Essay 2

After reading Chapter 6 in Everything's an Argument and choosing an article from Chapter 23, you are ready to write your Rhetorical Analysis essay.

In our text, Everything's an Argument, choose and read one of the articles found in Chapter 23: How does Popular Culture Stereotype You? You will write the Rhetorical Analysis on the article you choose. Take time to annotate and summarize the article, noting important points in the author’s argument.

***You may NOT use “Making a Visual Argument: Cartoons and Stereotypes.”***

A rhetorical analysis examines an article and analyzes how the author of the article creates their argument noting where it is effective or ineffective. The focus of a rhetorical analysis is more on how the argument is created, rather than the topic. You will need to use the concepts of ethos, pathos, and logos to dissect the article you read as well as analyze the author’s purpose, intended audience, and writing style. By understanding and analyzing another person’s argument, you can better understand how to create your own arguments as well as analyze arguments for research purposes. Review the examples on pp. 105-111.

Use the following guidelines to help you draft the rhetorical analysis:

1. Re-read the article and answer the questions on pp 89-90 of Everything's an Argument. 

2. Create a list of what is effective and ineffective about the way the claim in the article is presented. Consider how the article is written and why the author wrote the article in this way. 

3. Form your own claim/opinion about the article. This will be your thesis. (Remember your thesis should be about how the author creates and supports their argument. Your thesis statement might look like this: "In this article, John Doe makes a strong case for the need to censor minor's social media accounts by providing relevant examples, ...")

4. Organize the support for your claim by creating an outline of your body paragraphs. 

5. Write a rough draft starting with an introduction that includes a very brief summary of the article you are analyzing and end the first paragraph with your thesis statement. The body paragraphs should defend your thesis statement by providing your own unique ideas and interpretations of the article as well as examples from the article itself.

6. The last page of your rough draft should be a Work's Cited page with the citation of the article you are analyzing. 

7. Once your rough draft is complete, follow the instructions to post and reply to the discussion board.

8. Once your rough draft is complete, submit it to Tutor.com to get feedback on the draft.

These steps MUST be completed by the middle of the week in order to get Tutor.com and peer comments in time to submit and use for revision.

Revision and Editing Checklist:

Use this list to check that your essay is following the core grading criteria.

A. _____        Is the essay 3-4 pages with MLA formatting?

B. _____        Is the information from the article analyzed and documented effectively using in-text citations and works cited?

C. _____        Does the essay fully answer the assignment given?

D. _____        Does the writer avoid grammatical errors?

E. _____        Is the essay logically organized and have a clear, well-structured thesis?

F. _____        Is the topic and focus of the paper clear throughout?

G. _____        Does the writer provide quality and unique examples and evidence as support?

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Scoring Rubric