Monday, October 20, 2008

An example of a good, solid rhetorical analysis.

A few students have asked I post an example of the kind of rhetorical analysis for which I am looking each week. Below is a good, solid example. It could be improved, but I am impressed with how the author has placed himself in the rhetorical place of the person he is analyzing. The author of the analysis does a good job of identifying his rhetor's audience, and looking at a specific problem the rhetor is facing and how the rhetor crafts his message to overcome these problems. There are even specific examples. I would prefer the author had taken a few extra minutes to proofread, but over all, I would give the following example an "A."

Here's the example:

Watching preist perform the mass is an excellent example of Rhetoric. His ethos is established by the clothes he wears, the logos can be simply achieved by backing up your statements with scripture, and pathos can easily be achieved when people come to church, looking and expecting to feel better about themselves. The audience is generally the same group of people. Old people who come from habit, young people who come because they're forced to, and people in the middle looking for answers about life. The message stays pretty consistent from week to week: live right, but if you can't you can be forgiven. The thing that makes their job difficult is keeping the attention of this audience week to week when you need to send the same general message. They try to do this by varying the stories and examples they use. I cannot imagine this is as easy to do as it sounds. The three groups I described which compose the congregation are very diverse. Many of the stories I can relate to do not apply to many of the near-deads who sit up front. Very frequently the situations they find humorous don't do anything for me. Our priest seems to have discovered the secret to making everyone pay attention. His Homilies often conist of you might be a redneck if jokes and comparisons to professional football. Everyone likes these.

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