Rhetorical Analysis Overview: A rhetorical analysis is an examination of how a writer uses language, images, and textual conventions to communicate his/her purpose to the reader

Rhetorical Analysis

Overview: A rhetorical analysis is an examination of how a writer uses language, images, and textual conventions to communicate his/her purpose to the reader. In this paper, you will analyze how the message is communicated by studying the text’s rhetorical strategies (such as appeals, content, structure, style, tone, diction). A close look at an author’s rhetorical strategies enables a deeper understanding of the author’s purposes, persona, and relationship with the audience as well as the effectiveness of the argument.

The paper: In this essay, you will choose one or two advertisements (or we will find them together in class– choice of advertisement is important to this assignment) to discuss. Consider that advertisers use various motivations and themes to speak to some very powerful desires, which may have absolutely very little to do with the specific products being sold. In your handout on “The Pitch,” Hugh Rank refers to the strategies of playing on our deep needs for these things as the “added values” segment of desire-stimulation.

Your ultimate goal for this assignment will be to describe the specific elements of the advertisement you have chosen and explain how these elements are crafted to make that product attractive to its intended audience. This will involve both a description of the ad’s look and an explanation of how the themes, settings, symbols, and character types in the ad work together, and how the advertiser has used logos, pathos, and ethos to persuade the consumer. Analysis should culminate in a thesis statement that you present in your introductory paragraph. You also need to provide a conclusion that reiterates this thesis idea.

Finally, you should choose an ad that includes enough detail so that you are able to fulfill the length requirements. You need to build your argument by connecting your description of the ad to your analysis of the ad’s purpose. By doing so, you will show your audience how you arrived at your conclusions through your analysis of the advertisement’s details. Assume that your audience can see the ad (note: this does not preclude you from describing the advertisement in detail) but that they do not fully understand how it works. Think of this as an examination of how communicators use language and conventions of text to effectively communicate their purpose and to communicate with an audience. This is an analysis of how the message is communicated—an examination of what the text’s rhetorical strategies (appeals, content, structure, style, tone, etc.) tell us about communicators’ purposes, their relationship with audiences, and the effectiveness of their argument or message.

Requirements: The final draft of this essay will be 2.5 – 3 pages long, typed and double-spaced.

You should use TWO OUTSIDE SOURCES to support your argument, and you should refer to these sources in your essay. You should also refer to Hugh Rank’s discussion of “The Pitch,” which will be provided on Canvas.