Some notes on rhetorical reading and analyzing that we can refer to as needed this week and next, with the goal of creating some critical distance from the texts we are reading and analyzing:
- Paying sensitive and mindful attention to the issue or content (“what”), the methods of influencing readers (“how”), the writer’s rhetorical purpose (“in order to”), and the relationship that writers establish — or do not establish — with readers.
- How would you characterize the writer’s proximity to the issue?
- What is at stake — where is the stasis — in the issue?
- What does the writer seem to value? Does she assume that we share those values?
- What is the writer’s attitude toward us?
- How would you characterize the writer’s tone?
- How does the writer establish credibility?
- What kind(s) of appeals does the writer seem to be depending on — ethos, pathos, logos?
- How much of your own biases, assumptions, experiences, and ideology affect your ability to read for meaning and for comprehension?
SMH 8b Thinking critically about argument
Although critical thinking has a number of complex definitions, it is essentially the process by which you make sense of all the information around you. As such, critical thinking is a crucial component of argument, for it guides you in recognizing, formulating, and examining arguments.
Several elements of critical thinking are especially important.
Asking pertinent questions. Concentrate on getting to the heart of the matter. Whether you are thinking about others’ ideas or about your own, you will want to ask the following kinds of questions:
- What is the writer or speaker’s agenda—his or her unstated purpose?
- Why does this person hold these ideas or beliefs? What larger social, economic, political, or other factors may have influenced him or her?
- What does he or she want the audience to do—and why?
- What are the writer or speaker’s qualifications for making this argument?
- What reasons does he or she offer to support the ideas? Are they good reasons?
- What are the underlying values or unstated assumptions of the argument?
- What sources does the writer or speaker rely on? How current and reliable are they? What agendas do these sources have? Are any perspectives left out?
- How do media and design appeal to the audience? Study the visual and audio aspects of the argument, including the use of color, graphics, and multimedia techniques. What do they contribute to the argument?