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Essay # 1âCritical Rhetorical Analysis (CRA) of a Speech
Task: Select a written speech worthy of rhetorical analysis (i.e., a text that will reward your in- depth examination). Write an in-depth Critical Rhetorical Analysis of that text.
Length : 1250-1500 words, 5-6 (double-spaced) pages
Reader-Ready Revision, Due SES # Bring 4 copies for Workshop
Mandatory Revision, Due SES # This version includes Works Cited, Postwrite, Workshop Acknowledgments, and Writing Center Acknowledgements
Optional Revision, Due SES #
- Must have at least 250 additional words in boldface type
- Must have a new Postwrite with 2 headings (âWhat I Changedâ and âWhat I Learned About Rhetoric by Revising This Essayâ)
Goals
- To examine a speech deeply and thoroughly
- To use and explore the tools of in-depth rhetorical analysis
- To use explicitly rhetorical strategies and techniques to persuade a mixed audience (us) that your insights into the text and into rhetoric are valid
- To tell us things about the speech and about rhetoric that are not obvious to the casual reader of the speech
- As always, to create new knowledge about texts and genres
Possible texts
- Select a meaningful speechâa good place to start looking is American Rhetoric http://www.americanrhetoric.com/
- There are many speeches that are eminently fruitful for a CRA that are not as famous as ones like Kingâs âI Have a Dream:â and Lincolnâs âGettysburg Address.â
- Itâs your responsibility to select a speech that has enough material for you to say significant things about.
Directions: How to Write a Critical Rhetorical Analysis (CRA)
An Essay of Critical Rhetorical Analysis systematically examines 1 unit of analysis and I fruitful passage in order to accomplish the following tasks:
- To see how rhetoric operates in a text
- to deeply explore how a particular unit of analysis works to achieve the textâs purpose(s)
- to do a close reading of one key passage (1-2 paragraphs)
- to answer a significant Research Question about the nature and function of rhetoric
Research question. The research question is what you want to find out about rhetoric by studying a particular text. The Research Question guides your analysis of the text. Your essay should contribute to our understanding of how rhetorical processes work as well as to our understanding of the text itself.
- Audience interest is generated by your Research Question about rhetoric.
- The Research Question must be stated explicitly as a question (with a question mark at the end, not buried in a that -clause).
- The Research Question must be stated in general terms (i.e., it does not name the specific rhetor nor the specific situation of the text you are dealing with) o because the insight into rhetoric that you develop (your thesis) should be applicable to more than just the one text that you are analyzing o because you should be able to expand your essay by adding a 2nd^ text that illustrates (and answers) the same question with some minor variations - NO: âHow does Plato use imagery to build a convincing argument about the nature of reality in â The Allegory of the Caveâ ?â - YES âHow does a rhetor use imagery to build a convincing case about an abstract topic ?â
- Here are some sample research questions: o âWhat devices does a liberal rhetor use to convince conservatives that a particular policy is necessary?â o âWhat techniques can a rhetor use to build ethos when writing on a controversial topic?â o âWhat specific devices can a rhetor use to create appeals to pathos in his/her audience?â o âWhat types of metaphors does a rhetor use to convince the audience of his/her emotionally charged position?â o âWhat rhetorical strategies does a minority rhetor use to achieve legitimacy for his/her cause?â
Select one of the following Unit of Analysis (again, itâs your responsibility to select the one that reveals the most about your particular speech):
- Logos (appeals to the audienceâs reason and logic)
- Pathos (appeals to audienceâs emotions)
- Ethos (techniques that make readers believe what is said because they trust the personality of the rhetor reveal in the text)
- Metaphor and other forms of comparison (analogy, similes)
- Tone (e.g., Irony, Sarcasm, Academic, Sentimental)
- Types of evidence used (& their effect)
Procedure
- You create a Research Question in one of following ways: o You have a question about rhetoric in mind even before you read the text o Or you find something rhetorical that puzzles you in the text o Or in the process of looking at all the units of analysis that you have collected, a question forms in your mind.
- Read that text carefully, noting various units of analysis. To illustrate, weâll talk about John Doeâs essay.
- Then go through the text again, looking for and listing all examples of each unit. For instance, if you were looking for metaphors, you would make a list of all the metaphors in the text.
- Then categorize them--e.g., in Doeâs essay o Metaphors that compare clowns to inanimate objects o Metaphors that compare other people to clowns o Metaphors that compare aspects of Doeâs personality to clowns.
a. Think about the specific rhetorical situation your rhetor facedâwhat was he or she expected to say in such a situation and where (if anywhere) does he or she not fulfill those expectations? Why didnât he/she?
- Use the rhetorical canon of Style (as Wayne Booth does below in a short piece on Crick and Watson) to explore various ways the rhetor might have said something and then speculate about why he chose the method used a. For instance, Booth writes
They [Crick and Watson] open, for example, with
âWe wish to suggest a structureâ that has â novel features which are of considerable biological interest .â (My italics, of course)
Why didnât they say, instead: âWe shall here demonstrate a startling, totally new structure that will shatter everyoneâs conception of the biological world?â Well, obviously, their rhetorical choice presents an ethos much more attractive to most cautious readers than does my exaggerated alternative. A bit latter they say
âWe have made the usual chemical assumptions, namelyâŚ.â
Why didnât they say, â As we all know âŚâ? Both expressions acknowledge reliance on warrants, commonplaces within a given rhetorical domain. But their version sounds more thoughtful and authoritative, especially with the word âchemical.â
b. Exploring alternate phrasings can reveal a lot about ethos, style, and the rhetorâs vision of his/her audience.
- If you find metaphors or similes, there are two key analytical terms that you need to use explicitly -- tenor and vehicle. Every image has the part that the rhetor assumes is known to us (the vehicle) and a part that the rhetor assumes we donât know at all or well or donât know in the way he/she wants us to know it (the tenor)
- To analyze an image is to focus your attention on all the elements of the vehicle, to explain which ones apply and which donât and to explain how the rhetor keeps the unintended ones from popping into our minds.
Potential Pitfalls of Any Analytical Essay
- PitfallâAsserting rather than proving. Avoid saying âX makes us believe Y.â Explain, give proof: âX makes us believe Y becauseâŚâ
- Pitfall--inability to go beyond the obvious.
- How do you know you are stating the obvious? If the idea came to you when you first read the text, itâs probably obvious.
- Donât settle for your first impression or insight. Push deeper, speculate, consider other possible ways the rhetor might have said things and the reasons why he/she chose the phrasings and approaches he/she did. 3. Pitfall--Lazy structure. Too often, we simply follow the organization of the text we are analyzing. But that organization was devised for that text and that rhetorâs purpose (to convince), not for our essay or our purpose (to analyze).
- Avoid âDoe creates his ethos in many ways. In the first paragraph, heâŚ. In the second paragraph heâŚ.â
- Instead, do analysis. Hereâs an example: o âDoe creates his ethos by using humor and by alluding to Mark Twain and Winston Churchill. For example, he jokes about X (par. 28), a comment which derives much of its humor from his earlier remark about Y (par.16). These jokes remind of us of his earlier references to Woody Allen (par. 3) and to John Stewart (par. 2) and show us that âŚ.
4. Pitfall--Lack of explicitness. Stick with ideas. For example, if you make a point that a
particular quotation or allusion adds to the rhetorâs ethos, explain explicitly what that ethos is and how that quotation or allusion adds to it. Simply asserting that it is so is not proving.
5. Pitfall--Audience boredom. Make your essay interesting
- Avoid making it a laundry list of the occurrences of a unit of analysis o Not : âDoe uses 15 metaphors. The first metaphor is Q âquote metaphor.â The second metaphor is R âquote metaphor. The thirdâŚâ o Instead, do analysis (e.g., âDoeâs 15 metaphors fall into two categoriesâclichĂŠs and absurd comparisons. â or âDoeâs 15 metaphors perform one of two functionsâeither they create an emotional appeal or they make a startling comparison.â) o Make your own style interestingâvary sentence structures, use rhetorical devices where appropriate, etc.
- Pitfall--Point of view. Use first-person plural ( we/us/our )-- not the reader or the listener or you âsince we all tend to mix pronouns, when you are at the editing stage, use FIND for reader, listener, you and replace them.
- Pitfall--Focusing on the impact on the original audience
- Usually we donât know (or donât know accurately) how the original audience reacted
- Rhetorical critics focus on the rhetoric in the text and on what its purpose(s) seem to be.
o Never say âThis metaphor makes the audience feel sad becauseâŚââwe
cannot know how the audience felt, so claiming that we do undercuts our ethos.
o Instead, say âThis metaphor seems to be intended to make us feel sad because âŚâ
- The only time to use âthe readersâ or âthe listenersâ is when talking about the original audience, and the only time you should be talking about his original audience is when you talk about their expectations in your Introduction
- PitfallâSeepage. Keep material in the section where it belongs.
- PitfallâThe smorgasbord approach. As we get better at analyzing rhetorically, we see more and more stuff to talk about. But the point of every act of rhetorical criticism is to say more about less rather than less about more. You create knowledge by exploring a few things deeply.
- PitfallâPraising or attacking. Saying things like âbrilliantâ or âridiculousâ undercuts your own ethos as a rhetorical critic. Keep evaluation comments out of the Summary and Analysis section. You might give a bit of praise or blame in the Introduction as part of the reason why the text you are examining is worth examining. And evaluation (as long as you have given evidence to support it) is appropriate in the Reflection section.
- Pitfall--Believing data collection is the point. If all you can do is to point out that there are 20 examples of parallelism or 12 metaphors, then you havenât done analysis (youâve done counting). Collecting raw data is not enoughâit is the significance of that data that is the new knowledge that you are creating. Significance includes the rhetorâs assumptions revealed by the data, the rhetorâs beliefs about his/her audience as
o List specific places where you used logos o What types of evidence did you use?
- How I used Style o List specific stylistic things that you did
Workshop Acknowledgements (this section is included only in the Mandatory Revision) Here you tell me explicitly who gave what good advice, who didnât give good advice, etc. Here is a brief sample:
- Student X advised me to use more quotations to prove my points. blah blah
- Student Y pointed out thatâŚetc.
- Student W didnât really give any useful advice
Writing Center Acknowledgements: (this section is included only in the Mandatory Revision). Tell me explicitly who you worked with in the Center and what advice she/he gave:
- Amanda asked me questions that helped me see some other implications of the rhetorâs use ofâŚ, particularly x and y. She alsoâŚ.
- Although I asked Eric to help with my organization, all he focused on was grammar, so he wasnât really much help. Note: for both Workshop and Writing Center Acknowledgements, it is important to say who was not helpful as well as saying who was helpful.
Documentation Format:
- Quotations should be introduced and then commented upon. For each quotation or reference to a text, use MLA in-text citations o According to Doe, âblah blahâ (34). o Supporting this idea is the belief that âblah blahâ (Doe 34).
- At the end of your essay, you need a Works Cited : here you list the text(s) you used in your essay; and list the sources alphabetically by authorâs last name.
So the 1st^ page of your all versions of your essay (RRR and Mandatory Revision and Optional Revision) should look like this:
Your Name + email address
Date A Meaningful Title: A Meaningful Subtitle
Then skip 2 lines and start your essay.
After the last sentence of your essay, skip 3 lines and then give Works Cited, etc. Here is what he last page of the Mandatory Revision looks like this:
Last sentences of your essay Blah blah.
Works Cited Blah blah
Workshop Acknowledgement: blah blah
Writing Center Acknowledgement: blah blah
Postwrite: blah blah
