Purpose and Content of Rhetorical Analysis Essay

30.04.2020

A rhetorical analysis essay is another type of written task that student has to make in the course of studies. When you write rhetorical analysis essays, you need to take a closer look at the problem you need to cover and give your personal opinion about it. To present your point of view you need to provide persuasive proofs. This type of essay is also included in the APE exam.

When you work on this essay, your main challenge will be to separate phrases or sentences one from another to see the author’s main idea, point out methods used to influence the audience. As an example, you can take a speech of a public figure. You will be able to carry out a reasonable evaluation if you take one specific article, see how parts in it are connected and form one whole text and render one idea.

Of course, each student wants to perform this task well. Answering the following questions, when writing your paper, will help you move in the right direction:

  • Which event or situation the author of the text under review describes to the reader
  • Who is the author of the original text?
  • What were the authors of the text under review’s main goal?
  • What kind of audience did the author aim at?
  • What kind of emotional coloring does the original text have?
  • Is there a similarity or difference between the form and the content of the original text?
  • Did the author manage to render his main idea with the text under analysis?

There are also requirements that you have to follow when you write rhetorical analysis essay:

  • Contain no grammatical mistakes
  • Specific
  • Comprehensible
  • Use present tense
  • Be related to the analyzed original text

Tips to compose a winning rhetorical analysis essay

Now, let’s see the ways to make your essay a winning one.

Get prepared

Before you start actually composing your essay, there are few preparatory steps you need to take to make sure everything goes the right way.

You should begin with learning the structure of your essay to make the most effective analysis of the original text.

You can use the so-called SOAPS. Let’s see what it means:

  • S stands for the subject. It means you should choose the topic that is interesting for you to analyze;
  • O stands for the occasion. It means other things that made you write about this topic other than it was assigned to you;
  • A stands for the audience. It means the group of people who you want to be the readers of your essay;
  • P stands for purpose. It means you should define the purpose of the author of the original text to compose the text under analysis.
  • S stands for the speaker (meaning you).

 

  • Create rhetorical stages: ethos, logos, pathos
  • Define the author’s methods to communicate with his audience
  • How do the author’s communication methods help to achieve his goal?
  • What made the author of the analyzed text choose these methods of communication?

You can also look for some examples of this type of essay in online sources. Do not be surprised if you find the structure similar to other types of essays. It really is. However, there are some differences.

What to begin with

When you start your rhetorical analysis essay you should try to grab the attention of your listeners or readers from the first sentences. There are different methods for doing that:

  • Tell a good story
  • Tell an anecdote
  • Present interesting facts/statistics
  • Provide a quote
  • Or a line from a poem
  • Give a comparison
  • Show contradiction
  • Ask a question
  • Use metaphor or simile

Whatever you choose to use, you should remember that the hood you are going to use must fit the content and topic of your essay. If you are talking about some serious topic a joke or an anecdote can be inappropriate.

Define your point of view

This is one of the most important stages of your work because here you will define your position toward the topic you are going to cover. In this part, you should also form your thesis statement. What it is? It is the argument you will try to prove further in your essay. Your thesis should always be objective. This is the best way to make your readers believe you.

Plan your analysis

This is the time to think about the research methods that will help you find solutions to the problem you are covering. Try to make it as simple as possible and not too bulky.

Select the suitable strategy

You will need to provide arguments to support your idea in any type of critical work. A good strategy will allow your grabbing attention to your essay at once and keep it till the end. If you already know what group of readers you will aim at – the next step is to define your target audience.

Why do you need ethos, pathos, and logos

These words may sound strange to you at first. However, they are the methods of persuasion created many centuries ago by Aristotle and used successfully until now. In this book, Aristotle described these methods of persuasion.

Ethos is about ethics

This term describes the level of credibility of the author to the topic he is going to cover. It means that the author needs to try to make their readers/listeners believe him.

Pathos is about emotions

This concerns the emotions aspect. That is how the audience reacts to the presented arguments. You should definitely develop an emotional response to your words.

Logos is about thinking rationally

If you want your audience to see and accept your point of you, you need to provide true persuasive arguments.

If this information seems rather unclear to you and you doubt in your writing skills, you can always find online help to compose a winning essay for you. Use our reputable service that has already helped thousands of students in completing their written assignments.

Compose and outline

Many different sources will tell you that the outline is important. And it really is. You don’t want to write a chaotic essay without a clear structure and your thoughts scattered around the entire text, do you? When you start making a plan, you will see your future essay clearers, and the inspiration will come at once!

Gather the necessary information

Gathering information does not only mean seeking information about the text you analyze. But also, about defining the writing style, you will use in the writing, defining your target reader and methods of attracting its attention.

Once this is done, your next step would be composing paragraphs.

Introduction

The introductory paragraph is the starting point of your essay. This is where you need to put all your efforts to catch the audience’s attention. In this part, you need to present the goal of your work and define your thesis statement.

You will probably have many ideas when working on your topic. To formulate a thesis statement you need to choose one, which, in your opinion, is the main one, and narrow it down. The thesis should be clear and concise.

Body paragraphs

The number of paragraphs in your essay will depend on the number of problems and supportive pieces of evidence to them. Organize the material you have well so that each paragraph contains a claim and strong evidence. However, keep in mind, that your essay should not be too wordy. If there is a ton of information, choose the most important and work with it. Best of all it is to define those three parts described above – pathos, logos, and epos.

You will find a lot of arguments in different sources that can support your thesis. However, you should only use credible sources of information. The data should not be outdated. Should you have not enough ideas to support your thesis, it is possible to present an opposing opinion. In this case, you will need to prove to your readers that is wrong using powerful proofs.

Conclusion paragraph

The main purpose of the conclusion is, to sum up, everything said above. You should also present your thesis. Remember, the thesis should not be word to word as it was in the intro part. Reword and paraphrase it.

In this part, you should be brief. Only summarizing the information said before. If you think that the topic requires continued research, you should mention it in this part.

A winning method is to include a call to action in your conclusion. It means you should give a piece of information that will move your audience to act. For this purpose, you can ask a question, expression, act.

7 Tips to write an A rhetorical analysis essay

If you want to succeed in writing your essay, use the 7 winning tips below:

  1. Before starting your essay, look through different examples to see how different they can be.
  2. New information should be only presented in the intro part and paragraphs. Never put it into conclusion. In the conclusive part, you only sum up and paraphrase what was said before.
  3. This is not the type of essay where you have to proof your point of you and persuade everyone it is correct. In the rhetorical analysis essay, you only analyze the topic in question.
  4. Word combo with In +… is a bad way to start your conclusion. If you want your academic writing to correspond to all the standards, try to avoid this.
  5. In your writing use different literary methods such as metaphor, comparison, similes, etc.
  6. When you finish writing the draft of your essay, it is time to check it for grammar, lexis, style, etc. You can use online tools for this purpose. It is also a good idea to ask your teacher for help. He/she will point out the mistakes you will need to correct if any.
  7. When you finish the final version of your essay, put it away for a day or two and then review it several times. You can also ask someone you have around to read the essay and give feedback.

Where to find good essay examples?

Rhetorical essay examples and tips you find at our website are very useful and can assist you when doing your assignment. However, if you still not feel confident enough about doing it by yourself, you can always get help from us.

Our online writing service provides assistance in composing all types of academic writing. We hire professional and talented authors only. With their experience of more than 10 years, you will get a professional paper on any topic.

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