The process for Project 1 should be familiar to you. What I’m asking for you to do is find two sources of information – one professional or academic and the other popular – relating to a subject in your major or intended career field and then analyze those two articles for the rhetorical choices made by their respective authors. Some of the elements of each source that you might want to consider when analyzing the texts are: Genre: What is the format or form of the writing – academic journal article, letter, opinion piece newspaper story? Audience: Can you tell who the piece was written for? Language: What is the writing level of the piece? How technical is the writing? Would the intended audience need specific technical training, education or experience to understand the writing?
Visuals: What is the layout of the piece – all text or some graphics? Are their graphs and technical visuals, and if so how easy is the information? Expected Outcome: Was the piece written to achieve some kind of goal? If so, what was that goal – to inform and educate? To entertain? Can you even discern the intended goal? Purpose The goal of this assignment is to get you more familiar with the professional writing that is being undertaken by members of the career field of your intended major.
Using skills you learned in English 1100, or its equivalent, you will select writing from two periodicals – one professional and one popular – in the discipline of your major and analyze the writings by examining audience, purpose, design, content, and structure of the writing and communication within the publication. Joyner Library is a good place to start for academically appropriate journal articles.
I will discuss this in more detail during a video lecture accessible through Canvas. You will be expected to determine the authors’ intents, purposes, audiences and expected outcomes of the writing in the journal or popular outlet. You should make a judgement about the differences in the style of the writing and the effectiveness of the authors and editors in producing cohesive and effective writings that address a specific idea, concept or problem within the subject matter area that is covered.
Genre You will compose a rhetorical analysis essay of no less than 1,000 words, about 4-5 pages, using the skills that you cultivated in English 1100. Remember to take a holistic approach to analyzing the writings to examine the visual rhetorics (art, colors, graphs and info graphics) as well as the production quality of the outlet. Audience The audience for this assignment are your fellow students who are studying in your intended career field.
