Rhetorical analysis

The following suggestions are intended to help you conduct a rhetorical analysis of a written text. They are not intended as an outline of what your paper should look like:

1. Begin by assuming that the text you are analyzing is an argument--that it is trying to persuade you of something or to make you understand the author's point of view.

2. For rhetorical analysis, the primary questions you should ask are, "By what means does this author know the truth of her statements, and by what means does she undertake to persuade the reader of it?" Your task is NOT to determine whether the text tells the truth, but rather to discover its methods for discovering and explaining what it asserts as the truth.

a. Ask yourself, too, what evidence the author provides, e.g.,

Secondary sources?

Primary research?

Personal reflection/observation?

b. And how does she establish that this evidence actually supports her argument--or does she assume that you, the reader, automatically agree that this evidence is valid and sufficient?

c. Does she acknowledge counterevidence? "Counterevidence" can be alternative interpretations or points of view; it can be the author's own doubts about her argument; or it can be evidence that would seem to contradict or undermine her argument. If she does acknowledge counterevidence, does she deal with it fairly and thoroughly, or does she give it short shrift?

d. What audience does she seem to expect will read this piece? What textual clues tip you off to her expected audience?

e. Attention to word choices and the arrangement of ideas should provide you with insightful material. Often such inquiry will reveal argumentative methods that the author may not have even been consciously using but that nevertheless affect the reader's understanding of and response to the material.

f. You should also consider what the author leaves out as potentially revelatory; consider the means whereby the author selects what is meaningful and what is not--and what that means for the attempt to persuade you, the reader.

3. You may want to compare the rhetorical methods of the book with those of other works.

4. Having collected and analyzed the materials of rhetorical analysis, you have the option of considering whether the book is of value to you or what its position is on the issues it addresses. If you choose to include these considerations, you must be careful to subordinate them to the rhetorical analysis that is your assignment.

Once you have completed this analysis, you are ready to begin writing your paper. As you do so, consider what your own argument will be, and what evidence you will offer in support of it. Since you are writing this paper for an academic audience, you should not suppress counterevidence to your argument. An academic paper is usually expected not to persuade the audience at all costs but to enlighten the audience about the complexities of the issue. In counterevidence lies complexity.

For a more wide-ranging introduction to techniques of rhetorical analysis, see Andrew R. Cline's alphabetically ordered guide.