Analysis
- Due Sep 15, 2020 by 3:30pm
- Points 20
- Submitting a file upload
The analysis is a written document of approximately 1,200 words (no particular stylistic format is necessary) containing the following sections:
-
Purpose: Articulate the specific argument that this document makes and what it wants the reader or viewer to do. Keep in mind that many documents share a general goal; push to uncover the particular assertion this document makes.
-
Exigence: Discuss what has prompted this argument. Determine the issues, conversations, or historical events to which it responds, and identify the need in the situation that it addresses.
-
Context: Place the argument within a genre context and connect it with similar documents that function as a peer group (including if it directly responds to another text). Also discuss relevant information about the publication in which the argument appears.
-
Audience: Describe the argument's likely target and explain how its concrete features attempt to construct an image of this audience. Probably no text is "for anybody" or "for a general audience"; identify who actually would respond to the argument.
-
Strategies: Discuss the specific rhetorical strategies the document employs in order to sway the reader or viewer. Focus on fine-grained issues such as word choice, use of metaphor, use of color and imagery, and choices of document design. Classify these strategies in terms of their rhetorical appeals and their effects.
-
Medium: Discuss how the document uses its medium to suit its audience, context, or purpose.
-
Arrangement: Discuss how the document's material is sequenced and the effects of this arrangement.
- Evaluation: Determine if the document's argument is effective for the audience, context, and purpose you identify based on what you have uncovered about its strategies, medium, and arrangement. Identify any relevant logical fallacies that it contains. Discuss other intended or unintended effects the document has apart from persuasion.
Be certain to provide instructions for how to find this document or attach a copy. All sections should be thorough and informative. Analyses will be submitted as an electronic file in a common format (such as .pdf, .docx, or .pages).
Commented example analyses from previous students are available below but note that they do not respond to precisely the same assignment, so do not use them as direct models for your own work:
Find Rubric