ENGL 101/102

Definition: A rhetorical analysis requires you to apply your critical reading skills in order to “break down” a text. In essence, you break off the “parts” from the “whole” of the piece you’re analyzing.

The goal of a rhetorical analysis is to articulate HOW the author writes, rather than WHAT they actually wrote.

To do this, you will analyze the strategies the author uses to achieve his or her goal or purpose of writing their piece.

Keep in mind that writers of different disciplines often use varying writing strategies in order to achieve their goals.

So, it is okay to analyze a scientific article a different way than you would a humanities writer. These authors have very different goals in mind, and thus will use different writing strategies. . .

MORE . . .@ N.Carolina State U. Rhetorical Analysis

What is the rhetorical situation?

• What occasion gives rise to the need or opportunity for persuasion?
• What is the historical occasion that would give rise to the composition of this text?

Who is the author/speaker?

• How does he or she establish ethos (personal credibility)?
• Does he/she come across as knowledgeable? fair?
• Does the speaker's reputation convey a certain authority?

What is his/her intention in speaking?

• To attack or defend?
• To exhort or dissuade from certain action?
• To praise or blame?
• To teach, to delight, or to persuade?

Who make up the audience?

• Who is the intended audience?
• What values does the audience hold that the author or speaker appeals to?
• Who have been or might be secondary audiences?
• If this is a work of fiction, what is the nature of the audience within the fiction?

What is the content of the message?

• Can you summarize the main idea?
• What are the principal lines of reasoning or kinds of arguments used?
• What topics of invention are employed?
• How does the author or speaker appeal to reason? to emotion?

What is the form in which it is conveyed?

• What is the structure of the communication; how is it arranged?
• What oral or literary genre is it following?
• What figures of speech (schemes and tropes) are used?
• What kind of style and tone is used and for what purpose?

How do form and content correspond?

• Does the form complement the content?
• What effect could the form have, and does this aid or hinder the author's intention?

Does the message/speech/text succeed in fulfilling the author's or speaker's intentions?

• For whom?
• Does the author/speaker effectively fit his/her message to the circumstances, times, and audience?
• Can you identify the responses of historical or contemporary audiences?

What does the nature of the communication reveal about the culture that produced it?

• What kinds of values or customs would the people have that would produce this?
• How do the allusions, historical references, or kinds of words used place this in a certain time and location?

SOURCE:    http://rhetoric.byu.edu/Pedagogy/Rhetorical%20Analysis%20heuristic.htm