Paper assignment

Essay 3: Rhetorical Analysis

When we “analyze” something, we break it down into its parts so that we can better understand the whole. The purpose of the Rhetorical Analysis is to better understand writing and rhetoric.

Expectations: Choose an essay or article that you read as part of your research for the Annotated Bibliography​. Ideally, you should choose something that states and supports an argument about your topic. The argument should be very strong and compelling, or it should have significant problems or flaws. This will make it easier to analyze.

Your essay’s title should intrigue the reader. The essay’s introduction should identify the title and author of the essay you are analyzing, briefly summarize the essay’s content, and then state an analytical thesis. Your analytical thesis should state your opinion of the essay’s overall quality or effectiveness as well as some supporting reasons for this opinion. Your supporting reasons should focus on the strength or weakness of the article’s logos, pathos, and ethos. The first body paragraph should focus on analyzing the article’s audience or “discourse community.” An article’s audience or discourse community might seem obvious. If the article was published in ​The New England Journal of Medicine​, for instance, then doctors are the obvious audience. However, that should be a starting point for you to go deeper with your analysis. Does the article seem like it was written for a particular subgroup of doctors? Does it report research findings, or discuss research methods, that are relevant to a certain subgroup but not others? If so, who are these people? What are their interests, goals, and values? What counts as “valid” evidence for them? Or does the article address common concerns for the entire field? If so, what are these concerns? What do these concerns say about the field as a whole? The second body paragraph should focus on analyzing the article’s “discourse.” Again, an article published in ​The New England Journal of Medicine ​will have a “medical” discourse, but that should be a starting point. What knowledge does the article’s author assume his or her readers already know? What terms, concepts, or jargon does the article assume the reader will understand without explanation? Can this knowledge or these terms be described as a certain type of knowledge or language? In general, is the language highly technical, or is it accessible? The third body paragraph should compare this article’s audience and discourse to the audiences and discourse of other articles on this topic. How are this article’s audience and discourse similar to and/or different from the audience and discourse of other articles on this topic? If this articles addresses the same audience and/or discourse as most other articles you’ve read, then how does it try to distinguish itself from the crowd and/or contribute something new for the reader? If this article has a different audience and/or discourse, why did the author choose this audience and/or discourse? What does the author gain and/or lose by these choices?

The essay’s subsequent body paragraphs should support the introduction’s analytical thesis with specific details and examples. They should identify and analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the article’s logos, pathos, and ethos. If you say an article has poor logic, for example, then you should paraphrase or quote some evidence of poor logic and then explain why it is so poor. If you say the same articles has strong pathos, then give some examples of how it uses pathos and explain why they are strong or effective uses. Providing textual evidence and detailed explanation will be essential to supporting or proving your thesis. Outside research is not required for this assignment. However, by researching the article’s questionable claims, or even its author’s background, you will discover information that may help you analyze its rhetoric. You may discover, for instance, evidence of the author’s bias.

Also, it is very important to clearly distinguish between the article and your analysis. You should make sure the reader knows which ideas were stated in the article and which ideas are part of your analysis. You can do this through citing the author and using the first-person pronoun when appropriate or necessary. The essay should have a concluding paragraph that restates your thesis, summarizes the analysis/arguments that support it, and explains the significance or importance of your analysis for the reader. Why should the reader care about this paper? Requirements​:

● Analyzes the audience, discourse, and rhetoric of the essay or article ● Uses MLA-style heading, format, in-text citations, and Works Cited page ● Runs at least 1000 words