Overview

Write a 2-3 page rhetorical analysis (analysis of the argument) of the assigned text. You will need to complete two different tasks: (1) summarize the text’s argument and (2) explain how the text’s argument is put together.

Specifics

In the summary section, you will need to first introduce the text you will be analyzing. Then you will summarize what the text argues, noting the central claims and key evidence.

The analysis section of the paper should take up the majority of the 2-3 pages. Here you are trying to analyze and explain how the argument was put together (which rhetorical strategies it uses). How are those strategies meant to impact the reader? In other words, how do the strategies attempt to influence the reader's thoughts and feelings? How do the strategies relate to and support the overall argument?

You will need a thesis that identifies the argumentative strategies you will discuss. Here is a sample thesis: "Author X’s argument is mainly dependent on emotional appeals, and he uses detailed description and narration to support those emotional appeals." For this thesis, you would then need to go on and explain and give examples of different emotional appeals that use description and narration from the text.

You need to decide which aspects of the argumentative strategy you want to focus on. It would be impossible for you to explain all of the argumentative features of a text in 2-3 pages, so focus on the strategies that are most interesting or obvious to you, or that you think are most important to the success of the argument. You could explain the author’s use of any one of the following rhetorical strategies and concepts we’ve discussed so far in class:

The types of argumentative modes being used: description, narrative, comparison and contrast, definition, evaluation, and so on
The author’s use of emotional appeals (pathos)
How the author establishes his or her credibility (ethos)
The how the text’s logic (logos) works (is the logic dependent upon a definition or fact? is it dependent on a cause/effect relationship? a comparison and contrast? how does the logical reasoning work?)
How the author uses kairos

Again, rather than trying to address everything on the list above, which would be impossible, discuss what you think the text’s most important or notable rhetorical features are.

Minimum Requirements

For a C or above, your essay must:

Be 2-3 pages long and formatted according to MLA guidelines
Introduce the text properly and summarize the text’s argument clearly and concisely
Focus on a thesis that identifies some elements of the text's rhetorical strategy (how the argument is put together)
Use quotations as evidence of your thesis and where appropriate in the summary
Explain how the rhetorical strategies work (how they are meant to impact the reader)
Explain how the rhetorical strategies support the text's overall argument
Incorporate quotations properly and use in-text citations for them as needed
Use signal phrases to attribute ideas to the original author
Be written effectively and coherently, with few punctuation or grammatical errors