Rhetorical Analysis Essay assignment(see the attached document for instructions)

Rhetorical Analysis Essay using the Toulmin Method

This is an essay that should flow like an essay, with an introduction and structure like any other essay. The object of this essay is to not only identify the elements of rhetoric according to Toulmin in the article you have chosen, but also to evaluate how effective the author’s argument is, breaking it down piece by piece. Think about it broadly like this: you are writing a brief essay (3 pages) where you will tell what the author is saying and how good a job he or she did saying it.

Here are the pieces you will use to build your essay:

What is the claim? Is the claim clear and consistent, or is it fuzzy and all over the place? Is the claim absolute or does the author provide qualifiers to make the claim more reasonable? Is the claim reasonable, desirable, practical?

Next, identify the reasons provided (one or more). Remember you can pretty much always link the claim to the reason(s) with the word “because.” EX: People are basically good because most people prefer helping others rather than hurting others. Then ask the following questions: Are the reason(s) stated or implied? Do the reason(s) do a good job of explaining or justifying the claim? Are the reasons convincing?

Next, identify the evidence provided. Then evaluate if the evidence does a good job supporting the claim & reason. Is the evidence convincing? Does the author rely on anecdotal/qualitative evidence or does he or she provide some quantitative/hard data? Is the evidence mostly logos, pathos, or ethos? (Relying completely on emotional appeal can be a sign of weakness in an argument, especially a serious one).

Next, identify the warrant(s) implicit in the argument. Remember that warrants are underlying assumptions usually not explicitly stated by the author. It is important to evaluate whether the warrant(s) are something a reasonable person would assume. Figuring out whether the warrants are weak are strong goes a long way in determining the strength of an argument.

Next, identify all counterarguments brought up by the author. If the author does not consider any counterarguments, his argument probably won’t be as strong as it could be. Evaluate whether the author does a good job rebutting the counterargument. In other words, does she have a good answer to the people who disagree with her argument? If the author doesn’t consider any counterarguments, what counterarguments should he or she have considered?

End your essay with an overall evaluation. Reiterate the main thoughts you have about the article, about how effective you think the argument is and why.

NOTE: In choosing an article to analyze, there are a couple of things to consider. First of all, to be a true argument, the author has to be making a debatable point. He can’t just be stating a fact. If the claim is that the Seahawks coach made a bad decision to throw the ball instead of run it at the end of the Super Bowl, not many people would debate the point, so that article would not be a good choice to do a

Rhetorical Analysis Essay using the Toulmin Method

rhetorical analysis on. Also, if you can’t identify all of Toulmin’s elements in the article, it’s probably too simple and thus is not a good choice for analysis.