A rhetorical analysis is a special type of essay that describes how another piece of writing or a visual document functions. Instead of making an argument about what the work says, a rhetorical analyses tries to understand how it works, examining the choices the author has made and the strategies the author has employed to achieve a certain purpose. A rhetorical analysis can look at any kind of document–essays, articles, spoken word pieces, photography, cartoons, videos, infographics, web pages, web sites–but always the aim is to understand what the document is trying to accomplish and how it is trying to accomplish that.

For this assignment, you will choose one of the assigned readings or films for the course–or another piece of writing or visual document on a topic related to the course that interests you–and write a 750-word rhetorical analysis of that work. You can choose work in any genre that appeals to you and that concerns the relationship of humans and animals—a scholarly article, a newspaper or magazine or online article, an opinion piece, a speech, or an editorial—and you can choose visual works as well—infographics, web sites, videos, photographs, documentary projects. The point is to find a piece of communicative work that resonates for you and describe it in an objective way so you are confident that you know what it is and what it is trying to accomplish.

An important requirement of this assignment–and one that will directly impact your grade–is to correctly use all nine of the rhetorical terms.

Basic Assignment Information

Timeline:
9/1 – Post links to three potential articles to Blackboard
9/6 – Post Messy First Draft to Blackboard
9/15 – Post Workshop Draft to Blackboard
9/15 – Peer Review of Workshop Draft
9/22 – Upload Final Draft to Blackboard

Length: 750 words excluding citations — about 4 Pages

Font: 12 Point Times New Roman

Line Spacing: Double

Submission:
Post all work to the “Rhetorical Analysis Essay” section of Blackboard.

Suggested Organization:
1. A short introduction (one paragraph) that informs the reader what work you are analyzing and what you are trying to accomplish with your analysis.

2. A rhetorical analysis (two to four paragraphs–the body of your paper) showing how the article works, using all nine of the rhetorical terms. The section can be organized in any way you like, but you must: 1) use all 9 rhetorical terms; 2) support your analysis with quotations and examples from the text; and 3) Include in-text citations for all quotations and ideas not your own.

3. A conclusion (one paragraph) synthesizing your thoughts about the relationships among the rhetorical elements and how they work together to accomplish the author’s rhetorical strategy. A good way to think of your conclusion is to think if it as a summary of the author’s rhetorical strategies.

4, A Works Cited Page (separate page) in proper MLA Format citing the work you are analyzing.

Additional Information

Choice of work
The success of any piece of writing depends on the degree to which you find the work meaningful. If it interests you and seems to connect to parts of your life beyond the immediate assignment, you will consider it at a higher level. The trick, therefore, in choosing a work to analyze for this assignment is to remember what brought yo to this class in the first place and try to honor that with your choice of subject. Don’t rush to choose an article or video right away, but consider several, not only on different subjects but in different genres; and think about and live with the uncertainty for 24 hours before making your final choice.

MLA Style
I expect your essay to follow the MLA guidelines and that you will include both in-text and end-of-text citations.

• In-text citations: after every quotation or text reference, include a citation in parentheses according to the MLA format.
• End-ofText Citations: On a separate sheet of paper after the end of your essay, titled Works Cited, list the articles(s) cited in your in-text-citations in alphabetical order by author’s last name, according to the MLA format.

For information on how to create and format both in-text and end-of-text citations, visit the Purdue Owl page on MLA Formatting and Style. Be sure to scroll through the whole document as the in-text citations are described quite far down.

Use of all nine rhetorical terms
I expect your essay to use all nine of the rhetorical terms. Using these terms—and using all of them—will ensure that you will perform a rhetorical analysis rather than write a book report or description of contents–and that you will do so thoroughly. The terms are closely linked yet each describes a different aspect of a work. For example, an author will choose the genre best suited to accomplish their purpose within the given rhetorical situation. The author will try to use language to create the tone that is most in keeping with their stance toward their subject and their audience. The author will choose the medium that is most appropriate for the chosen genre and that they think would have the most success in reaching the chosen audience.

By describing–and showing through examples and quotations–the ways these rhetorical terms apply to the chosen text or visual material, you will demonstrate your understanding of the material and what the author is trying to accomplish in a way that will be more convincing for your own readers. Your audience for your own writing will have more confidence that you know what you are talking about.

Click on any of the terms below for a definition and a description of how to use each in analyzing a work. After you have read through the terms, read on further below for my own thoughts on how the terms connect with each other.

• rhetorical situation
• author
• audience
• Tone
• purpose
• genre
• medium
• stance
• language

More Thoughts

Thoughts on Genre, Medium, and Audience
In doing a rhetorical analysis using the rhetorical terms, it is important to remember how interdependent the terms are. Each genre, for example, requires a medium through which its message can be experienced. Choice of medium narrows the audience who will receive the message to those who have access to that particular medium.  If you publish an opinion piece in a newspaper or magazine, or on a blog, the people who receive your message will be limited to the demographic of the consumers of that particular newspaper or magazine or blog. The audience for the New York Post, for example, is different from the audience for the New York Times. And the audience for either of those newspapers is different from the audience for the popular magazine Scientific American or the scholarly journal Nature.

An audience can be thought of as those who, in response to your writing, could perform an action. For example, if you publish an opinion piece in the New York Times decrying the city government’s decision to cut down 991 trees in East River Park, you might hope that the generally more liberal readers of the Times would respond to your piece in such ways as a) writing to their government representatives urging the the trees not be cut down; b) voting for political candidates who promise to protect trees in the city; or c) if they are elected representatives, sponsoring legislation to protect trees.

One way to come to an understanding of audience is to consider the medium through which the author intends to reach the chosen group—down to the name of the medium, its circulation or the number of its fiollowers if you know it, and any more specific parameters if you can find them. These same concerns apply not just to genres in writing—scholarly reports, newspaper and magazine articles, opinion pieces and editorials, and speeches—but also to visual genres, from the infographics on public awareness campaign web sites to photographs, posters, videos, and cartoons.

More thoughts on genre
Genres are not rigid and stable, but they are generally recognizable. They contain certain elements (think of the genre of the Facebook post) and they only make sense in certain contexts.

To get an idea of how specialized genres can be, take a look at my informal, and ever-expanding, list of genres. I have prepared the list entirely from the suggestions of students (if you have ideas for additions, please let me know). Just reading through the list should reinforce in your mind the idea of the multiplicity of genres and of how “genre” does not refer so much to such broad terms as “fiction” and “non-fiction” as to much more specific types of communications such as e-mails, love letters, podcasts, newspaper articles, blogs, sonnets, or instruction manuals (just to name a few). For each of these genres there are different audiences, depending on the medium in which the communication appears. Your job as a writer is to make use of the conventions of the genre to affect your audience in a certain way—and to cause them, in an appropriate way, to take some action.

Visual Rhetorical Analysis
Analyzing visual works is both similar to and different from analyzing texts. Although the same rhetorical terms can be applied to a photograph, say, as to a newspaper editorial, the particular descriptive elements will be different. For example, it is common to talk about depth of field, focal length, exposure etc. when describing the tone and language of a photograph, whereas with a piece of writing one might talk about the diction and syntax. Each visual genre will present its own descriptive elements. A good place to start in considering a visual rhetorical analysis (and we will be doing some of it in class) is the Purdue OWL’s very own guide to visual rhetorical analysis. When at the Purdue OWL site, also try clicking on elements of analysis and organization of analysis for further ideas about analysis of visual documents.

Questions to ask as you begin:
What is the genre? How does the author use the genre?
Who is the audience?
What’s the purpose? For example, is the overall aim of the essay informational or persuasive?
What do you know about the author?
What’s the author’s stance toward her material? Skeptical? Supportive? Some of both?
What kind of language does the author use? Formal or informal? A combination? Does the author use “I”? What linguistic and grammatical elements contribute to the text’s meaning
What is the tone? In what ways does the tone advance the purpose of the work?
What’s the medium?
What’s the rhetorical situation?

Questions to ask before handing in your work:
Did you summarize the conclusions or findings of your source, and did you tell the reader how the source relates to your subject of interest?

Did you analyze the source using all of the rhetorical terms: rhetorical situation, author and audience, tone and purpose, genre and medium, stance and language?

Did you use the rhetorical terms correctly? Did you demonstrate an understanding of the terms?

Did you back up your claims with evidence from the text, including examples and quotations?

Did you synthesize your findings, describing the relationships among the rhetorical elements in the article and drawing conclusions about how the article works?

Did you edit your essay, eliminate typos, and remove grammatical errors?

Did you include a separate Work Cited page and check your citations (both in-text citations and Work Cited) against the Purdue OWL website to make sure they follow the MLA format?

Traditional Grading Rubric

	Score	Weight	Weighted Total
Correct Use of All 9 Rhetorical Terms		30.00%	0
Evidence to Support Claims		30.00%	0
Rhetorical Analysis/Synthesis		30. 00%	0
Follow MLA Guidelines/proofread		10.00%	0
Grade			0