Monday, October 03, 2005
Paper #2 Assignment Prompt
Download it here.
Condrey
RHE 306--Fall 2005
Paper 2--Rhetorical Analysis
This assignment requires you to analyze and evaluate an editorial, speech, argumentative essay, or political ad using the principles of argumentation we have read about and discussed in this class. Your essay will include a claim about the author’s use of rhetorical strategies. This claim will be supported by a careful and close analysis of the text. Your argument should address the author’s purpose, his success or failure in persuading or convincing the intended audience, and a discussion of any fallacies you encounter in the text.
Finding a Topic
You may choose a print or electronic text. Do not choose a news story for this assignment (we will discuss the distinction in class). Be sure that the text you choose to make an argument about is itself an argument. Arguments can be found on the editorial pages and in opinion columns. Arguments address controversies or dilemmas; their purpose to change actions, beliefs, or attitudes. An argument sets out an author’s position with claims and reasons. Other texts that are NOT arguments include: informative/news texts that merely inform readers about claims made by others; and instructional texts that command readers to follow a sequence of steps.
Choose a piece that you think has some strong points and some flaws, regardless of your agreement with the overall position. If you agree too strongly with the position, you may have trouble spotting flaws. If you disagree too strongly, you may have trouble recognizing the strong points. Your analysis should be a well-supported argument that makes a judgment about whether or not the strengths of your chosen text outweigh its weaknesses.
Developing Your Content
As you analyze your document, be sure to work on doing each of the following:
--describe the article/site and its setting (identify the author, sponsoring organization or journal, implied or explicit audience, date/history). Describe the author's overall goal: what does he/she want to change in this audience's beliefs, feelings, or actions? Briefly summarize the main point and essential support of his/her argument.
--justify the need for an analysis of an article/site by making an arguable claim about its quality.
-- analyze the author’s rhetorical strategies, such as:
- the main sections of the text
- the sequence of main claims (definition, cause, value, action) in each section
- appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos that support each main claim
- use of concession and refutation to respond to disagreements about a claim
- use of language, graphics, humor, and so on.
- use of fallacies.
--evaluate how well these work for persuading the intended readers.
This assignment will help you improve your skills at recognizing argumentative strategies (stases, appeals, structure, and style), so you can begin to use them in your own arguments. Authors may not use every option in a single essay. Authors may use the same option many times. So your interpretation of what strategies the author has chosen—and which strategies are most prominent—is also part of your argument. Make sure your claims are stated explicitly and supported with evidence.
Read the article several times. Read with different goals each time. Try to identify major sections of the article where the purpose or topic clearly changes. Try to summarize the purpose of each section in a few sentences. Look for key words to identify the main claim of that section. Then look for appeals that support the claim (logos, pathos, ethos), and so on.
Remember that the author may have had readers in mind who are not exactly like you. You should consider the reactions that the author was expecting as well as reactions that unexpected readers might have. To explore the full range of possible reactions that readers might have, you may need to brainstorm with your peers or use a role-playing technique.
Additional Requirements
You need to incorporate two secondary sources into your argument. This number does not include the text you are analyzing. At least one should be from the course readings (Orwell, Luntz, Gingrich, or Lakoff).
Write a good faith rough draft.
Your final draft should be 4-6 pages long, typed, double-spaced, and carefully proofread. The paper version of your draft should look like the model MLA paper in the SF Handbook.
Grading Criteria
I will evaluate your essay according to these criteria:
Condrey
RHE 306--Fall 2005
Paper 2--Rhetorical Analysis
This assignment requires you to analyze and evaluate an editorial, speech, argumentative essay, or political ad using the principles of argumentation we have read about and discussed in this class. Your essay will include a claim about the author’s use of rhetorical strategies. This claim will be supported by a careful and close analysis of the text. Your argument should address the author’s purpose, his success or failure in persuading or convincing the intended audience, and a discussion of any fallacies you encounter in the text.
Finding a Topic
You may choose a print or electronic text. Do not choose a news story for this assignment (we will discuss the distinction in class). Be sure that the text you choose to make an argument about is itself an argument. Arguments can be found on the editorial pages and in opinion columns. Arguments address controversies or dilemmas; their purpose to change actions, beliefs, or attitudes. An argument sets out an author’s position with claims and reasons. Other texts that are NOT arguments include: informative/news texts that merely inform readers about claims made by others; and instructional texts that command readers to follow a sequence of steps.
Choose a piece that you think has some strong points and some flaws, regardless of your agreement with the overall position. If you agree too strongly with the position, you may have trouble spotting flaws. If you disagree too strongly, you may have trouble recognizing the strong points. Your analysis should be a well-supported argument that makes a judgment about whether or not the strengths of your chosen text outweigh its weaknesses.
Developing Your Content
As you analyze your document, be sure to work on doing each of the following:
--describe the article/site and its setting (identify the author, sponsoring organization or journal, implied or explicit audience, date/history). Describe the author's overall goal: what does he/she want to change in this audience's beliefs, feelings, or actions? Briefly summarize the main point and essential support of his/her argument.
--justify the need for an analysis of an article/site by making an arguable claim about its quality.
-- analyze the author’s rhetorical strategies, such as:
- the main sections of the text
- the sequence of main claims (definition, cause, value, action) in each section
- appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos that support each main claim
- use of concession and refutation to respond to disagreements about a claim
- use of language, graphics, humor, and so on.
- use of fallacies.
--evaluate how well these work for persuading the intended readers.
This assignment will help you improve your skills at recognizing argumentative strategies (stases, appeals, structure, and style), so you can begin to use them in your own arguments. Authors may not use every option in a single essay. Authors may use the same option many times. So your interpretation of what strategies the author has chosen—and which strategies are most prominent—is also part of your argument. Make sure your claims are stated explicitly and supported with evidence.
Read the article several times. Read with different goals each time. Try to identify major sections of the article where the purpose or topic clearly changes. Try to summarize the purpose of each section in a few sentences. Look for key words to identify the main claim of that section. Then look for appeals that support the claim (logos, pathos, ethos), and so on.
Remember that the author may have had readers in mind who are not exactly like you. You should consider the reactions that the author was expecting as well as reactions that unexpected readers might have. To explore the full range of possible reactions that readers might have, you may need to brainstorm with your peers or use a role-playing technique.
Additional Requirements
You need to incorporate two secondary sources into your argument. This number does not include the text you are analyzing. At least one should be from the course readings (Orwell, Luntz, Gingrich, or Lakoff).
Write a good faith rough draft.
Your final draft should be 4-6 pages long, typed, double-spaced, and carefully proofread. The paper version of your draft should look like the model MLA paper in the SF Handbook.
Grading Criteria
I will evaluate your essay according to these criteria:
- Careful exposition of the significance and rhetorical context of your argument.
- Demonstrated ability to recognize argumentative strategies, as explained in Everything’s An Argument.
- Demonstrated ability to use principles of argument to construct a persuasive, coherent, well-supported evaluation.
- Acknowledgement and consideration of alternative claims and conditions for rebuttal.
- Effective essay organization.
- Clear and precise sentence-level rhetoric (grammar and style).
