Modeling the Unit 2 Essay Invention Phase: Rhetorical Analysis of Audience and Presentation/Author and Purpose

Goals of Unit 2 Essay Assignment To understand how contextual research can increase our understanding of a text. To understand the differences between scholarly and general sources. To understand how representations and views of places, people, institutions, events, actions, issues, and ethics are subject to the author or source’s perspective, purpose, and source type. To understand the differences among individual experience, anecdotal evidence, observation, scholarly research, and aggregate data.

Your Point of View I-statements have no place in the essay; do not use the first person: “I think that…”. This is difficult. If the original essay is about [theme], then your paper is not about the theme. Instead, write on how well the author discusses the topic of your theme. You are writing about a piece of writing, not the original topic that was addressed. Thus, there is no argument. You are not agreeing or disagreeing with anything the author has to say.

What is a Rhetorical Analysis? An evaluation of another piece of writing. It uses critical thinking to assess the influence of a piece of writing and tells the readers how adequately the original writer communicated their points based on their background and purpose. Whether you agree with the piece or not is unimportant; you must remain objective while evaluating the writer’s style and effectiveness.

How does the CASM play in? There are two components in the paper: your CASM of the author’s content and your analysis of how well the author wrote about the theme (RAAP). The author’s voice is within the CASM sections; your voice is in the RAAP sections. Use signal phrases to introduce the author, then follow up with your analysis without using “I” phrases. Use the CASM to introduce your source before starting your rhetorical analysis. When you are assessing the strengths/weaknesses of your piece of writing, you will use the CASM as supporting evidence. The RAAP sections of your paper is more important than the CASM section; however, you must use content from the CASM to explain how the piece of writing was strong/weak.

Assessing Audience + Author

Assessing the Author

Author: Bg and Purpose What does the author/speaker do? Do they have college degree(s)? In which field(s)? Are they an expert in their field? Is their field/occupation related to the theme of the piece of writing? Do they have other publications? Do they publish on the topic of your article? Remember what the author says in their article (CASM). How does the credentials of the author affect the relevancy of their argument/writing? How might their credentials affect what they are arguing/saying? How might their credentials affect how they are writing? Analyze tone, evidence, level of formality, vocabulary, rhetorical appeals, and structure of your source material in order to try to determine the author’s presentation. Based on your answers, who do you think reads/watches this?

Audience: Publication and Presentation Google the publication of your source material. This may be a company, journal, publisher, or conference. Go on their website or Wikipedia. What is the mission/goal of the publication? Think about why the source material chose to publish here. What does this say about the source material? Based on the publisher only, what sort of people reads/watches the published materials (Intellectuals? Low- income? High school? United States citizens? Residents in Vietnam)? Why did the source material choose to publish here? What does this say about the source material?

All Together Now The goal is to compare RAAPs for both of your sources to determine the worthiness of your source material in understanding your topic. determine what issues, assumptions, biases, or concerns from the two writers’ environments make their way into the presentation of the topic? And what does each of the two texts want its reader/viewer/listener to take away from its portrayal of the event/issue/person/place/situation etc.? How is this different? How does it enhance your understanding of the topic? What specific position (political, ideological) does each source seem to be operating from, if it can be determined? How do you know? How does this affect the way the creator presents the source?

Questions? About the readings used for the Unit II essay? About MLA citations? About the essay assignment? About the GP or IP?