Write an essay that analyzes whether we should agree with an authors main point (opinion, idea, or point of view) or not. The reasons for agreeing or disagreeing should be based on the actual evidence and examples of support given in the text, and not on unsupported opinions or automatic reactions (even if they are your own). Explain how the authors use (or the absence) of the rhetorical appeals of logos, pathos, and ethos is sound, effective, persuasive; or is illogical, manipulative, untrustworthy.
Your paper must evaluate the authors use of the rhetorical appeals, not just identify them. A rhetorical analysis is not a summary of the text. You must state a clear thesis in the introduction and clear points at the beginnings of body paragraphs. Your paper should offer quotes from the text, in order to support your evaluation of how persuasive or unpersuasive an author is in convincing people to agree with their opinion.
While this assignment is an analytical college paper, your explanations should still make common sense to the average reader. So if you find the authors support and evidence to be strong and logical, but dont think that readers should agree, youll need to clearly explain why not. On the other hand, if you say that readers should agree with an author based on the emotional appeal of the examples, but there is little factual information, youll need to justify how thats not emotional manipulation. And if the support is untrustworthy, but you still say that readers should agree, youll need to explain the reasons why that should be overlooked. Remember, your readers also have to feel that your recommendation is trustworthy (your own ethos), so it has to make sense to them.
Classical persuasion is based on the idea that in order to have the most effective argument, all of the rhetorical appeals should be strong. So if you want the readers of your analysis to see an author’s opinion as persuasive, you want to show that the author is strong in all of the appeals; if there’s weakness in one area (or if one appeal is absent), you need to explain why that doesn’t matter, and/or how the author already has a convincing argument. By the same token, classical persuasion also believes that ineffective arguments are weak in all of the rhetorical appeals. So if you think that the reader should not agree with an author’s opinion, but the authors evidence is strong in one of the appeals, you need to explain why that doesn’t matter, and/or how that strength is actually negative (such as a fallacy, propaganda, manipulative, or untrustworthy).
Below are some templates for possible ways to clearly state the thesis. Remember, however, that your specific thesis will depend on what you are saying in your paper.
The articles logical, emotional, and ethical appeals are strong/weak and convince/ dont convince readers to agree with the authors main point that _____.
The author used strong ethos, pathos, and logos to convince the audience that ____.
Even though the author has a strong ____ appeal, their weak _____ appeals make their overall argument that _____ unconvincing.
Even though the author has a weak ____ appeal, their strong _____ appeals make their overall argument that _____ convincing.
For this paper, choose one of the following texts or videos:
Poisoned Water (documentary film)
“Flint Kids: Tragic, Resilient, and Exemplary”
“Environmental Racism”
“Standing Rock, Flint, and the Color of Water”
“The Youth Group That Launched a Movement at Standing Rock”
“Upstream from Standing Rock”
“An Oil Boom Is a Power Boon”
As part of your evaluation, you might also choose to research the background information or credibility of the author/filmmaker and/or publisher. The purpose of additional sources is to augment your analysis of whether readers should agree or not with the main point of the text that you’re focusing on; in other words, this is not a compare and contrast paper, nor a research paper. This paper requires close reading of one text.
Another option: Toulmin or Rogerian argument analysis
Although we have been focusing heavily on the classic rhetorical appeals (an Aristotelian model of persuasion), this is not the only method of persuasion. Authors can also try to use other organization structures to convince their readers; the most well-known of these are the Toulmin and Rogerian models. If you prefer, you can take the option of analyzing the author’s argument in one of the assigned texts using the Toulmin or Rogerian models instead, but you must inform me ahead of time that you are doing this option for your essay.
What Im looking for
Standard essay organization
Introduction paragraph – gives necessary background information (title and brief summary of the text, authors name), and states what you think the author’s main point (opinion or idea) is
Thesis statement – at the end of the introduction paragraph, evaluates the rhetorical appeals, and avoids the common mistakes of the matter-of-fact, wishy-washy, duh, hazy, or screaming thesis
PIE body paragraphs
Begin with a clear point that connects the paragraph to the thesis (something like: The authors use of logos/pathos/ethos is strong/effective/persuasive/ weak/illogical/manipulative/untrustworthy, which makes their argument convincing/unconvincing.)
Then directly quote information, images or passages from the text (or visual details or sound from a film), framed in quotation sandwiches with MLA formatted in-text citations
End by clearly explaining how the quotes are a strong or weak appeal to logos, pathos, and ethos, and how that convinces readers to agree or disagree with the authors main point
Conclusion paragraph – wrap up the paper
Restate the thesis, at the beginning of the conclusion paragraph
MLA formatted Works Cited page
Remember that revision of drafts is required, especially if your first draft is more like a vomit draft and less like a polished draft.
Requirements
3 (or more) complete, typed and double spaced pages, with 1-inch margins, in a standard 12 point font (like Times or Arial), with MLA style formatting and citations, and essay formatting (a creative title, an introduction with a thesis, body paragraphs with points, a conclusion, and Works Cited page)
Look at the Laulima checklists for due dates.
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