Unpacking Choices Writers Make:

Writing a Rhetorical Analysis

Writing [and multimodal production] doesnt just happen. It occurs when people encounter a
situation that calls on them to write when they experience the sense that something is lacking,
something needs to be paid attention to, something needs to be said.
John Trimbur, The Call to Write

Overview: Three Factors at Play

1. How writers interpret the rhetorical situation to which theyre responding
2. How writers choose genres to respond to the rhetorical situation

3. How writers craft rhetorical stances to respond to the rhetorical situation

Step 1: Close Reading

Describe how formal organization or visual design embodies the writers/producers
purposes. Suspend your judgment about the writers ideas and/or the quality of the writing in
order to examine the writers purposes and the formal organization of the essay. You should be
focused on description and analysis rather than evaluation. Ask How does a piece of writing or
new media cue readers/audience members to its purposes and seek to involve them in grasping
and responding to its main themes?
Ask background questions.
Context of Issues: What do you know about the topic? Where can you learn more?
What are the main issues? What is at stake in these discussions? What are the main
positions being taken on this issue?
The Writer or Designer: What do you know about the writer or designer? Are they
authoritative and credible? What political, social, cultural, or other commitments is the
writer or designer known for? How are these commitments likely to influence the
argument or design? How do these commitments relate to your own views?
Publication or Location: Who is the publisher/host? Does it have an institutional
affiliation? Does it espouse an identifiable political, social, cultural, economic, or
religious ideology? Who would be likely to read the publication? Consider sponsors,
programing, and network.
Audience: Who is the intended audience? Is the writer addressing one group of readers
or more than one? Is the writer trying to bring an audience into being? What kind of
relationship is the writer trying to establish with readers? What assumptions about
readers does the writer seem to make?

English 201

Step 2: Rhetorical Analysis Design

1. Introduction Presents the topic and purpose of the analysis. Establishes main themes and
focus of attention.
2. Background. Provides information on the context of the issues, the writer or designer, the
publication or place in which the work appears, and the audience.
3. Description. Summarizes print texts and/or describes their patterns of development.
Describes the various components of multimodal compositions and how they are organized.
4. Analysis of Rhetorical Situation. Explains how writer or designer defined the rhetorical
situation and decided how to respond to its call to write.
5. Analysis of Genre Choice. Explains why the writer or designer chose a particular genre and
the expectations genres call up on the readers part.
6. Analysis of Rhetorical Stance. Explains how the writer or designer coordinated the
rhetorical appealsethos, pathos, and logos. Considers style and tone in writing and visual
design.
7. Ending. Provides a qualified sense of closure by pointing out implications and wider
significance of the main themes, connecting themes to wider contexts of issues, and
reevaluating themes in light of the rhetorical analysis.

Rhetorical Analysis Concepts

Genre: the various types of writing/media people draw on to respond to the call to write. An
understanding of how various genres of writing work and when they are appropriate gives
writers a range of choices so that they can respond flexibly to the call to write.
Rhetorical Appeals: the available means of persuasion available in any given rhetorical
situation, the resources that representation writersand sign makers more generallyrely on to
put their version of reality across.
Ethos: considers the writers character as it is projected to readers, including
personality, attitude, tone. Ethos refers to the persona the writer constructs and the
impression of the writers character that readers take from the textasks how credible,
fair, reliable, and authoritative the writer appears to be.
Pathos: refers to the readers emotions and the responses a piece of writing arouses in
them. Links emotion and intellect to the investments readers make in various ideas,
positions, and points of view.
Logos: refers to what is said or written. Logos offers a way to focus on the writers
message and how it is developed and delivered with an emphasis on logic and
reasoning.

English 201