Rhetorical Analysis Essay

How to Write a Rhetorical Analysis Essay

Borrowed from Jennifer Troy

As you annotate, consider the following:

    1. WHO IS THE SPEAKER AND WHAT MOVES HIM/HER TO SPEAK?
    2. WHAT DOES THE SPEAKER SAY? (the literal meaning of the passage)
    3. HOW DOES THE SPEAKER SAY IT?
      • How does he/she organize the passage? (DOING VERBS)
      • What information does he/she choose to leave out?
      • What rhetorical strategies-- parallel syntax, imagery, allusions, connotative language, figurative language, etc-- does he/she use to make the message memorable?
      • What tones does the speaker establish?
      • How does the speaker appeal to emotions and to reason? How does he/she establish an ethical appeal?

4. WHY DOES THE SPEAKER SAY IT?

    • What is the speaker’s rhetorical purpose? In other words, what reaction from the audience does the speaker want? A change of thinking? An action?

Now you will organize this information into an essay containing an introduction, two or three supports paragraphs, and a conclusion. Here is the process:

    1. Figure out how the passage is organized, and then divide into different sections. These sections will determine the focus of your support paragraphs.
    2. Identify tone. What are the different attitudes/emotions that you can “hear” in the speaker’s words? Each of your section divisions will have one or more tones. Often there is a tone shift between sections of a passage.
    3. Write your thesis. How does the speaker achieve his/her rhetorical purpose?
    4. Write topic sentences for each body paragraph. The topic sentence will explain the main idea and/or purpose of the section of the passage, and may include tone words.
    5. Decide what strategies you will analyze in each of your paragraphs. Choose strategies that you fully understand and that you can clearly connect to the main idea/purpose stated in your topic sentence.
    6. Don’t forget about the conclusion. Here you will answer the “so what?” and “who cares?” questions about the author’s message. Why is this message important (so what?) and to whom does this message matter (who cares?)