Rhetorical Analysis

For your rhetorical analysis, I am asking that you pick a review one of your peers wrote. Do try to “call dibs” as they are being posted so that people are not all rhetorically analyzing the same review. (Claim the review you want to work with when it is posted. That way people can choose ones that have not yet been claimed. I am okay with two people working on the same review since we have an uneven number of students in this class, but please no more than two “dibs” on one post!)

A rhetorical analysis is going to look at the rhetorical situation and parse the ways the author uses writing strategies and techniques to impart a message or persuade an audience. We have to consider, tone, audience, diction, style, and other elements, like ethos, pathos, and logos among the miscellany, to understand how the text effectively or ineffectively “does” what it intended to do.

In this case, a review is meant to inform an audience and/or persuade the audience into consuming or not consuming that product.

This rhetorical analysis project asks that you examine the review you’ve claimed to tease out the techniques used in achieving its goal. It is NOT to discuss whether you agree or disagree with the review, what you would have chosen to talk about instead, or your own thoughts and ideas about the item being reviewed. Instead, you are to focus specifically on the writing techniques that prompt the audience of the review to be engaged, persuaded, and give in to the purpose of the review (to consume or not to consume the product). What is working v. what is not working? How is it appealing to specific demographics? Where are logical fallacies? Does the tone work for the audience? Is the diction on par? These are not the only things to consider, but they may be some.