4.16 Planning an essay for the Rhetorical Analysis assignment

Overview of moves in Balko

audience + purpose: rallying readers of cato.org (group that already agrees with him) to the cause of defeating health care legislation

presents the other side’s arugment +> we need to have voverernment regulation of food

his side: no one between you and your waistline (this is not really what he argues = his real argument is directed toward health care, not regulating food choices)

use of the term “pep rally”

2. facts - about what the other side has done/tried to do

this information is presented more neutrally

ethos = I am objective

3. states his position in detail

on the surface this is logical, presents himself as the logical analyst

4.point:  too much responsiility by government for our own health weight

logos based paragraph , again, “objective report on government 

5. we’re becoming less responsible

examples in terms of “you” and “me” - pathos=> this is making us behave this way

6. logic -if 4+5 then we will be OK with “socialistic” healthcare => sets us up to go along with laws to restrict other consumer choices (but none of the examples have anything to do with healthcare)

7.  All these initiat ives are about taking responsibility away from the individual

8 his soultion = no “public” restrictions on what we ead (? gov has not proposed this

use of words “ownership /privacy socialism = pathos move

9 sum up his argument = about healthcare!

10 return to use of “we” = pathos move =>enlists audience in his position

Plan for a rhetorical analysis essay on Balko (to meet the requirements of this unit's assignment)

Each numbered point may take one or more paragraphs.  The numbers are to indicate the overall organization.

1. Introduction 

name the essay + author

present the They Say=> an overview of the the author's focus /purpose

identify the audience

state your assessement of the essay's rhetorical effectiveness + indication of points to support this assessment (your thesis)

2. In-depth development of features of the audience = their values, expectations and how they connect to the author's purpose

(Body of the essay = your argument for why Balko's essay is successful - or not- with his audience)

3. He argues an issue which is important to his audience 

4. he uses pathos successfully (couples moves which connect to readers' values wth his logos, uses words which his readers will react to : individual, socialism, pep rally, ownership etc

5. uses logos to give the audience a logical frame for the connections between increased gov regulation, personal responsiblity, and funding for healthcare

6. ethos

cites facts/demonstrates awareness of current issues to establish himself as an authority

uses "we" to establish himself as an insider

7.  critical evaluation = points about what does not work so well

this argument may not be so effective with outsiders because of the distance between of the examples in the argument (about market control) and the point he is arguing (about healthcare)

8.  conclusion = sum up what  works, what doesn't work + why

Here is the list of criteria we made for assessing how well essays for the assignment were doing:
Genre expectations;

• the essay discusses the rhetorical elements in terms of how they work (relationships); the rhetorical elements are audience, purpose, form, ethos, pathos, logos, etc.
• uses TS/IS language = attributes points from the essay to the author, uses mostly paraphrase, uses quotations when pointing to partiular language, refers to the author using the forms from the summary unit
• has an introduction which sets up the focus, and a conclusion which pulls the essay's together and draws the discussion to a close

Focus: 

• sets up a focus on the rhetorical effectiveness of the essay it is analyzing
• takes a position on the essay's effectiveness
• discusses rhetorical elements and their relationships

Organization:

• TS before IS
• logical order = presents background information before analysis 
• effectve use of paragraphing (one developed point per paragraph and each point needs to develop the overall focus in a different way)

Development:

• detailed examples/illustrations from the text under analysis to support claims

For next class:

Read: choose either Warner or Orbach for the focus of your rhetorical analysis

Write: Map of your essay's argument (as we did for Obama + Balko)