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Title: Rhetorical Analysis by Richard Johnson-Sheehan and Charles Paine


1
Rhetorical Analysisby Richard Johnson-Sheehan
and Charles Paine
  • Purpose to determine how and why texts are
    influential, or not.
  • Advertisers, marketing analysts, and public
    relations agents use rhetorical analyses to
    understand how well their messages are
    influencing target audiences and the general
    public.
  • Political scientists and consultants use it to
    determine which ideas and strategies will be most
    persuasive to voters and consumers.
  • Historians and rhetoricians use it to study
    historic speeches and documents to understand how
    and why they were influential in their day and
    perhaps still influential today.

2
  • The ultimate objective to show why a text was
    effective or persuasive.
  • By studying texts closely, we can learn how
    writers and speakers sway others and how we can
    be more persuasive ourselves.
  • Any time you are asked to analyze a nonfiction
    text, you are most likely writing a rhetorical
    analysis.
  • In your career, your supervisors may ask you to
    closely analyze your organizations market
    materials and messages to determine their
    effectiveness.
  • Thus, these critiques are rhetorical analyses,
    too.

3
  • A rhetorical analysis requires you to step back
    from a text and consider it from multiple
    perspectives.
  • Writing a rhetorical nalysis can give you a
    heightened awareness of a text and better
    appreciation of what the author accomplished.
  • Understanding how communication works or fails to
    work is a worthy goal by itself, but rhetorical
    analysis has other benefits.

4
  • It enables you to think about a text in more
    depth.
  • To help you better understand the arguments the
    artifact makes
  • To appreciate how the artifact was put together.
  • In turn, this knowledge helps you in writing your
    own texts.
  • You have a much better sense of what has been
    said and written about your subject, and where
    you have opportunities to contribute your own
    ideas.

5
Analyze the Context and the Text
  • Select a text that has significance for you,
    either because it was important when it was
    written or it is about a subject that is
    important to you.
  • Think of your analysis as running on a continuum
    between considering the context (the relationship
    between the piece of writing or speaking and the
    larger society surrounding it) and the text
    itself (what it is about and how it is designed.

6
We can think of the context, which lies at one
end of the continuum, in two senses
  • First, the immediate context refers to where
    the text was written and read or heard.
  • For example, Abraham Lincoln delivered his
    10-sentence, 272-word Gettysburg Address on
    November 19, 1863, at the dedication ceremony of
    a national cemetery, where he followed a speaker
    who had talked for two hours.

7
  • Second, the broader context refers to the larger
    cultural and historical circumstances in which a
    text is produced and read.
  • The broader context was, of course, the Civil
    War, which had taken thousands of lives and was
    far from over when Lincoln spoke.
  • Lincolns brief remarks have been immortalized
    because he could envision an end to the war and a
    healing process.

8
  • At the other end of the continuum lies the text
    itself. We can consider a text as if it were a
    piece in a museum, where we closely scrutinize
    it.
  • For example, if you look carefully at the
    language of the Gettysburg Address, youll begin
    to appreciate Lincolns tactics and skill.
  • He says of his purpose We have come to
    dedicate a portion of that field, as a final
    resting place for those who here gave their lives
    that the nation might live.

9
  • But then he immediately turns this purpose on its
    head But in a larger sense, we can not
    dedicatewe can not consecratewe can not
    hallowthis sacred ground. The brave men, living
    and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated
    it, far above our poor power to add or detract.
  • Lincolns words become powerful because they defy
    expectation we cannot consecrate the field
    because the field is already consecrated.

10
  • Lincoln does not once refer to the enemy in his
    address. Instead he says, The brave men, living
    and dead, who struggled here.
  • Even though the cemetery was a burying ground for
    Union soldiers, Lincolns language invokes the
    heroism and sacrifice of both sides.

11
  • Often in the back and forth movement between text
    and context, we gain surprising insights about
    how a text achieves certain effects.
  • These questions will help you get started in
    composing a rhetorical analysis

12
Analyze the Immediate Context
  • Examine the author
  • What is the authors purpose To change beliefs?
    To inspire action? To teach about a subject? To
    praise or blame? To amuse?
  • How did the author come to this subject?
  • What else did the author write?

13
Analyze the Immediate Context (continued)
  • Examine the audience
  • Who was the intended audience?
  • What were their attitudes and beliefs about the
    subject?
  • What were their attitudes and beliefs about the
    author?
  • What does the author assume about the audience?

14
Analyze the Broader Context
  • Examine the larger conversation
  • Why did this text appear at this particular time?
  • What else has been said or written about the
    subject?
  • What was going on at the time that influenced
    this text?

15
Analyze the Broader Context (continued)
  • Examine the larger society
  • What social, political, and economic influences
    can you find in the text?

16
Analyze the Text
  • Examine the kind of text
  • What kind of text is it speech? Essay?
    Letter? Editorial? Advertisement?
  • What is the medium print? Web site? Voice
    recording?

17
Analyze Text (continued)
  • Summarize the content
  • What is the authors main claim or main idea?
  • How is the main claim or main idea supported?
  • How is the text organized?
  • Examine the appeals
  • Ethos How does the author represent
    him/herself? How does the author build or fail
    to build trust?
  • Logos What kinds of facts and evidence does the
    author use?
  • Pathos How does the author appeal to values
    shared with the audience?

18
Analyze the Text (continued)
  • Examine the language and style
  • Is the style formal? Informal? Academic?
  • Does the author use humor or satire?
  • What metaphors are used?

19
Organize and Write a Rhetorical Analysis
  • Before you write
  • Take stock of your initial analysis
  • If your selected text isnt working for the
    assignment, find one that works better.
  • Look at your notes on the author, the audience,
    the circumstances of original publication or
    delivery, what other texts the author was
    responding to, and what else was going on at the
    time.
  • Spend some time think about how to organize your
    analysis.

20
Organize and Write An Analysis (continued)
  • Think about your readers
  • How much do readers know about your text? The
    author? The events surrounding the text? Other
    texts like it?
  • What will readers gain from reading your analysis?

21
Write an Introduction
  • Begin your analysis by giving the necessary
    background
  • Inform your readers about the author and why the
    author selected this particular topic.
  • Tell readers about the original audience and the
    conversation about the topic that was going on at
    the time the text was written.
  • Make a claim
  • Make a claim about how the text you are analyzing
    used rhetoric for particular purposes.

22
Organize and Write the Body of Your Paper
  • Support your claim with your detailed analysis of
    the text and context
  • Give examples from the text to show how the
    authors builds credibility with the audience,
    appeals to their values and beliefs, and
    convinces them with facts and evidence.
  • Analyze the authors style, tone, and language,
    including metaphors.
  • Analyze how the author responded to the immediate
    context and to the broader context.

23
Organize the body of your paper (continued)
  • This is a researched paper. Therefore, you must
    find additional sources to support your claim
  • Apply theories, viewpoints, argumentative
    strategies (that weve learned about this
    semester) from other writers, experts, and
    examples, and from other similar texts to support
    your claim.
  • Use 3-5 credible sources. Use APA in text and as
    a Reference Page.

24
Write a Conclusion
  • End with more than a summary
  • Draw larger implications from your analysis.
  • End with a vivid example from the text.
  • Finally, revise, revise, revise!
  • Evaluate your draft
  • Make sure your analysis meets the requirements of
    the assignment.
  • Consider where you might provide more information
    about the context.
  • Consider where you might provide more evidence
    supporting your claim about the text.
  • When you have finished revising, edit and
    proofread carefully.

25
Class Exercise
  • Public speeches are usually intended to persuade.
    You can find many examples of public speeches on
    the Web. Many politically oriented Web sites
    contain transcripts of speeches and often the
    audio and video. (For example, go to
    www.whitehouse.gov for speeches by the president,
    or to a history site, such as the History
    Channel, for other famous speeches).
  • Select a speech to analyze and answer the
    following questions.
  • 1. What is the rhetorical purpose? What did the
    speech indent to achieve?
  • 2. Where was the speech given? How does the
    speaker connect with the beliefs and attitudes
    of the audience?
  • 3. What appeals does the speech rely upon the
    rational appeal (logs) the emotional appeal
    (pathos), or the ethical appeal (ethos)?
  • 4. How is the speech organized?
  • 5. How formal or informal is the style? Is
    humor used?
  • 6. Does the speaker use any metaphors and for
    what purpose?
  • When you have completed your analysis, formulate
    a thesis about the speech.
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