Genre: Rhetorical Analysis in an Academic Essay format
Audience: Educated, curious readers
Length: 750-1000 words
Background: St. Martin’s e-Handbook:
- DePaul Writing Center: Rhetorical Analysis (see their other entries, too)
- “Analyzing Arguments” (Part 2.8)
- “Integrating Sources into Your Writing” (3.13)
- “A student’s rhetorical analysis of an argument” (2.8g)
- Oxford English Dictionary
Due Dates:
- Weeks Two and Three: Rhetorical précis (5)
- Wednesday, 1/21: Preview Rhetorical analysis
- Monday, 1/26: annotated copy
- Wednesday 1/28: First Draft
- Peer Reviews
- Wednesday, 2/4: Final Draft
We’ve been practicing a method known as a rhetorical précis: a highly structured summary that explicates what a writer is arguing (claim), how she does it (strategy), why she does it (purpose/exigency), and for what intended audience. Your first major writing assignment in this class is a rhetorical analysis, which draws on those skills in an extended format. A rhetorical analysis is an argument for a probable interpretation of a text, based on its rhetorical strategies and features.
In our case, your challenge is to analyze any persuasive piece from the 1/25 Sunday Review section of the New York Times. If you identify another persuasive essay elsewhere in the Sunday paper — and they do appear in the Sunday Magazine, the Style section, Business, etc. — feel free to run it by me as an alternative.
Support your points with references to rhetorical appeals (8d, 167-69), drawing on direct quotes, references to tone, and other rhetorical features found in the text, especially those related to exigency, main claims, strategy, purpose, and audience.