Rhetorical analysis views texts from within their particular rhetorical situation. In academic research, for example, the authors usually place their work in relation to relevant work that has preceded them. As the authors of Connections assert, any particular piece of written communication is part of a larger conversation with a history of its own. Writers and readers of this conversation share some common ground in their interests and assumptions.
You recall the rhetorical triangle and its relation to the appeals of ethos, pathos, and logos. To consider the communicator/ethos element, direct your attention to both the rhetorical situation and the text itself. How the author creates and sustains ethos in the text can tell you about the rhetorical situation and vice versa. For example, in a rhetorical situation in which the authors challenge respected studies, the writers would need to pay special attention to ethos. Presumably, they are qualified to deserve the attention of their audience, but the more controversial the claim, the more an author must be mindful of their credibility. They might help establish their credibilty by demonstrating knowledge of past studies and by careful explanation of how their work adds to and revises the conversation. Their prior reputation, the reputation of the publisher or journal, and presentation of evidence in a careful, complete argument go far in establishing credibility.
This careful laying out of explanation and argument is called logos. The author of an argument uses their knowledge of the subject but also their knowledge of the audience they are appealing to. Knowing their audience helps them to make judgments about what to include, how much to worry about credibility, how directly they can come to the point, the most effective diction, and so on.
In doing a rhetorical analysis, you pay attention to the features of the situation and the text that indicate the elements of the triangle and appeals. You identify the specific situation and rhetorical choices of the authors and discuss the the impact and effectiveness of those choices. Commonly, in academic writing logos is stressed, ethos is understood, and pathos, the appeal to emotions, is downplayed or absent. In many other forms of rhetoric, the appeals are more evenly balanced. Each situation is different and the "rules" and conventions will vary.
Analyzing arguments primarily focuses you on the logos, that is, on the content, logic, structure, and data presented. To help you do this, we will use a model of argument useful in identifying the elements of an argument.
Let's start with the enthymeme, a two-part structure consisting of a claim and a reason:
claim: Everyone should buy a computer
reason: because otherwise they'll get left behind by the technological revolution.
This is a basic assertion supported by one reason. In the model we are using developed by Stephen Toulmin, arguments have more elements than this. There may be additional reasons. They also have data or evidence to support the claim and the reasons, an assumption grounding the claim and reason, a qualifier as a fudge factor, and a rebuttal. Thinking through these elements can help you see how an argument is constructed and allows you to consider the relative strength of each. For example, many assumptions are unspoken. Once the assumption is articulated, the audience may find that they don't agree with the assumption, thus calling into question the soundness of that argument for that particular audience. Let's run this through the example above.
claim |
reasons |
evidence/data |
assumption(s) |
qualifiers |
rebuttals |
Everyone should buy a computer |
because otherwise they'll get left behind by the technological revolution. |
the widening gap between the technologically sophisticated and the technologically illiterate populace (statistics on this); good jobs require technological proficiency (evidence of this) |
1) It is necessary to own a computer to become technologically competent (access solely at school is not sufficient etc) 2) Getting left behind by the technological revolution is bad for everyone. |
1) unless access and training away from home is or can be made sufficient in some instances 2) unless you can't afford it |
1) Schools should provide sufficient access and training on computers, and there's no guarantee that owning a computer will make you a comptent user. 2) The poor cannot afford to maintain cutting edge computers in the home because new computers are obsolete within a few years. |
Notice that many of the other elements are also claims or sub-claims, assertions that support the main claim. Also notice that evidence/data supports the reason well, but once the assumptions are articulated, we can see that the first assumption is fairly controversial and open to question. The qualifier hedges on this, but for this argument to be truly convincing, the audience will want backing for the assumption that it is necessary to own a computer to become technologically competent. Lacking data for this claim would reveal a less than solid argument. The rebuttal consists of claims the authors most need to answer to overcome resistance from a reasonable audience. Here the rebuttals raise the issue of responsibility for technological training and access. This is indeed a sticking point of the argument. The author needs to work hard to overcome those objections (and by the way, greatly increases their ethos by doing so). So, if you were analyzing this argument, you would only discover these problem by identifying the elements and questioning them.
This model is obviously useful in constructing arguments as well. If you can plot out your argument and be sure of supporting each element, you are on your way to being persuasive.
Confused about the Toulmin model? Check out the enthymeme, The English Patient is a good film because it won a bunch of academy awards, in a beautifully rendered diagram. Remember that we are substituting "assumption" for "warrant" and "evidence/data" for "grounds." "Backing" is support for the assumption.
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