Rhetoricians employ many techniques; focus on the ones that are the most prevalent or interesting and that you can describe persuasively. An introduction should lead cleanly into your argument. Remember that your argument begins with the first words of your paper. Each body paragraph should have its own topic sentence. Consider how you will organize the paragraphs.
Will you discuss each technique—every instance of ethos, then every instance of pathos, and finally every instance of logos—then end with a discussion of the overall effectiveness? Or will you review the essay in terms of the least effective technique to the most effective? Or will you use a chronological order, discussing each technique as it occurs sequentially? For the Nacirema paper, for example, the first paragraph could focus on the academic tone, the second on diction, and the third on common ground.
For each paragraph, give several examples and explain how those examples illustrate the technique being discussed. At the end of each body paragraph, make sure you connect your topic sentence back to your thesis. Appeals are how the author convinces their audience. Three central appeals are discussed in rhetoric, established by the philosopher Aristotle and sometimes called the rhetorical triangle: logos, ethos, and pathos. Logos , or the logical appeal, refers to the use of reasoned argument to persuade.
This is the dominant approach in academic writing , where arguments are built up using reasoning and evidence. Ethos , or the ethical appeal, involves the author presenting themselves as an authority on their subject. For example, someone making a moral argument might highlight their own morally admirable behavior; someone speaking about a technical subject might present themselves as an expert by mentioning their qualifications.
This might involve speaking in a passionate way, employing vivid imagery, or trying to provoke anger, sympathy, or any other emotional response in the audience. These three appeals are all treated as integral parts of rhetoric, and a given author may combine all three of them to convince their audience.
In rhetoric, a text is not necessarily a piece of writing though it may be this. A text is whatever piece of communication you are analyzing. This could be, for example, a speech, an advertisement, or a satirical image. In these cases, your analysis would focus on more than just language—you might look at visual or sonic elements of the text too.
The context is everything surrounding the text: Who is the author or speaker, designer, etc. Who is their intended or actual audience? When and where was the text produced, and for what purpose? Looking at the context can help to inform your rhetorical analysis.
For example, Martin Luther King, Jr. These arguments are built up with claims, supports, and warrants. The text you analyze might be explanatory, although there will be aspects of argument because you must negotiate with what the author is trying to do and what you think the author is doing.
Edward P. The rhetorical situation is the context out of a which a text is created. Another element of rhetorical analysis is simply reading and summarizing the text. A rhetorical analysis asks you to explain how writers or speakers within specific social situations attempt to influence others through discourse including written or spoken language, images, gestures, and so on.
A rhetorical analysis is not a summary. Purpose : To inform, persuade, entertain; what the author wants the audience to believe, know, feel, or do. Message : The content of the text, the key point s the author is communicating to the audience. Medium and genre : The delivery method, which includes broadly and narrowly defined categories of communication such as:.
After breaking down the rhetorical situation, you need to analyze how the author uses rhetorical techniques to convey the message.
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