Essay 1: Rhetorical Analysis
Essay One will be a rhetorical analysis of a written or visual text of your choice. Use William Covino's text on rhetorical analysis to guide you through writing this draft.
At least 900 words, and no more than 1300, not including works cited.
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The Background:
Summarizing an argument requires that you set aside your personal views in order to present another’s perspective. In order to perform rhetorical analysis, you will need to continue to set aside your personal opinions about the argument itself and instead focus on how a rhetorical artifact worked to persuade a specific audience to think and act in ways it might not have if the audience never encountered the rhetorical artifact. In essence, you are evaluating the quality of rhetorical performance of a given text. Central to writing an evaluative argument is a thesis that takes a position on the issue by
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Goals:
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Preparing for writing essay one:
You are to elaborate the network of controlling values operative in a text and its audience. This will help you to grasp and write about larger controversies within which the text and the event play specific roles. Additionally, you are to work to articulate the different rhetorical strategies the rhetor—the person attempting to persuade—employs to bring the audience toward adopting her purpose. Here are some points to explore to help you come up with material, which you will then need to arrange in a sensible progression. You do not need to answer all of these questions. They are meant to help you think about the rhetorical dimensions of your selected text and the social experience you will analyze. |
Use the questions to help generate material for your first draft:
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Further Hints to Keep in Mind:
Analyze your chosen text, DO NOT merely summarize and DO NOT argue for or against the issue presented in the text or experience. Analysis involves making explicit what lies implicit in a given text or event, and you will need to draw from specific evidence in the text or experience in order to ground your assertions concerning how persuasion works. In order to clear the way for analysis, you must have already summarized the argument through drawing out the various claims, evidence for those claims, and the warrant(s) connecting claims and evidence together, followed by a written summary. Having done this, you will be free to engage in analysis of the rhetorical appeals used in the text. |
Format:
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