Essay 1: Rhetorical Analysis

(15% of final grade + 5% process)

Utopia Constructions as Tools of Sway

Martin Luther King Jr.'s I have a dream speech is arguably the most famous speech in American history. In his speech King envisions a perfect world of racial harmony and justice. After listening to his speech and being cognizant of the context in which it was given, identify the rhetorical appeals that King uses to draw his utopic vision and compel his audience to rally behind it; and explain how these appeals work. In your analysis, you will need to select examples of appeals from the speech that you think are significant and most relevant to the thesis you choose to construct.

Essay Requirements:

• Length must be minimum 750 words (note word count at end of each draft)
• Two sources (min) are required for this paper. One source is provided by the instructor.
• Follow MLA Style Guidelines
• Use 12 point Times New Roman font, double-space, 1” margins
• Type your personal details in the top left corner of the first page (Name, ID, Course/Section #, Assignment/Draft #, Instructor, Date of Submission).
• Provide a suitable title for your essay and center it on the first page after your details.
• Provide a Works Cited page for each of the three typed drafts you will submit.
• Your essay should be carefully proofread and checked for typing and other errors before submission.
• Submit each draft on your Turnitin account by the due date and time.

Steps: How to Write a Rhetorical Analysis Essay

Adapted from: http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Rhetorical-Analysis

A rhetorical analysis can be written about journal articles, television shows, films, speeches, collections of artwork, or a variety of other communicative mediums and genres that attempt to make a statement to an intended audience. In order to write a rhetorical analysis, you need to be able to determine how the composer of the original work attempts to make their argument, and evaluate the effectiveness of and the strategies used to make that argument.

Step 1: Gathering Information

1. Identify the rhetorical situation – the text composer (author), the audience, the purpose:
   1. The text composer refers to the first and last name of the text composer. If the composer has any credentials that lend to their authority on the matter at hand, you should also briefly consider those. This may require some research into the background of the text composer. Note: "Text" can refer to any type of work: journal article, film, speech, painting, etc.
   2. The audience for whom the text was composed. You may want to gather more information on this audience, if available.
   3. The purpose refers to what the composer wants to accomplish in the text, for example selling a product, calling the audience to action, or defending a point of view. You will need to do some research into the context in which the text was composed in order to better understand the purpose.
2. Identify the rhetorical appeals used – ethos, logos, pathos
   1. Ethos, or ethical appeals, rely on the text composer's credibility and character in the garnering of approval. Mentions of a composer's character or qualifications usually qualify as ethos. For instance, if a family therapist with 20 years of practice writes an article on improving familial relations, mention of that experience would be using ethos. Despite their name, these appeals don't have anything to do with "ethics" as we usually think of them.
   2. Logos, or logical appeals, use reason to make an argument. Most academic discourse should make heavy use of logos. A text composer who supports an argument with evidence, data, and clear facts uses logos.
   3. Pathos, or pathetic appeals, seek to evoke emotion in order to gain approval. These emotions can include anything from sympathy and anger to the desire for love. If an article about violent crime provides personal, human details about victims of violent crime, the writer is likely using pathos.
3. Form an analysis. Before you begin writing your analysis, determine what the information you gathered suggests to you.
   1. Ask yourself how the rhetorical appeals help the text composer achieve their purpose. Determine if any of these appeals fail and hurt the composer instead of helping. Note down any evidence in the text that could support these determinations.
   2. Speculate on why the text composer may have chosen these particular rhetorical appeals for their audience and occasion. Determine if the choice of appeals may have differed for a different audience or occasion.
   3. Remember that in a rhetorical analysis, you do not need to agree with the argument being presented. Your task is to analyze how well the text composer uses the appeals to present their argument.

Step 2: Writing the Introduction

1. Identify your own purpose. You should, in some way, let the reader know that your paper is a rhetorical analysis.
   1. By letting the reader know that your paper is a rhetorical analysis, you let them know exactly what to expect. If you do not let the reader know this information beforehand, they may expect to read an evaluative argument instead.
   2. Do not simply state, "This paper is a rhetorical analysis." Weave the information into the introduction as naturally as possible.
2. Consider starting with an 'opener.' An opener can act as a kind of hook to entice the reader to continue reading your paper.
   1. Possible openers could include a relevant quote, analogy, striking statistic or fact, etc.
   2. It is important to remember that any opener you use should be integrated into the writing that follows. To do this you will need to explain the opener and/or link it in some way to the next part of your introduction.
3. State the text being analyzed. Clearly identify the text you plan to analyze in your paper.
   1. The introduction is a good place to give a quick background on and summary of the text.
   2. Keep it short. Save the majority of the details for your body paragraphs, since most of the details will be used in defending your analysis.
4. Briefly mention the rhetorical situation: text composer (author), audience, and purpose/message of the text.
   1. You do not necessarily need to mention these details in this order. Include the details in a manner that makes sense and flows naturally within your introductory paragraph.
5. Specify a thesis statement. The thesis statement is the key to a successful introduction and provides a sense of focus for the rest of the essay. There are several ways to state your intentions for the essay.
   1. Try stating which rhetorical appeals the text composer uses in order to move people toward their desired purpose. Analyze how well these appeals accomplish this goal.
   2. Consider narrowing the focus of your essay. Choose one or two aspects that are complex enough to spend an entire essay analyzing.
   3. Think about making an original argument. If your analysis leads you to make a certain argument about the text, focus your thesis and essay around that argument and provide support for it throughout the body of your paper.
   4. Try to focus on using words such as "effective" or "ineffective" when composing your thesis, rather than "good" or "bad."

Step 3: Writing the Body

1. Organize your body paragraphs by rhetorical appeals. The most standard way to organize your body paragraphs is to do so by separating them into sections that identify the ethos, logos and pathos.
   1. The order of ethos, logos, and pathos is not necessarily set in stone. If you intend to focus on one more than the other two, you could briefly cover the two lesser appeals in the first two sections before elaborating on the third in greater detail toward the middle and end of the paper.
   2. For ethos, analyze how the text composer uses their own status as an "expert" or the status of others to enhance credibility.
   3. For logos, identify at least one major claim and evaluate the text's use of objective evidence.
   4. For pathos, analyze any details that alter the way that the audience may feel about the subject at hand. Also analyze any imagery used to appeal to aesthetic senses, and determine how effective these elements are.
   5. Wrap things up by discussing the consequences and overall impact of each of these three appeals.
2. Provide plenty of evidence and support. Rely on hard evidence rather than opinion or emotion for your analysis.
   1. Evidence often includes a good deal of direct quotation and paraphrasing.
   2. Point to spots in which the text composer mentions their credentials or relies on the credentials of others to explain ethos. Mention specific data and facts used in analysis involving logos. Identify emotional images or words with strong emotional connotations as ways of supporting claims to pathos.
3. Maintain an objective tone. A rhetorical analysis can make an argument, but you need to be scholarly and reasonable in your analysis of the text.
   1. Avoid use of the first-person words "I" and "we." Stick to the more objective third-person.
   2. Avoid absolute language such as "always," "never," "perfect," "proves," etc. Instead use hedging language that allows room for further conversation on the issue, such as "in many cases," "might," "strongly suggests," etc.

Step 4: Writing the Conclusion

1. Restate your thesis. Do not simply repeat the thesis in your introduction word-for-word. Instead, rephrase it using new terminology while essentially sharing the same information.
   1. When restating your thesis, you should be able to quickly analyze how the original text composer's purpose comes together.
   2. When restating your thesis, try to bring more sophistication or depth to it than you had in the beginning. What can the audience now understand about your thesis that they would not have without reading your analysis?
2. Restate your main ideas. In restating your main ideas, you should also explain why they are important and how they support your thesis.
   1. Keep this information brief. You spent an entire essay supporting your thesis, so these restatements of your main ideas should only serve as summaries of your support.
   2. Link this information to how it supports your original claim made in your thesis statement.
3. Concluding remarks. In wrapping up your conclusion, you should end with a strong concluding remark. This remark should relate in some way to your thesis and should signal to the reader that this is the end of the essay. This can be done in various ways, such as:
   1. An opinion.
   2. A suggestion or recommendation.
   3. A call to action.
   4. A comment on what we can learn from the analyzed text or the process of analyzing this text.
   5. An echo of the essay opening line (if you began with some kind of hook, quote, analogy etc.).

Step 5: Revising, Editing and Proofreading

1. Review. Once you have completed your initial draft of your paper (steps 1-4), you will need to go back through your paper carefully, focusing on the following points.
   1. Addressing the essay prompt. Re-read the essay prompt carefully. Go through your paper and make sure you have addressed all of the parts the prompt, and only the prompt.
   2. Overall organization and coherence. Are your ideas arranged in a logical order? Are your paragraphs separated in a logical way, with a clear focus for each? Is each idea logically and clearly linked to the idea that came before and the idea that comes after? Does the writing "flow" so that the reader can easily follow the development of your thesis?
   3. Quality of writing. Is your writing appropriate for an academic paper? Have you used a variety of sentence structures? Is your vocabulary rich, precise and accurately used?
   4. Mechanics. Is your writing error-free? Have you used accurate punctuation, spelling and grammar?
   5. MLA style. Is your essay formatted according to correct MLA style? Have you included correct in-text citations where relevant? Is your Works Cited page formatted correctly and does it contain all of the references cited in the text of your essay? Refer to the MLA Style Guide to help you.
2. Sleep on it. Take a break from your essay and come back to it the next day for one final re-reading. Looking at your essay with 'fresh eyes' often allows you to notice little things that you can do to improve your essay that you might not have noticed after you have been working on it for a long time.

Grading

The final draft of your essay will be graded based on the grading rubric below, used by all RHET 1010 courses.

Please note: You will also be assessed on your ability to engage in process writing. Your process writing will be graded separately. You can see the requirements and grading rubric on the Essay Process Grading Rubric page of this class site.