Rhetorical Analysis PURPOSE: This assignment asks you to explore ways in which language can be used to persuade or bamboozle audiences. Analyzing the ways in which language works to persuade is valuable stuff because it helps us avoid being manipula

PURPOSE:  This assignment asks you to explore ways in which language can be used to persuade or bamboozle audiences. Analyzing the ways in which language works to persuade is valuable stuff because it helps us avoid being manipulated or taken for a ride; it enables us to become more discerning and critical.  This assignment gives you the opportunity to look at the rhetorical (or persuasive) apparatus of political language, assessing the ways in which it achieves its purpose.

ASSIGNMENT:  

1. Read:  SMHB Ch. 8
2. Find a recent (in the last month) opinion/editorial article from the NYT. This can be on a topic you are familiar with or one that you want to know more about. Your choice need not reflect your political persuasion or your personal beliefs; this assignment is designed to analyze what we can learn about how the speaker constructs the argument, rather than to debate its “rightness” or “wrongness” although this may come into play.  Bring the article to class on Tuesday, 4/19 with annotations (see checklist below).  
3. Find a piece where the writer clearly has a point to make or an axe to grind (and is not just “reporting” on an event).  Sometimes the more controversial the opinion, the more interesting it is to analyze.

YOUR ASSIGNMENT:  Write a rhetorical analysis of an opinion article from the New York Times (850-1000 words, typed, double-spaced). Cite the article at the very end in a Works Cited / List of Refernces (try your best at the conventions; also provide the link).

AUDIENCE: there is so much thrown at us in the media that we hardly know what to believe.   Hence, your target audience for this essay is the newspaper-reading public (interested, intelligent, but not particularly critical), who is relatively unaware of the ways in which the speaker is using language to persuade.

Due Dates 

Annotated article: 4/21 ; 

Rough Draft: 4/26   (bring 3 copies, one for each group member, including yourself).  

Revised Draft: 4/28 – Submit through Digication by class time.

SUGGESTIONS AND CONSTRAINTS

• Before you write, do your invention activities and analyses:  Identify the purpose of the speech, the intended audience(s), the author’s stance (how the author portrays himself or herself) and what you see to be some of the persuasive techniques in this piece (though you may not use all of them in your paper).
• Use our readings and class discussions as you identify rhetorical strategies that you find in the piece you have selected.
• The best essays do not necessarily just make a claim about a article’s effectiveness.  Rather, they make a point about the strategy or strategies used.  Try to shed new light on the article or on the author or on his or her audience, coming to an insight that most people—reading uncritically—may not recognize.  For example, you may discover that a article about a politician avoids talking about the issues, but instead makes the case for being “a true American,” thus emphasizing his or her patriotic persona over issues.   Your analysis would have to provide evidence and hypothesize about why this might be so. 
• Your essay should NOT merely be a list of the techniques used or instances of slanted language.  Again, the best essays will make a point or claim.  The identification of features will support your point or claim.  Pay attention to the fact that when you make a claim, you need to provide evidence.  This will usually be in the form of a quotation or paraphrase from the selected piece and an explanation of what you think the quotation illustrates. 
• The best essays will also use a style and tone appropriate to this assignment—in other words, fairly formal, using specific examples from the text, labeling quotations and examples clearly, and examining complexity. 

Checklist for Rhetorical Analysis 

Ethical questions (Ethos)

• Who is this author? What can you tell from the information in the text? Does he or she have the background to speak with authority on this subject?
• If you were going to do an internet background check on this author, what would you want to find out?
• What sort of ethos does this writer try to project in this article? What devices does he or she use to project this ethos?
• Do you trust this author? Do you think this author is deceptive? Why or why not?

Questions about emotional effects (Pathos)

• Does this piece affect you emotionally? What parts?
• Do you think the author is trying to manipulate your emotions? How?
• Do your emotions conflict with your logical interpretation of the arguments? In what ways?

Logical questions (Logos)

• Aristotle notes that in ordinary speaking and writing we often use what Aristotle calls a rhetorical syllogism or an enthymeme. This is an argument in which some of the premises remain unstated or are simply assumed.
• Locate major claims and assertions you have identified in your previous analysis and work out the unstated assumptions behind them. Are these assumptions valid?
• Look at support for major claims and ask “Is there any claim that appears to be weak or unsupported? Which one and why?”
• Can you think of counter-arguments that the author doesn’t deal with?
• Do you think the author has left something out on purpose? Why or why not?
• Finally, all things considered, are you persuaded by this author’s thesis and arguments? Why or why not?