it was published

Identify the claim

• Examine the supporting evidence
  • How well does it support the claim?
• Examine the organization
  • Introduction, body, conclusion
  • How does it flow

Use of Appeals

• What does an author do exactly to help the audience think, feel, and derive a sense of his or her credibility?

  • Logos, ethos, pathos 

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Examine the style

• When analyzing an argument, we might examine

  • The tone of the writing
  • Examples and analogies
  • Organization of the work
  • Supporting evidence for the author’ s thesis
  • Credible?
  • Up to date?
  • Substantial enough? Accurate? Relevant?
  • Fully cited?
  • Does the author concede to the opposition and offer counter arguments?

  \n Why do a rhetorical analysis

• Helps you need a text critically-deeply

• Helps you understand how someone tries to persuade you

• By studying these strategies, it can help you create similar effects in your own writing

• Or can help you understand which strategies you do not want to use in your own writing

  \n What it is not

• Not to use your personal experience to support the claim

• Offering one’s opinion about the subject matter presented in the author’ s argument

• Trying to “ “argue with  the argument

• Trying to support the author by stating why you agree with his or her thesis and/or supporting evidence

• In sum,YOU ARE analyzing the effectiveness of the argument, not the topic or the author’s take on the issue. This can be difficult especially if you hold strong opinions regarding the topic at hand

  \n Questions to think about- rhetorical analysis 

• What is the purpose of this argument? What does it hope to achieve?

• Who is the audience for this argument?

• What appeals or techniques does the argument use- emotional, logical, ethical?

• What genre of argument is it, and how does the genre affect the argument? (While you might well challenge an argument in an op-ed that lacked sufficient evidence, you wouldn't make the same complaint about a bumper sticker. )

• Who is making the argument? WHat ethos does it create, and how does it do so? WHat values does the ethos evoke? How does it make the writer or creator seem trustworthy?

• What authorities does the argument rely on or appeal to?

• WHat facts, reasoning, and evidence are used in the argument? How are they presented?

• What claims does the argument make? What Issues are raised- or ignored or evaded? 

• WHat are the contexts- social, political, historical, cultural- for this argument? Whose interests does it serve? Who gains or loses by it?

• How is the argument organized or arranged? What media does the argument use?

• How does the language or style of the argument work to persuade an audience?

In answering these questions try to show how the key devices in an argument actually make it succeed or fail. Your analysis should become an argument.

\n Why are we doing this?

• To understand how words are used to influence an audience

• To understand why some arguments are effective while others are not

• To gain a better understanding of the rhetorical appeals and how they are used in writing

  \n Why? How? So what? 

• Why?- are the choices effective and appropriate for the intended audience? 

• How-  what techniques does the writer/speaker choose to present the material?

• So what- what is accomplished or created?

• If you do not do this, you don’t have analysis!