Length: 4 pages, typed/double-spaced

MLA format: Times New Roman 12 point font, 1 inch margins, works cited page

Description, Purpose, and Relevance

A rhetorical analysis is an examination of how a text communicates its point of view. It focuses on identifying and investigating the way a text communicates, what strategies it employs to connect to an audience, frame an issue, establish its stakes, make a particular claim, support it, and convince the audience to accept the claim. The assignment requires you to understand not just what writers are saying, but also the purposes and motivations behind their arguments.

Your essay is not an analysis of what a text says but of what strategies it uses to communicate effectively. You must, of course, begin your analysis with what the text says—its argument—but the work of the essay is to show how the text persuades us of its position. Keep in mind that your analysis may find that some rhetorical strategies are used more heavily than others depending on the text and genre. Do not try to give equal weight to every strategy used in your analysis. Instead, choose a few key strategies to zoom in on your analysis.

Becoming stronger critical readers will enable you to: identify the strategies that writers employ to convey their arguments, become more comfortable with using such strategies effectively in your writing, and successfully engage with the world empowered with such a repertoire of strategies.

Your task

You may choose any one of the following five texts for your rhetorical analysis. All five articles relate to the theme of home, particularly within the context of the pandemic. They are all current in their subject matter and published in well-known magazines/periodicals. You may want to skim through all five to see which subject matter you find most interesting and convincing.

In your essay you should have a clear thesis of your own about the piece that you are analyzing and supply strong textual evidence to support your thesis. You’ll do this by analyzing the use of rhetorical strategies; your analysis will demonstrate an understanding of rhetorical concepts including rhetorical situation (purpose, audience), rhetorical appeals [Ethos (the credibility of the piece); Pathos (its ability to elicit and emotional response); and, Logos (types of evidence being used)], and genre (tone and expression).

Process for your rhetorical analysis

1. Identify the author’s thesis and purpose
2. Analyze the structure of the passage by identifying all main ideas
3. Consult a dictionary or encyclopedia to understand material that is unfamiliar to you
4. Annotate and make an outline of the work so that you remember key passages
5. Write a brief summary of the work so you can clearly present what it is about
6. Determine the purpose and evaluate the means by which the author has accomplished his/her/their purpose (the how and why of your analysis)

Structuring the rhetorical analysis essay

The most important sections of your essay will be:

• An introduction that introduces the work (title, author, publication, topic and purpose)
• Thesis statement which makes a claim about the effectiveness of the author’s use of rhetorical strategies in order to convince the audience
• Summary of the work in the first body paragraph or in the introduction, so that your readers have a clear understanding of what the article is trying to convey
• Identification, illustration and analysis of the most important rhetorical strategies (how the author communicates the purpose)
• Evaluation of the overall effectiveness of the text in accomplishing its purpose (why the article is relevant)

this is the link https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/07…