Essay 2 // RWS 100 // Costello
The Vote: Voting in a Pandemic
(Analyzing How Rhetorical Strategies Persuade an Audience)
Required Source:
Emily Bazelon, “Will Americans Lose Their Right to Vote in the Pandemic?”
Write an essay about how voting in the pandemic could threaten U.S. citizens’ democratic right to vote,
in which you analyze how Bazelon’s article uses rhetorical strategies to inform the audience. In
addition, use the same article to show knowledge of the topic, and to support your claim.
The claim should answer this question: What do you think is the most important strategy for
ensuring the right to vote in the upcoming presidential election? (State the claim in your intro, and
support it in the body of the essay with evidence from Bazelon’s article.)
In order to analyze how Bazelon uses strategies to persuade the audience, answer the following
questions:
What is the context in which the article was written? What’s the main argument?
Who is the audience? How does the article use appeals (ethos, pathos, logos) to convince the audience?
Do you think the article was effective in its attempt to inform the audience? Why or why not?
Directions:
Write an introduction based on concerns over voting rights during the pandemic, with a claim that clearly states a
specific strategy that you think is most important for ensuring people’s right to vote in the presidential election.
In the body of the essay, do these three things: a) answer all the rhetorical analysis questions above, b) go beyond
just analysis, and use Bazelon to show knowledge of the issues involved, and c) support your claim with Bazelon.
**Do NOT use outside sources. Bazelon should be the only text used to do a, b, and c above.
Write a conclusion that says what you’ve learned from this module, and if it changed your outlook on this issue.
Length/MLA Reminders:
**The first draft must reach at least the middle of page 3 (a full 2½ pages minimum with size 12 Times New Roman
font, and one-inch margins) or it won’t count. (Graded drafts must be at least 3 full pages, minimum.)
**MLA Documentation is required in the first draft. You must include any necessary in-text citations AND the Works
Cited page, or the first draft will not count, and 5 points will be deducted from the graded draft.
**Use the same online MLA format as Essay 1, but this article is from the New York Times Magazine, not the New York
Times, so that should be reflected on your Works Cited page.
**Use 15% quoted material maximum.
Relevant Course Learning Outcomes:
Analyze a text to demonstrate rhetorical knowledge of an argument’s claims, audience, and rhetorical strategies.
Locate, evaluate, and incorporate material from sources into their writing projects.
Apply conventions of academic writing, including grammar, spelling, mechanics, and citation practices.