ENG, Allegheny: Rhetorical Analysis

The rhetorical situation is the communicative context of a text, which includes:

Audience: The specific or intended audience of a text.

Author/speaker/writer: The person or group of people who composed the text.

Purpose: To inform, persuade, entertain; what the author wants the audience to believe, know, feel, or do.

Exigence: The text’s reason for being, such as an event, situation, or position within an ongoing debate that the writer is responding to.

Message: The content of the text, the key point(s) the author is communicating to the audience.

Medium and genre: The delivery method, which includes broadly and narrowly defined categories of communication such as:

• Alphabetic text (newspaper editorials, peer-reviewed academic articles, magazine feature essays),
• Images (advertisements, photographs),
• Sound (speeches, radio commercials, songs),
• Multimodal texts (YouTube videos, performances, graphic novels).

(University of Illinois)

How Do I Know if the Author is Using Pathos, Logos or Ethos?

Pathos—does the writer appeal to the emotions of their reader?

• Do they use individuals’ stories to “put a face” on the problem you’re exploring? For example, using an individual’s story about losing their home during the mortgage crisis of the 2008 Recession may be more powerful than using only statistics.
• Do they use charged language or words that carry appropriate connotations? For example, if a writer describes a gun as a “sleek, silver piece of sophisticated weaponry,” they are delivering a much different image than if she writes, “a cold hunk of metal, dark and barbaric and ready to kill.”

Logos—does the writer appeal to the rational mind by using logic and evidence?

• Do they include facts and statistics that support their point? It’s more convincing to tell the reader that “80% of students have committed some form of plagiarism,” than simply saying that “Lots of students have plagiarized.”
• Do they walk us through the logical quality of their argument? Do they show us how ideas connect in a rational way? For example: “English students have been able to raise their overall grade by meeting with peer tutors, so it’s safe to assume that math students could also benefit from frequent tutoring sessions.” This example points out that logically, if the result has been seen in one situation, then it should be seen in a different but similar situation.
• Do they avoid logical fallacies? A few examples of these are:
  • Hasty generalizations: “Even though the movie just started, I know it’s going to be boring.”
  • Slippery Slope: “If the government legalizes marijuana, eventually they’ll legalize all drugs.”
  • Circular Argument: “Barack Obama is a good communicator because he speaks effectively.”

Ethos—is this writer trustworthy?

• What are their credentials? Are they an expert in the field? Have they written past essays, articles or books about this topic?
• Do they use reputable sources? Do they support her statements with sources from established publications like The New York Times or a government census report? Do they fail to mention any sources?
• Are they a fair-minded person who has considered all sides of this issue? Have they acknowledged any common ground they share with the opposite side? Do they include a counterargument and refutation?

(St. Louis Community College)