Purpose and Description
The ability to analyze texts rhetorically will be fundamental to your success as writers and, more generally, as individuals who can engage critically with ideas and arguments. With these ends in mind, your aim in this assignment will be to 1) learn strategies for rhetorical analysis and apply them toward sources related to your project; and 2) construct an argument that both evaluates your focus texts and explains what you can gain from comparing their rhetorical features. The instructions described below are designed to guide you through this process.
Starting the Process: Invention & Inquiry
Carefully read two sources related to your topic of choice, paying particular attention to each author’s purpose, audience, genre, context, etc.
Analyze each source according to methods described in Chapters 2 and 4 in IAW and the Rhetorical Analysis Supplement.
Identify each author’s central claim and how he or she supports it (e.g., by citing other authors, by narrating experience, by including evidence he or she gathered through research, etc.).
Draft a thesis statement that reflects your evaluation of the two sources and what can be learned by comparing them (i.e., how they “shape up” compared to one another and what such a comparison illustrates about the relationship between academic and non-academic writing).
Completing the Process: Composing Your Essay
Academic research writing takes many forms. For this assignment, however, you will adopt a common organizational structure.
Introduction (Designed to frame your paper and provide context for the type of analysis that will follow, culminating in a clear, argumentative thesis statement.)
Thematic Background (Designed to build from Exercise I. How do these articles relate to our course theme? How do they relate to your specific topic/issue and to each other? How do they help you frame the conversation you’re hoping to enter into?)
Rhetorical Analysis (This is where you’ll present your analysis and comparison of the sources’ rhetorical features and overall effectiveness. This section will make up the bulk of your essay.)
Resolution (Designed to reinforce your thesis. Now that you’ve completed your analysis, what do these two sources and their approach to this issue tell us about the existing research on this topic? What do these sources reveal about how people in academia and/or the public media talk about this issue? What can you as an aspiring academic writer take away from comparing these two sources? What could you emulate from them? What might you avoid?)
Conclusion & Directions (Designed to gesture toward future action/research. What steps are next for you as a researcher? Based on what you’ve read so far, where is your research heading? How will you continue narrowing and refining your research project?)
