Rhetorical Analysis.
Finding a Topic
The purpose of this essay is to examine the rhetorical features of your selected text. Choose a topic that is long enough and contains enough of the persuasive elements discussed in class to make a substantial analysis.
Historical Speech Analysis:
Select a speech or public letter by a politician or other public figure that has cultural or historical significance.
The web site American Rhetoric’s Top 100 speeches provides some ideas. Speeches by current figures, such as Barack Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope” from the 2004 Democratic National Convention, can also serve as appropriate topics.
You may cite videos, audio recordings, and/or written transcripts. You cannot do “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by MLK or Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” as we analyzed these text’s in class.
Developing Your Analysis
Rhetorical Situation. Establish the rhetorical situation of the argument by considering the author’s background, purpose, and audience. This often serves as the introduction as the rhetorical situation offers background which helps the reader put the argument in context.
Means of Persuasion. Analyze the author’s use of ethos, pathos, and logos. The body should include somewhere an analysis of the author’s appeals to character/authority, emotion, and reason.
Be sure to cite specific examples and explain how they are intended to affect the audience. If one of the means of persuasion is missing from your argument, this absence should also be addressed.
Other Rhetorical Strategies.
Consider the other rhetorical features of the text, such as thesis, organization, and the specific stylistic techniques discussed in the lecture and in Chapter 11 of the textbook pages 98-130, Analyzing Texts.
Incorporate in your analysis a discussion of these features, where applicable, into the introduction or body of the paper.
Evaluate the effectiveness of your chosen text. Discuss whether its persuasive strategies are successful for the intended audience.
Organizing your Analysis.
Decide how you will organize the ideas in your analysis. Will you focus part by part, text by text, thematically, or spatially?
Follow pages 125-126 in your textbook to develop an outline.
