essay

Paper 2: Evaluating the effectiveness of an Advertisement The purpose of this essay is to evaluate the effectiveness of a television advertisement. Imagine that you work for

an advertising agency and your boss wants you to evaluate the effectiveness of the ad. Examine the ad’s

rhetorical situation (subject, purpose, audience, author/tone/mood, & context) and determine whether or not the ad

is effective. Consider everything in the ad: text, images, music, colors, location, the people (their clothing,

appearance, expressions, and activity), etc.

I have included a worksheet to help you work through the analysis and to help you organize your ideas. See

below:

You MUST use one of the approved advertisements posted on eLearn. No other commercials are allowed.

Expectations: A successful ad analysis will address or include the following features:

A thesis statement: What do you say about the degree to which the advertisement is effective? What do you

think the purpose is? Who is the audience? Do you think the audience would have the reaction the author

probably intended? Why or why not? Take all of these things into account when you compose your thesis.

Your thesis should include a claim about the topic and reasons for the claim:

Claim Reasons for the claim

The advertisement is effective/not effective because [reason 1], [reason 2], [reason 3]..etc.

A brief summary: The primary goal of this essay is analysis. Therefore, you will need to provide enough

summary that we will all be familiar with what is displayed in the advertisement, but your audience does not need

more than a paragraph or so summarizing the ad because they will have seen it.

A detailed analysis of the ad: This is the bulk of your analysis. Convey your thinking about the elements that

make the piece more or less effective: purpose, audience, tone, speaker, and context. You do not have to address

every element. Instead, focus on the rhetorical elements that work together to make your ad effective or not.

Your essay should thoroughly explain how each element you mention contributes to or detracts from the ad’s

effectiveness.

Specific supporting details: You must back up your claims with specific examples from your ad. So if you are

arguing that the ad is effective because the tone is humorous, you must give a specific example of how the tone is

humorous. Use the PIE paragraph structure for this (see handout on eLearn).

Requirements:

 Papers must be word processed and formatted correctly according to the formatting guidelines we went over in class, which are posted in the file “How to Format a Paper” available on eLearn.

 Papers must be between 800 and 1000 words in length. Papers that do not meet the minimum length requirement usually don’t receive passing grades, so be sure to write a full-length paper.

 All papers must include a Letter to the Reader (instructions on eLearn). This must be included in the same file as the paper you submit to the dropbox. Papers that do not include this letter will automatically lose a

letter grade. (haha—did you catch the pun?).

 Paper Workshop February 17 th : bring 2 PRINTED copies of your paper to class.

 Papers will be submitted for grading to the correct dropbox on eLearn before midnight on the due date, which is February 19

h . I will not grade papers received after this date unless you have previously made

arrangements with me for an extension.

See me with questions or problems. The sooner the better!

Paper 2: Worksheet

The Ad’s rhetorical situation:

What is the subject of the ad?

How is the subject presented?

Who is the ad’s audience?

What in the ad indicates who the audience is?

What is the ad’s general purpose? (to inform, to persuade, to entertain)

What is the ad’s specific purpose? (what does the writer want us to know, think, feel, believe, or understand?)

What elements in the ad suggest this specific purpose?

Is the audience appropriate for the purpose? Why or why not? Explain in detail:

Who is the ad’s author/speaker?

What is the tone of the commercial?

What creates the tone of the commercial? Be specific

What is the mood of the ad?

Explain how the mood is created in the ad.

What is the context of the ad? (this may require research. If you use sources, you must credit the source for any

information you use. See me if you don’t know how to do this because you can inadvertently plagiarize and fail

the paper if you do it incorrectly.)