Fill This Form To Receive Instant Help
Fill This Form To Receive Instant Help
Homework answers / question archive / Assignment 1: Rhetorical Analysis Read these instructions carefully
Assignment 1: Rhetorical Analysis
Read these instructions carefully. A draft of Assignment 1 will be due for peer review next week. The final Assignment 1 will be due at the end of this unit.
For Assignment 1, you will write a rhetorical analysis. A rhetorical analysis analyzes and evaluates how well a rhetor attempts to reach, maybe even influence, an audience. You will locate an interesting text (it can be written, visual or oral) and analyze it according to the way the text uses rhetorical effects and strategies to make its argument. You will use specific textual evidence to establish an argument (i.e., thesis) about how the text “works.” Your role is that of a critic, providing an audience of your peers a way of understanding the measure of persuasive effect by analyzing the rhetorical situation.
Your final draft should be 3 to 4 double-spaced pages, using 11 or 12 pt. font and 1” margins. When citing your outside sources, follow MLA format (see Chapter 22 in New Harbrace Guide and/or the PSU Libraries’ Citation Research Guide: http://guides.libraries.psu.edu/mlacitation (http://guides.libraries.psu.edu/mlacitation) ).
Following these steps will help you draft your assignment.
First, choose for analysis a text (written, visual, or oral) published on or after January 1 of this year*. The text should be interesting and engaging. You should be able to identify the text’s purpose fairly easily. Avoid choosing an overly long text (for example, a novel or film). Keep in mind that your analysis will involve explaining the context from which the text was created and reflecting upon the rhetor's compositional and rhetorical choices. A single-panel advertisement, short film, or a short opinion essay in your local newspaper is the sort of text that often works well for this assignment.
Next, conduct some preliminary background research to make sure you fully understand the historical and cultural contexts from which your chosen text emerged. The more accurately you can identify the context from which the text emerges (the contemporary or historical moment, the issue or need the text responds to, the place of the text's publication or distribution, the addressed audience), the more information you will have that can inform your analysis.
In your draft, identify the text, the rhetor, the audience, and the message, along with any relevant background information. You should include a thesis statement that states whether the text constitutes a fitting response and why. The body of the essay should address how effectively the text appeals to its intended audience.
Each paragraph should include a topic sentence addressing one of the available means of persuasion: the rhetorical appeals (ethos, pathos, logos), multimedia elements of the text (if applicable), or genre. Refer to specific moments in the text (using quotes and other concrete details) as evidence of how the rhetor uses rhetorical strategies. Remember that your job is not to summarize the text for your readers. Your job is to evaluate the text by analyzing these details and making an argument about their rhetorical effect.
Finally, conclude by arguing how these elements work together to achieve a fitting response. After drafting, you will switch drafts with a classmate and conduct a peer evaluation; their feedback will inform your revisions. Edit and proofread your work before submitting the final draft.
*A central lesson of this course is that people use rhetoric all the time. So while there are a great many well-discussed (arguably over-discussed) examples of rhetoric in famous speeches or old commercials, this publication date constraint pushes you to recognize how the use of rhetoric is a concern of this present moment.
Your rhetorical analysis essay will be evaluated according to the PWR Grading Standards provided in Penn Statements Online (http://www.pwr.psu.edu/grading-standards (http://www.pwr.psu.edu/grading-standards/) ) and according to the following criteria.
Your rhetorical analysis should:
make a claim (a thesis) about the effectiveness of an interesting, potentially persuasive text; identify the rhetor, intended audience, message, and intended purpose of the text; assess the text’s employment of available means; evaluate the text as a fitting response through sufficient textual evidence and analysis.
Already member? Sign In
