Week Five: Critical
Reading and Intro to
the Thesis
How do we connect purpose, audience, and rhetorical choices
into a coherent and supportable thesis? How do we determine
the difference between an author’s main idea and persuasive
purpose?
Class Overview
• Short Quiz #3
• Review of Last Week’s Materials: Defining Audience, Reading
Critically
• MLA Citation Format: What You Need to Know
• Free-writing: The Most Important Concepts in this Class for
the Rhetorical Analysis
• Determining the Difference Between An Author’s Main Idea
and Purpose
• Rhetorical Choices and Their Effects on Audience
• Fitting an Audience to a Purpose
• Connecting Rhetorical Choices and Their Effects to Audience
Quiz #3
1.
Which of the following is the correct MLA Work Cited format for a work
reprinted in an anthology or textbook?
a) Fowles, Jib. Advertising’s Fifteen Basic Appeals. Advertising and Popular
Culture (1996). Sage Publications, 1996.
b)Fowles, Jib. “Advertising’s Fifteen Basic Appeals.” Advertising and
Popular Culture (1996). Rpt. In First-Year Writing: Writing in the Disciplines. 7th
Custom Ed. Boston: Pearson, 2013-2014. Print. 245-60
2.
3.
In a few sentences, describe Brief Assignment 4.
Which of the following is the correct MLA format for an in-text citation
(for a print text with a known author): a. (Fowles, p. 246) b. (Fowles 246)
c. (FYW 246) d. (p. 246)
4.
Which of the following would not be a suitable verb to describe an
author’s rhetorical purpose and why? a. “persuades” b. “informs”
c. “wants to convince” d. “argues for”
Review: Identifying Audience
• Examine a piece’s greater context: when and where was the work
first published? What medium? You must do research and look at
the book notes to determine these.
• Is there one target audience or a layered audience? Does the
author’s persuasive purpose speak to both audiences?
• Examine the author’s word choice, references, and examples: are
the examples or ideas field- or discipline-specific?
• From what ideologies or assumptions does the author write? What
are their assumptions about their subject? Their audience?
• What sort of background does your audience have? Using details
from the text and research, determine qualities like the audience’s
educational background, interests, and potential class or economic
standing.
• What does the author’s persuasive purpose tell you about the
audience’s beliefs? (Hint: if you need to persuade someone of
something, that implies that they may not initially believe in your
purpose.)
MLA Citations: the Rundown
• A Work Cited entry, which contains the full bibliographic information
for any text referenced in a work of research or analysis, should
appear at the end of your document. If you include an in-text
citation, you must include a Work(s) Cited as well. The two are
inextricable. Otherwise, how could you tell which page numbers
referred to which text?
• In-text citations (also called parenthetical citations) should appear
at the end of your sentence or quote but before the terminal
punctuation (period or semi-colon). They would look like this: When
Gee employs technical terms like “nano-processors” from Deus Ex,
he furthers his analogy to education by showing how
incomprehensible a text can be without a “situated understanding”
of the terms (549).
• With in-text citations, the author’s name is not necessary in the
citation if you have already mentioned the author’s name in that
same sentence. See the previous example.
Work Cited Entries
• Please use the MLA citation format for a print work reprinted
in an anthology or textbook for your rhetorical analysis
essays. If you cite, reference, or discuss any details from a text,
you need to detail the text in the Work(s) Cited entry.
• Example: Gee, James. “Situated Meaning and Learning […].”
What Video Games Have to Teach us About Learning and
Literacy (2007). Rpt. in First-Year Writing: Writing in the
Disciplines. 7th Custom Ed. Boston: Pearson, 2013-2014. Print.
547-51.
• Note the information included: Authors’ name (as printed in
the article heading, last name first). Article or excerpt title.
Original work title. Anthology/textbook title. Edition of
textbook. Place of publication: year of publication. Medium
(print, web). Page numbers for reprinted piece in textbook or
anthology.
Free-Writing
• On a blank piece of paper, please free-write (in organized
paragraphs) about the concepts you feel are the most
important to this class and to the rhetorical analysis essay.
Please try to connect these concepts to the article you have
selected for your rhetorical analysis.
Note: remember the definition of rhetoric: “the art of using
language effectively so as to persuade or influence others.”
(From The Oxford English Dictionary).
Distinguishing Between An Author’s Main
Idea and Rhetorical Purpose
• An author’s main idea is the focus of their discussion: all article’s
have a particular approach to a subject and range of ideas they
attempt to address. For instance, we might define Gee’s main idea
as drawing a connection between “situated learning” in video games
and what is lacking in current secondary-school education.
• An author’s rhetorical or persuasive purpose is narrower than the
main idea and targets a particular audience. For this class, an
author’s purpose must be persuasive and connected to action or
influence. The purpose of a text is what the author wants his or her
audience to do or believe. In order to achieve this purpose
effectively, the author must use rhetorical choices.
• Remember the difference between the rhetorical choice and the
appeal: the choice (specific language or structure) causes or
develops the appeal.
Practice: Cause and Effect of Rhetorical
Choices
Sample Rhetorical Choices
• Jargon related to technology or engineering in a public op-ed piece
about “fracking” would cause…
• Use of first-person address in a text attempting to persuade voters to
support universal healthcare would cause…
• Use of analogy relating a highly-scientific topic to a common or
accessible experience like car-repair or exercising would cause…
• Contorted or complex syntax in a text stressing the importance of
increasing language education at the high-school level would cause…
• Use of statistics and research data in a text arguing for the outlawing of
texting-while-driving would cause…
• Use of a personal experience or story involving injury or trauma
regarding texting-while-driving (see previous example) would cause…
• A humorous tone used to highlight the difference between a serious
topic like the death penalty (effectiveness, expense) and a lighter topic
like physical discipline in childrearing would cause…
Practice: Fitting an Audience to a Purpose (Can you
match the right purpose and audience?)
Audiences
1.
2.
3.
4.
American males, legislators,
and registered voters living
during the Cold War after the
Vietnam Conflict.
College-level students
concerned over the economic
recession of the 2000s.
Researchers, scienceenthusiasts, and the
readership of a broad journal
like Natural History
Japanese citizens opposed to
restrictions on firearms and in
support of opening new
manufacturers.
Purposes
1.
2.
3.
4.
Argues for increased funding for
hard sciences because the arts are
unsustainable and do not contribute
to the national infrastructure.
Tries to persuade an audience that
availability of weapons increases
violent crime in times of economic
hardship for first-world countries.
Wants to restore universal
conscription (draft) laws to provide
opportunity and discipline to
citizens.
Compares an anthropological
research question to the difficulty of
understanding car repair to
convince the audience that we
must learn about a field in order to
communicate questions to experts
within that field.
Introduction to the Thesis
• A thesis concisely states the definable purpose of a text. In a
rhetorical analysis, a thesis should connect a persuasive purpose to
the rhetorical choices an author uses to achieve that purpose.
(THIS IS IMPORTANT: REFER BACK TO THIS NOTE WHEN WRITING
YOUR RHETORICAL ANALYSIS)
• A good, working thesis should have a narrow, manageable scope for
the sort of examination. For example, you would not try to examine
all the verbs of a 500 page novel in a five-page analysis. What would
be a more fitting and narrow thesis question for the above example?
• A thesis should be supportable by analysis, reasoning, and evidence.
Avoid claims that can simply be affirmed by summary or surface
content. (Ex. “The author discusses video games” is simply an
assertion about content, not a thesis that can be supported by
reasoning and analysis.)
• Where do we see theses, and what is their function in research?
How do they relate to the organization of a paper or larger work?
Thesis Practice: Which of the following is appropriate
for a rhetorical analysis thesis? Why or why not?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
James Gee uses language and tone to inform his audience about
video games and learning.
Gee, a video game player, talks about the connection between
tests and video games like Deus Ex.
In his book chapter “Situated Meaning and Learning,” researcher
James Gee argues that educators should reconsider the way video
games operate as texts.
Gee uses personal experiences with games, technical terms from
electronic games, and an analogy between the language of video
games and textbooks to persuade educators that the “situated
meaning” required of games could help educators better instruct
their students.
In his “Post-Katrina Speech,” former-President George W. Bush
employs statistics from the relief effort, religious diction, and a
metaphor connecting to the people of New Orleans to convince
them that his office understands and has effectively reached out
to the devastated state in a time of national emergency.
Participation Assignment #4
READ:
• St. Martin's Handbook: Chapters 8 and 13
• First-Year Writing: Chapter 6 pp. 114-146
• The sample rhetorical analysis on p. 574 of First-Year Writing
WRITE:
1. In two full paragraphs, identify the thesis for the sample rhetorical
analysis, define the analyzed “purpose of the text, and explain how the
thesis structures the analysis as a whole. Pay particular attention to topic
sentences and discussion of audience.
2. Write a sample thesis (using at least two rhetorical choices) for your
rhetorical analysis over the piece you have selected for the draft/essay
assignment. You may NOT use the verbs “informs, explains, tells, says, or
describes” unless they are connected to a term involved with persuading
the audience (“convinces,” “persuades,” “argues/pushes for, warns that
the audience should…”) to do or believe something. Your thesis should be
at least one extended sentence; however, try not to go beyond two
sentences. Handwritten assignments will not receive credit.