Provide a more sophisticated rhetorical analysis of one of the academic journal articles-Noonan Jr., John T “ Abortion in the American Context.” Human Life, Sum. 2017, pp. 11-19
Consider rhetorical choices like style, design, kairos, and more with audience analysis.
AUDIENCE: Who is the intended audience of the article? What assumptions, values, and beliefs would readers need to hold to find this argument persuasive?
PURPOSE: What might have motivated the author to write this article? What is the writer’s claim/main point? What impact does the author want to have on the audience?
GENRE: What journal was this article published in? What do you know about this journal and its target audience (you may need to do some research here)? How might the fact that this article was written for an academic journal have impacted the article’s content, length, and depth?
STYLE: How does the writer’s language choices and sentence length and complexity contribute to the impact of the argument? How formal or informal is the writing? How does the writer’s attitude toward the subject help or hurt the argument being made?
DESIGN: How do design elements such as layout and font sizes influence of the effect of the argument?
ETHOS: What do you know about the author based strictly on what you see in the article, not
from separate research? How does she/he establish her/his own credibility? Does the author acknowledge other perspectives on the topic or does she/he seem biased?
LOGOS: What facts, research, statistics help the author make her/his point? (
PATHOS: What specific emotions is the author trying to evoke in the audience to help make her/his point? What individual words help evoke these emotions?
KAIROS: Was the article written at a particularly appropriate time (consider month and/or year of publication and/or season?
_____________________________________________________________________
ORGANIZING YOUR ANALYSIS
Intro: Start off your analysis by introducing your article: its title, author, publication date, and the journal it was published in. Follow that with a summary of the article. Then, transition to your claim (thesis). Your claim is a single statement about the main point of your paper. Again, since our purpose in writing this paper is also to analyze the article, your claim will be something like: Smith made many sophisticated rhetorical choices to build her argument.
Body: In the body you analyze the rhetorical choices the author made in your article. Discuss each rhetorical device in either its own paragraph or combine similar ones. For example, it might be effective to combine your discussion of AUDIENCE, PURPOSE, and GENRE. And perhaps STYLE and DESIGN together. Discuss ETHOS, LOGOS, PATHOS, and KAIROS in their own paragraphs, so it doesn’t get confusing for the reader.
Again, remember the formula for developing these paragraphs:
For ethos, first provide a quote that is an example of ethos, then explain HOW it helps build either credibility, trust, fairmindedness, etc.
For logos, provide a quote that is an example of logos, then explain HOW it logically persuades the audience to see the author’s main point.
For pathos, provide a quote that is an example of pathos and what specific emotion it evokes and HOW evoking that emotion in the audience helps persuade them to see the author’s main point.
For kairos, simply discuss if the article was written at a particularly appropriate month, year, or season. If not, no need to discuss kairos at all.
Conclusion: In the conclusion, I’d like you to discuss in what way you feel the article could have been strengthened. What could have the author added to make her/his argument stronger? In order to answer that, I’d like you to do some additional research in the library databases. Find 2 other articles that discuss the same topic or a related one. Recommend one quote from each article that had they been included in your main article would have strengthened it. Provide the quote(s), then explain how exactly it would have strengthened the article. Only cite these articles in the conclusion, not in the body of the paper.
MLA: Be sure all research starts with a signal phrase and ends with a parenthetical citation.
Tone: Because this is an academic paper, try to maintain a more formal, objective tone. Avoid use of first person (I think, I feel…) and second person (You should read…)
Pages: 5 Sources: 3 or 4 (main article, 2 database sources cited in the conclusion, and maybe a source that helps you determine the target audience of the journal your article was written in).
This time as you analyze, you will also consider rhetorical choices like style, design, kairos, and more with audience analysis.
AUDIENCE: Who is the intended audience of the article? What assumptions, values, and beliefs would readers need to hold to find this argument persuasive?
PURPOSE: What might have motivated the author to write this article? What is the writer’s claim/main point? What impact does the author want to have on the audience?
GENRE: What journal was this article published in? What do you know about this journal and its target audience (you may need to do some research here)? How might the fact that this article was written for an academic journal have impacted the article’s content, length, and depth?
STYLE: How does the writer’s language choices and sentence length and complexity contribute to the impact of the argument? How formal or informal is the writing? How does the writer’s attitude toward the subject help or hurt the argument being made?
DESIGN: How do design elements such as layout and font sizes influence of the effect of the argument?
ETHOS: What do you know about the author based strictly on what you see in the article, not
from separate research? How does she/he establish her/his own credibility? Does the author acknowledge other perspectives on the topic or does she/he seem biased?
LOGOS: What facts, research, statistics help the author make her/his point? (
PATHOS: What specific emotions is the author trying to evoke in the audience to help make her/his point? What individual words help evoke these emotions?
KAIROS: Was the article written at a particularly appropriate time (consider month and/or year of publication and/or season?
_____________________________________________________________________
ORGANIZING YOUR ANALYSIS
Intro: Start off your analysis by introducing your article: its title, author, publication date, and the journal it was published in. Follow that with a summary of the article. Then, transition to your claim (thesis). Your claim is a single statement about the main point of your paper. Again, since our purpose in writing this paper is also to analyze the article, your claim will be something like: Smith made many sophisticated rhetorical choices to build her argument.
Body: In the body you analyze the rhetorical choices the author made in your article. Discuss each rhetorical device in either its own paragraph or combine similar ones. For example, it might be effective to combine your discussion of AUDIENCE, PURPOSE, and GENRE. And perhaps STYLE and DESIGN together. Discuss ETHOS, LOGOS, PATHOS, and KAIROS in their own paragraphs, so it doesn’t get confusing for the reader.
Again, remember the formula for developing these paragraphs:
For ethos, first provide a quote that is an example of ethos, then explain HOW it helps build either credibility, trust, fairmindedness, etc.
For logos, provide a quote that is an example of logos, then explain HOW it logically persuades the audience to see the author’s main point.
For pathos, provide a quote that is an example of pathos and what specific emotion it evokes and HOW evoking that emotion in the audience helps persuade them to see the author’s main point.
For kairos, simply discuss if the article was written at a particularly appropriate month, year, or season. If not, no need to discuss kairos at all.
Conclusion: In the conclusion, I’d like you to discuss in what way you feel the article could have been strengthened. What could have the author added to make her/his argument stronger? In order to answer that, I’d like you to do some additional research in the library databases. Find 2 other articles that discuss the same topic or a related one. Recommend one quote from each article that had they been included in your main article would have strengthened it. Provide the quote(s), then explain how exactly it would have strengthened the article. Only cite these articles in the conclusion, not in the body of the paper.
MLA: Be sure all research starts with a signal phrase and ends with a parenthetical citation.
Tone: Because this is an academic paper, try to maintain a more formal, objective tone. Avoid use of first person (I think, I feel…) and second person (You should read…)
Pages: 5 Sources: 3 or 4 (main article, 2 database sources cited in the conclusion, and maybe a source that helps you determine the target audience of the journal your article was written in).
This time as you analyze, you will also consider rhetorical choices like style, design, kairos, and more with audience analysis.
AUDIENCE: Who is the intended audience of the article? What assumptions, values, and beliefs would readers need to hold to find this argument persuasive?
PURPOSE: What might have motivated the author to write this article? What is the writer’s claim/main point? What impact does the author want to have on the audience?
GENRE: What journal was this article published in? What do you know about this journal and its target audience (you may need to do some research here)? How might the fact that this article was written for an academic journal have impacted the article’s content, length, and depth?
STYLE: How does the writer’s language choices and sentence length and complexity contribute to the impact of the argument? How formal or informal is the writing? How does the writer’s attitude toward the subject help or hurt the argument being made?
DESIGN: How do design elements such as layout and font sizes influence of the effect of the argument?
ETHOS: What do you know about the author based strictly on what you see in the article, not
from separate research? How does she/he establish her/his own credibility? Does the author acknowledge other perspectives on the topic or does she/he seem biased?
LOGOS: What facts, research, statistics help the author make her/his point? (
PATHOS: What specific emotions is the author trying to evoke in the audience to help make her/his point? What individual words help evoke these emotions?
KAIROS: Was the article written at a particularly appropriate time (consider month and/or year of publication and/or season?
_____________________________________________________________________
ORGANIZING YOUR ANALYSIS
Intro: Start off your analysis by introducing your article: its title, author, publication date, and the journal it was published in. Follow that with a summary of the article. Then, transition to your claim (thesis). Your claim is a single statement about the main point of your paper. Again, since our purpose in writing this paper is also to analyze the article, your claim will be something like: Smith made many sophisticated rhetorical choices to build her argument.
Body: In the body you analyze the rhetorical choices the author made in your article. Discuss each rhetorical device in either its own paragraph or combine similar ones. For example, it might be effective to combine your discussion of AUDIENCE, PURPOSE, and GENRE. And perhaps STYLE and DESIGN together. Discuss ETHOS, LOGOS, PATHOS, and KAIROS in their own paragraphs, so it doesn’t get confusing for the reader.
Again, remember the formula for developing these paragraphs:
For ethos, first provide a quote that is an example of ethos, then explain HOW it helps build either credibility, trust, fairmindedness, etc.
For logos, provide a quote that is an example of logos, then explain HOW it logically persuades the audience to see the author’s main point.
For pathos, provide a quote that is an example of pathos and what specific emotion it evokes and HOW evoking that emotion in the audience helps persuade them to see the author’s main point.
For kairos, simply discuss if the article was written at a particularly appropriate month, year, or season. If not, no need to discuss kairos at all.
Conclusion: In the conclusion, I’d like you to discuss in what way you feel the article could have been strengthened. What could have the author added to make her/his argument stronger? In order to answer that, I’d like you to do some additional research in the library databases. Find 2 other articles that discuss the same topic or a related one. Recommend one quote from each article that had they been included in your main article would have strengthened it. Provide the quote(s), then explain how exactly it would have strengthened the article. Only cite these articles in the conclusion, not in the body of the paper.
MLA: Be sure all research starts with a signal phrase and ends with a parenthetical citation.
Tone: Because this is an academic paper, try to maintain a more formal, objective tone. Avoid use of first person (I think, I feel…) and second person (You should read…)
Pages: 5 Sources: 3 or 4 (main article, 2 database sources cited in the conclusion, and maybe a source that helps you determine the target audience of the journal your article was written in).
*See the MLA handout for citing your database sources. *Don’t forget article titles go in quotes and journal and database titles go in italics. Also, the rhetorical choices don’t need to be in all caps.
