WRITING A
RHETORICAL
ANALYSIS
WHAT IS A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS?
• An examination of how a text persuades
us of its point of view.
• An application of your critical reading
skills to break down the “whole” of a text
into the sum of its “parts.”
• An attempt to determine what the writer
is trying to achieve, and what writing
strategies he/she is using to try to achieve
it.
READING CRITICALLY
• Analyzing and understanding how the work achieved its effect.
• Questions to consider:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
What is the general subject? Does the subject mean anything to
you? Is the subject a controversial one?
What is the thesis? How does the thesis interpret/comment on the
subject?
What is the tone of the text? Do you react at an emotional level to
the text? Does this reaction change at all throughout the text?
What is the writer’s purpose? To explain, inform, anger, persuade,
amuse, motivate, sadden, ridicule? Is there more than one
purpose? Does the purpose shift throughout the text?
How does the writer develop his/her ideas? Narration, description,
comparison, analogy, cause and effect, example? Why does the
writer use these methods of development?
QUESTIONS CONT.
6. How does the writer arrange his/her ideas? What are the
patterns of arrangement? Particular to general? Broad to
specific? Spatial? Chronological? Alternating?
7. Is the text unified and coherent? Are there adequate
transitions? How do the transitions work?
8. What is the sentence structure like in the text? Does the writer
use fragments or run-ons? Declarative, imperative,
interrogative, exclamatory? Compound, complex, compoundcomplex? Short, long, loose, periodic, balanced, parallel? Are
there patterns in the sentence structure? Can you make any
connections between the patterns and the writer’s purpose?
9. Does the writer use dialogue, quotations? To what effect?
10. How does the writer use diction? Is it formal? Informal? Jargon?
Slang?
QUESTIONS CONT.
11. Is the language connotative? Denotative? Is the language
emotionally evocative? Does the language change throughout
the piece?
12. How does the language contribute to the writer’s aim?
13. Is there anything unusual in the writer’s punctuation? What
punctuation or other techniques of emphasis (italics, capitals,
underlining, ellipses, parentheses) does the writer use? Is
punctuation over- or under used? Which marks does the writer
use when, and for what effects? Dashes to create a hasty
breathlessness? Semi-colons for balance or contrast?
14. Are important terms repeated throughout the text? Why?
15. Are there any particular vivid images that stand out? What
effect do these images have on the writer’s purpose?
QUESTIONS CONT.
16.Are devices of comparison used to convey or
enhance meaning? Which tropes: similes,
metaphors, personification, hyperbole, etc. does the
writer use? When does he/she use them? Why?
17. Does the writer use devices of humor? Puns? Irony?
Sarcasm? Understatement? Parody? Is the effect
comic relief? Pleasure? Hysteria? Ridicule?
WHAT DOES IT FOCUS ON?
• Identifying and investigating the way a text
communicates
• What strategies it employs to
• Connect to an audience
• Frame an issue
• Establish its stakes
• Make a particular claim, support it, and persuade the
audience to accept the claim.
• It is not an analysis of what a text says, but of what
strategies it uses to communicate effectively.
HOW TO BEGIN
• Begin your analysis with what the text says – its
argument.
• The work of the essay is to show how the text persuades
us of its position.
• Think of the piece as an engine whose machinations
produce particular results.
• An analysis of the engine examines all the parts, how
they work in isolation and together to see how the
engine does what it does, or makes what it makes.
THE PROCESS OF WRITING
• FIRST STAGE: pouring out our first impressions, our
“first take on a text or subject.
• Draft, notes or outline
• Describe the general meaning/message of piece.
• Do the same for more specific, particular effects.
• The begin your examination of the piece’s
strategies by looking at whether/ how the work
signals in any way its audience, purpose, and
context.
THE PROCESS OF WRITING
• STAGE TWO: identify the most prominent strategies the
piece uses to produce the meaning/ effect you have
described.
• Use of terms and concepts such as: Aristotelian
appeals, metaphor, metonymy, analogy, tone,
diction, syntax, etc.
• Look in particular for any patterns that are developed
by the work.
• Decide what seem to be the most important elements
of the work for you – that is, identify what is for you
the most striking, meaningful effects of the work and
methods used to achieve them (will help hone in on a
thesis).
THE PROCESS OF WRITING
• STAGE THREE: craft a few sentences that explain why,
in your view, the piece works the way it does.
• Try to craft these sentences so that they set up, first, a
description of what the meaning/effect of the piece is,
and, second, what strategies, elements, etc. help
produce that meaning/effect.
• Then isolate the textual evidence you will use –
probably only a portion of what you have noted.
THE PROCESS OF WRITING
• STAGE FOUR: write the draft.
• Make sure you give your thesis or an indication of your
thesis early.
• You can give the whole argument up front, pose a
question you’ll explore, whose answer will be your
thesis, or give us a general version of your thesis
that you’ll refine by the end of your essay.
RHETORICAL ANALYSIS QUESTION
• How does the author use rhetorical strategies to convey
his/her message?