English 200 Essay with a rough Draft

English 200

Rhetorical Analysis

Due Dates: 09/29—Rough Draft #1, paper copy only

10/01—Rough Draft #2, electronic and paper copies

10/06—Final Draft

Length: 3-4 pages, MLA style

Points: 100

Audience: First-year college students majoring in rhetoric and composition, communications, or

sociology

Purpose: In this assignment, you will build on your critical and analytical skills by rhetorically analyzing one of the works listed below. Your rhetorical analysis should help you to:

1. Gain a better understanding of the challenges and decisions facing those who endeavor to persuade a particular audience through their writing.

2. Take into consideration how the context of a work may affect the work’s style and content—whether the work is

a. Written by the student.

b. Edited by the student.

c. Incorporated into the student’s research and/or writing.

Directions: In order to be strong and effective, your analysis will need to accomplish two objectives:

1) Analyze how your chosen writer uses various rhetorical elements to persuade his or her audience, if not to agree with, at least to see the validity of the writer's position.

2) Evaluate the effectiveness of the manner in which your writer uses these elements in light of the original context, audience and purpose of the writer’s work.

Calling upon a select group of its rhetorical devices and strategies, analyze and evaluate one of the following essays:

· Solomon Asch's "Opinions and Social Pressure"

· Stanley Milgram's "The Perils of Obedience"

· Jerry Burger’s “Replicating Milgram: Would People Still Obey Today?”

· Philip Zimbardo’s “The Stanford Prison Experiment”

By no means should your analysis cover all elements or every rhetorical device in your chosen essay(s). After considering what interests you most and developing a thesis, choose what strikes you as most relevant to your thesis.

To assist you in completing the assignment, refer to Chapter 7 of Wilhoit’s Writing from Readings, 6th edition.

*Writer’s Tips:

Develop a thesis that focuses on:

1. No more than three elements of the rhetorical strategy of one author.

2. The report of the experiment rather than the experiment. In other words…

3. Your writer as an author much more than as a scientist.