Let’s expand our thinking and use of rhetorical précis:
- What is the argument, claim, implication, or advocacy? Your choice of verbs is crucial, as it signals your ability to read and to analyze.
- How is the piece structured and what forms of support/evidence are employed?
- Why? Why now? What is the exigency?
- For whom? Can you identify any rhetorical devices — tone, word choices, ethos, pathos, logos — than seem particularly keyed to this audience? (St. Martin’s pp. 167-69)