a essay for ENG
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rhetorical_analysis.pptxRhetorical Analysis:
Less What? More How?
Rhetorical Analysis of a Written Text
Definition (in the case of this assignment for ENG 200):
An examination, in writing, of how an author uses language to evoke a particular response from his or her audience.
Rhetorical Analysis
Answers 3 big questions:
What response is the author trying to evoke from his or her readers*?
How does the author use language to help evoke that response*?
How well does the author succeed in evoking that response*?
* (In our case, we need to think about two sets of readers: the original readers of the text and readers today.)
Rhetorical Analysis
Requires you to complete 4 big tasks:
Identify the essay’s original rhetorical situation.
Identify the essay’s key rhetorical strategies.
Evaluate the essay in terms of its rhetorical strategies as related to its original rhetorical situation and its rhetorical situation today.
Write an effective rhetorical analysis that derives from & includes parts of #1, #2, and #3.
What Is a Rhetorical Situation?
Definition: The situation in and for which an essay is written, published and read.
5 General Elements Make the Rhetorical Situation
Author
Topic
Audience
Purpose/Aim
Context
Rhetorical Situation: Author
What are the author’s:
Relevant biographical details?
Area of expertise?
Qualifications?
Biases?
Perspective on the topic?
Rhetorical Situation: Topic
Does the author:
Focus on a particular aspect of the topic or on the topic in general?
Devote more attention to some aspects of topic more than others? If so, why might that be?
Clarify his position on the topic?
Take into consideration others’ positions on the topic?
Rhetorical Situation: Audience
To know something about the original readership of the past, we need to know something about the original publication in which the essay appeared.
Name/Kind of Original Publication?*
What characteristics (i.e., age, income level, level of education, areas of expertise) are most of the publication’s readers likely to possess?
What is publication’s mission/what are its goals?
How long has the publication been in existence?
What expectations are readers of the publication likely to have about what they will find in the publication?
Is publication scholarly, peer-reviewed, or popular?
*NOTE: to find out about a publication and its readership, search the top or bottom of its website’s home page (NOT the subscription page) for a section titled “About Us” or “Mission Statement.”
Rhetorical Situation: Purpose/Aim
Is the author’s purpose/aim:
To inform, entertain, persuade, educate, provoke to action, shock….what?
Explicitly stated or is it implied?
Does the author have more than one purpose? If so:
Does one purpose seem more dominate than others?
Does one purpose seem more explicit and/or overt, while another seems more implied and/or covert?
Rhetorical Situation: Context
When was the essay originally published?
What was happening at that time that might have influenced the author or motivated the author to write?
Is the author’s essay one that is joining an ongoing conversation or debate?
What in the author’s own background might have bearing on what was happening at the time of the essay’s publication?
3 Types of Rhetorical Strategies
Strategies of Content
Strategies of Structure
Strategies of Style
Rhetorical Strategies*
Strategies of Content:
Arguments/Assertions
Evidence/Examples
Reasoning
Persuasive Appeals to Readers’:
Reason
Emotion
Sense of ethics/fairness (How does the author establish his/her credibility? How does the author persuade his/her readers to trust him/her?)
Rhetorical Strategies*
Strategies of Structure:
Order in which claims are presented
Line of reasoning
Connections among ideas
Essay openings and conclusions
Use of headings and subheadings
Rhetorical Strategies*
Strategies of Style:
Sentence length and type
Level and type of vocabulary
Figurative language (similes, metaphors, analogies)
Allusions
Level and type of diction
All of the above strategies can contribute to the tone of the essay.
Now, to the Assignment: Rhetorical Analysis Paper—Some (but Certainly not All) Pertinent Questions
Solomon Asch’s “Opinions and Social Pressure”
First published in Scientific American, 1955
How does Asch:
Refer to the people who volunteered in his experiment?
Organize his essay?
Open and close his essay?
Why does Asch:
Give us one pertinent piece of information in parentheses in the 13th paragraph?
Tell us volunteers said they valued independent thinking over conformity?
Why does Asch write the way he does? What does he want us to believe?
How can we tell he is writing for a popular—but also educated and interested—audience?
Finally, Rhetorical Analysis
Seeks to answer the question What? But, more importantly, seeks to answer the questions,
How?
Why?
And so looks at authors’ aims, motives, and agendas…in other words, rhetorical analysis seeks to read the lines. But also seeks to
Read Between the Lines
Read Between the Lines
Now, to the Assignment: Rhetorical Analysis Paper—Some (but Certainly not All) Pertinent Questions
Stanley Milgram’s “The Perils of Obedience”
First published (in a form longer than what we have read) in Harper’s Magazine in 1974
How does Milgram:
Refer to the people who volunteered in his experiment?
Describe the people who volunteered in his experiment?
Organize his essay? (For example, why does he present his volunteers in the order that he does?)
Use subheadings?
Use allusions?
Why does Milgram write the way he does? What does he want us to believe?
How can we tell he is writing for a popular—but also educated and interested—audience?
Now, to the Assignment: Rhetorical Analysis Paper—Some (but Certainly not All) Pertinent Questions
Jerry Burger’s “Replicating Milgram...”
First published in American Psychologist Special Issue: Obedience—Then and Now 2009
How does Burger:
Use vocabulary and diction?
Organize his essay?
Use subheadings?
Explain to readers the ways he tried to avoid ethical dilemmas perceived in Milgram’s obedience experiment?
Why does Burger write the way he does? What does he want us to believe?
How can we tell he is writing for an audience of his peers/writing for a peer-reviewed journal (which many also refer to as a “scholarly” journal)?
Now, to the Assignment: Rhetorical Analysis Paper—Some (but Certainly not All) Pertinent Questions
Philip Zimbardo’s “Stanford Prison Experiment”
First published as an essay in The New York Times Magazine 1973 (The narrative in the Stanford Prison Experiment website is almost identical to the original essay.)
How does Zimbardo:
Open and close his essay?
Organize his essay?
Use his explanation of why and how he constructed a mock prison to establish his credibility?
Use allusions to historical and fiction characters?
Why does Zimbardo write the way he does? What does he want us to believe?
How can we tell he is writing for a popular—but also educated and interested—audience?
