Project Overview: Writing Analytically
Rhetorical situation is at once the most basic and sophisticated concept in communications. It is basic because we understand intuitively that everything we say and write is influenced by audience, purpose, stance, context and medium. For example, we know that a communication to a supervisor requesting an extended leave must be different from a communication asking your BFF to spot you five bucks.
Rhetorical situation is sophisticated because effective communicators do not rely on intuition to create their messages. Instead, they analyze all aspects of the rhetorical situation and use this analysis to craft communication that influences an audience in a particular, often subtle, way. Advertising and marketing experts are especially savvy about rhetorical situation because their clients need to get the most for their advertising dollars. Analyzing advertisements, therefore, is an effective way to study rhetorical situation, specifically how audience affects the message.
Learning Goals
This project gives you the opportunity to:
Understand and practice the principles of analysis.
Understand and identify the components of rhetorical situation, specifically audience.
Practice a recursive and collaborative writing process.
Writing Assignment
Write a 1000- to 1200-word essay that analyzes how rhetorical situation affects a persuasive message. In particular, analyze an ad for similar products marketed to specific audiences. Include works cited entries (MLA style) and images/links to the advertisements.
Process Assignments
The project includes readings in Everyone’s An Author. Complete the following assignments:
Writing Analytically Homework #1.1: Summary
Writing Analytically Homework #1.2: Descriiption
Writing Analytically Homework #1.3: Rhetorical Situation
For this assignment, you will analyze a piece of advertising to explore how it targets particular audiences. You may choose a print ad, a “television” ad, or an ad that you find on youtube; you must, however, be able to make meaningful claims about the audience (who they are, what they seem to care about, what else they buy) for the ad; you may find an ad that you like from a Google “Images” search for example, but you also have to be able to make claims about when it was published, and in what publications; otherwise, conclusions about the ad’s intended audience are merely speculative.
Based on your analysis, develop a thesis that draws a conclusion about how the advertisers view their audiences and what they believe is important to their potential customers. (Your question: How do advertisers sell the same product to different people? What strategies do advertisers use to target different audiences?) As support, you will describe the ads, identify target audiences, and compare/contrast strategies used to appeal to these audiences and any logical fallacies used for humorous effect. You can evaluate the effectiveness of the ads, but be careful that your evaluation does not eclipse your analysis. Include the characteristic features of analysis as explained in Chapter 14.
You may also make use of multiple ads for the sake of comparison. For example, you could analyze advertisements for different cell phone companies. Or you can analyze two ads for different products aimed at the same segment of the Super Bowl audience, like two ads aimed at older viewers. If drawing in another artifact can help you introduce a meaningful comparison that supports relevant claims, then so much the better. Do it. That having been said, writing a unified and cohesive final essay is part of the writing task, so devote the bulk of your analysis to just one of the ads.
These required homework assignments will help you prepare to draft your essay: Writing Analytically Homeworks 1.2 and 1.3 Our writing process also includes peer review of a draft, required instructor review of a draft, and reflection writing after the final draft has been submitted.
Rhetorical situation
This refers to YOUR rhetorical situation for this assignment. Reference the designated pages in Everyone’s An Author.
Audience — Students and instructors at NMC, including people outside this class. This is an academic audience so use more formal language and proofread carefully .
Purpose and Stance — Rhetorical analysis of two related advertisements by an objective observer. You will make a claim about how audience/context influences the message, stance, and design of the two advertisements. First person (marked by the pronoun “I”) is generally not used in analytical writing to keep the focus on the subject. Include the characteristic features of analysis.
Context — Descriiptions of the ads and demographic information about the readers of magazines. Although you will include links to the ads, be sure to give thorough descriiptions in your essay, including the stories implied by the advertisements.
Media and Design — Digital and MLA. You will upload the final draft of your essay to Moodle. Follow MLA format, including works cited entries for the advertisements. Include links to the ads within the body of the essay, if possible. Put a word count at the end of the essay like this: WORD COUNT 854.
Additional Notes for Instructors: Project #1: Writing Analytically
Background & Considerations
Students are encouraged to select print ads because this allows them to make specific and supportable claims about the ad’s intended audience. Students often rely upon a Google “Images” search to help them find a worthy artifact, but this method of accessing affords little to no information to help students make meaningful claims about the audience. With some ads, additional research will clarify for whom the ad was intended. If the student cannot make meaningful and defensible claims about the intended audience, then they should select another ad.
Additionally, some students will select ads that have already been identified as “controversial,” or ads that are already well-known for other reasons. Students should be guided to understand that their analysis must ad to the discussion about the ad, not just repeat it.
We expect that instructors will tweak the assignment to analyze a variety of visuals, including campaign material. We look forward to learning of your results!
Key Learning Targets
Use annotation and other reading strategies to identify the organizational structures of a text.*
Describe and identify the purpose, audience, context, and genre of texts.
Explain how purpose, audience, context, and genre affect the content of a text.
Identify lines of reasoning and logical fallacies.*
Identify a variety of support strategies. *
Identify underlying values, assumptions and beliefs of a text.
Write for a variety of purposes in several genres including analysis and argument.
Practice analysis and research as a process of inquiry.
Integrate sources (mechanically) using academic documentation.
*Depends on assigned process homework and instructor approach.
