Additional Requirements
The paper should be 3-4 pages long, typed in a 12-point academic font (Times New Roman is a safe choice), double-spaced, and carefully proofread. It should adhere to the MLA format shown in your textbook. Though you might refer to outside research you've conducted on the author and the publication source, your essay will only rely on one source, your primary one, the essay itself. Therefore, all in-text parenthetical citations need include only the page number from the author's essay--not the full bibliography citation. For now, do not worry about a bibliography/works cited page. For your upcoming major essays, I will assist you in producing a works cited page and more thorough in-text citations.
Grading Criteria
I will evaluate your essay according to these criteria:
Some Tips to Help You
Remember that any successful argument makes a central claim and then supports that claim with well-documented reasons. In this essay, you will take a stand on how effectively the essay you've chosen persuades its intended audiences (which, keep in mind, might not include you). This position--your evaluation of its persuasiveness to its intended audience--should be the thesis of your paper. Thus, you will have to put your own opinions about the content of the argument on the back burner.
Be sure to balance your analysis with your own insightful observations and commentary. In each section, you'll want to first identify the rhetorical feature or strategy the author uses (e.g. ethos), including an example from the text (e.g. a representative instance of the author's tone or relationship to his or her subject). Then you'll want to analyze that feature or strategy by commenting on (1) how the author generally establishes/uses it throughout his or her essay, (2) how the the audience will likely respond to it, and (3) how that feature operates in your specific example of it. For instance, in a discussion of the author's ethos appeals (probably in a single paragraph/section), you'd comment generally on his or her ethos, then (in no set order) you'd provide an example or two from the essay that adequately highlight this rhetorical feature, explain what is going on in these examples (what makes them ethos appeals), and describe how the audience would respond to these examples (what makes these ethos appeals effective or not).
For help in analyzing your author's use of rhetorical appeals--logos, ethos, and pathos--review chapters 3 and 4 of your textbook. Be sure to discuss all three rhetorical appeals, even if your text uses some appeals more than others. Remember that sometimes what a text leaves out or does badly is as interesting as what it does well.
Be sure to back up your comments with specific words or passages from the essay, and explain why you've chosen those passages. In other words, support what you're saying.
Here's an example:
In the "Letter from Birmingham Jail," Martin Luther King does an especially good job of connecting to his audience via his use of pathos. By establishing that he and his audience share common emotions, King is able to convince them to share his logical positions as well. King writes,
I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say "wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim, then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait (King 2).
King's description of the "stinging darts" and "vicious mobs" help dramatize the evils of slavery for readers who have never experienced it. Moreover, by making victims of racial violence members of the human family rather than abstract entities, King invokes his audience's sympathy and thereby invites them to share not only his anger at the way things are, but also his hope that things can change.
You will also want to evaluate the shape or style of the argument. Is the introduction or conclusion especially effective? Does the author open with an engaging anecdote? Is the tone appropriate for the intended audience? In other words, is the author successful in his or her attempt to engage the audience?
Before analyzing the argument, you should provide a brief (2-3 sentence) summary of the essay you're going to discuss, its purpose. You'll also need an analysis of the audience at which you think it's aimed (a paragraph). This kind of background information is important for your readers, who you will assume are unfamiliar with the essay. However, remember that the majority of your paper should be analysis, not summary.
Be sure to provide solid introductory and concluding paragraphs, organize the essay coherently, and avoid errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation. I strongly suggest that you do not use a 5-paragraph structure; 3-4 pages is far too long a paper to have only 5 paragraphs. Instead, you might want to think about using a 5-section structure, with each of the body sections consisting of 1 or 2 paragraphs.
Remember who the audience is for your essay. Your classmates and I are the audience to whom you should address your claims.
One last tip: remember that this assignment does not ask you to engage with the subject of the essay you are analyzing--that is, you're not writing about whether you agree or disagree personally with the author's position on this issue or his or her major claims or values. Instead, you are writing about how the author creates his or her argument, and how well he or she might be able to persuade his or her intended audience(s) using the available rhetorical strategies and appeals effectively.
Help
I am always available to offer you assistance and feedback, so please feel free to e-mail me at any time with any questions or concerns you might have. And if you would like to meet but cannot make my office hours, please schedule a meeting with me.
Also know that in addition to the assistance I can offer, you can also make use of the