Description
Rhetorical Analysis Essay
The objective of this assignment is to enable you to write a well-constructed rhetorical analysis that makes a claim regarding the rhetorical tools exhibited in a text.
The subject of your analysis will be a rhetorical article (editorial) approximately 1-2 pages long.
Suggested sources: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, the London Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, your city’s newspaper’s editorial page, etc..
You can use any editorial writer. Suggested writers include Richard Cohen, Ellen Goodman, Maureen O’Dowd, William Raspberry, Anna Quindlen.
Sample Websites from which to harvest editorials:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/opinion/editorialboard.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/
In a rhetorical analysis, you should:
• Make a clearly stated, complex claim about the text’s rhetoric and its effectiveness (thesis)
• Contextualize the text using the Rhetorical Triangle (author, audience and purpose)
• Discuss rhetorical appeals of the text (logs, ethos, pathos)
• Observe proper MLA quotation and citation formatting requirement
• Observe proper MLA paper formatting requirement
• Choose a clear organization for the paper that clearly aids understanding (think about your audience the whole time you are writing)
• Create an interesting and functional introduction and conclusion paragraphs