Rhetorical Analysis of When Women Succeed, the World Succeeds by Jan Schakowsky

In class we've been examining how writers use certain techniques to make their writing more persuasive. For instance, writers might emphasize their own authority or credibility (ethos); they might appeal to an audience's values, emotions, or experiences (pathos); or they might base their argument on careful reasoning (logos). These techniques are part of what is known as rhetoric—the effective use of language. Analyzing the rhetorical choices writers make allows us to evaluate their arguments more effectively and respond appropriately. This assignment asks you to conduct such a rhetorical analysis of a text. You will begin by selecting a recently published argument to analyze. Look for arguments to analyze in the editorial and op-ed pages of any newspaper, political magazines such as the Nation, National Review, web sites of organizations and interest groups, or political blogs such as The Huffington Post or Dailykos.com. Read the text at least four times, each time making notes about what the author is doing to make his or her argument more persuasive. Then compose an essay of 4-5 pages in which you analyze the rhetorical techniques the author uses in the text. Your goal in this analysis is to demonstrate how the various aspects of the text work together to achieve the writer's goal, and to achieve that goal you will need to consider the rhetorical situation, the author, the audience, and the use of rhetorical strategies in the article. Here are some points to keep in mind as you write your essay: - Ethos: What perspective and biases does the author bring to this text? What authority does he or she have to produce this text? What does the author do within the text to establish credibility with the audience? - Pathos: Whom is the author of this text writing to? How can you tell? What is the audience's attitude towards the subject matter? How does this attitude affect the way the author presents his or her message? What does the author do to appeal to the audience's emotions, values, or experiences? - Logos: What reasons and evidence does he or she provide to prove the claim(s)? What basic claim(s) is the author making? How appropriate and convincing is the author's reasoning and evidence? Are there any logical fallacies that you can detect? - What, if anything, could the writer have done to make the argument more effective? - Your argument should be about the strategic use of rhetorical appeals and persuasive power of the particular text and not about the content itself. Focus on HOW it works, not simply WHAT it conveys; discuss how the use of rhetorical appeals determines the effectiveness of the argument and don't get distracted into arguing passionately a particular position or extolling the beauty/creativity of the article! To complete the essay successfully, you will need to discuss specific and concrete elements of the article—the way we will do over the next few class meetings. Rely on the guidance provided by discussion and lecture in daily class sessions. - Your analysis should be just that—yours—in that you're presenting and defending your own understanding of what the author is doing in the text. However, your own opinion of the subject matter of the text is irrelevant. This assignment does not ask you to agree or disagree with the author, only to analyze how he or she is making a point. Every source you use in completing this assignment must be completely and correctly documented following MLA. (We will discuss how to do this in class) Be absolutely sure to give proper credit to the source(s) of all words and ideas that are not your original thoughts. Your Works Cited page does not count towards the page limit for this assignment. Grading: Your essay will be graded based on the following questions: - Focus: Does the essay present a clear purpose and thesis? Does the essay remain focused on that purpose? - Organization: Does the overall organization make sense in terms of the larger goals of the paper? Is the essay easy to follow and understand? - Development: Does the writer thoroughly and thoughtfully analyze the argument? Are the rhetorical devices addressed clearly in the argument, and does the essay go analyze, rather than identify, the use of rhetoric? - Word Choice and Sentence Fluency: Is the vocabulary precise and engaging? Does the writer demonstrate an awareness of audience and strive to have an original voice? - Conventions: Is the writing relatively free of errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation, and formatting?