Rhetorical Analysis Essay Outline

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Outline

Rhetoric is an art that involve writing or speaking effectively with the intention to influence your audience. Thus, a rhetorical essay seeks to woo the reader in order to agree with your beliefs. On the other hand, a rhetorical analysis essay outline is a skeleton of what to include in your essay.

You need these outline specially when you do not understand the format of an a rhetorical essay and to help you organize your written work

This article is written specifically to help you understand rhetorical analysis essay outlines through thorough research. It has tips, examples and detailed explanations to clear any doubts off your mind.

The purpose of rhetorical analysis writing is to:

  • Understand how rhetoric works
  • Discover how to argue out ideas and make a presentation
  • Analyzing the writer’s structure to achieve his purpose of persuading readers

Key points to pick from a good rhetorical analysis essay outline

Writing an effective rhetorical analysis can be a daunting assignment if you do not know how to go develop your essay. Even though you can analyze almost everything literally, including poems and artistic paintings, analysis of persuasive pieces is common. In other words, it is a meta-exercise as you focus on analyzing how well another writer achieves his or her objective.

The following example of a rhetorical analysis essay outline shows the main parts to capture, including the introduction, body and conclusion. Take a look:

Sample #1

Your Topic ­_________________________

  1. Introduction

_______________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

  1. Summary of the rhetorical situation

__________________________________

__________________________________

III. Summary of the argument’s appeals

__________________________________

__________________________________

 

  1. Ethos

__________________________________

 

  1. Logos

__________________________________

 

  1. Pathos

__________________________________

 

  1. Details of how the claim negotiate opposing ideas

__________________________________

__________________________________

 

  1. State the argument’s strengths and weaknesses

__________________________________

__________________________________

 

  1. Conclusion

__________________________________

__________________________________

Click here to view the whole essay.

Best way to organize ideas for a rhetorical analysis essay

To start with, there is no known single perfect method of organizing a rhetorical analysis essay. As a writer, you should take caution whenever you meet formulas that offer formats for perfect essays. In this section, you will find tips to help you put together information for your rhetorical analysis paper.

Why you should introduce your rhetorical analysis essay:

  • To introduce your subject or topic of analysis
  • To state your purpose
  • To engage your reader
  • To remind you that you are working on an objective analysis

Here are more ideas to consider when developing a rhetorical analysis essay outline. Go over them to strengthen your introduction.

As you introduce your analysis, have the reader in mind. Alert them on what you are performing. Without this, they may take sides or wait for an evaluating argument that is not forthcoming.

State the document you intend to analyze and give its brief background. At this point, you may do a quick narrative summary for the piece of work under consideration. Be brief and save extra details of your document for the body.

Questions to think consider before writing your rhetorical analysis

To develop a good rhetorical analysis essay outline, it is important to think about the following questions. This will ensure that you include all crucial components in your paper.

  1. In your opinion, what was the author’s objective in producing the manuscript?
  2. Who was the intended reader for the writing?
  3. How does the audience affect the writing?
  4. What style and tone does the writer employ and why?
  5. What are the author’s rhetorical appeals? I.e. ethos, pathos and logos
  6. What logical schema does the author use to develop the ideas?
  7. What format did the author use to organize the text?
  8. Why did the author include or omit some information?
  9. What evidence does that author use to support his argument?
  10. How did the author use the evidence to develop ideas?

 

Sample #2

The following rhetorical analysis essay outline should help you understand various aspects during your rhetorical writing. However, this outline should not stifle your creativity; feel free to play around with the elements as you develop your ideas.

  1. Introduction:
  2. Attention Grabber-begin with something startling
  3. give a brief of your introduction
  4. Thesis Statement and supporting evidence
    1. Reason 1:
    2. Reason 2:
  • Reason 3:
  1. Add more reasons but be careful not to go crazy
  1. Body:
  2. Support Point 1 (reason 1):
  3. Evidence for Support point:
  4. Explain how evidence supports thesis:
  5. Support Point 2 (reason 2):
  6. Evidence for Support point:
  7. Explain how evidence supports thesis:
  8. Support Point 3 (reason 3):
  9. Evidence for Support point:
  10. Explain how evidence supports thesis:
  11. Support Point 4 (reason 4):
  12. Evidence for Support point:
  13. Explain how evidence supports thesis:
  • Conclusion
  1. wrap up how all your ideas develop your thesis.
  2. Give recommendation of what the author might have done to better their writing.

The above rhetorical analysis outline was adopted from franklin.kyschools.us.

How to summarize your rhetorical situation to make it appealing

In this section, the reader wants to know more about your rhetorical situation after laying a foundation in the subsequent sections. As you do this, focus on the following:

  • What is the issue? This will help you answer many questions even if the response is a yes or no
  • Contextualize your rhetorical analysis
  • Who is the persona making the argument? Give their credentials and any contact information if available. Find out if they are biased in their argument.
  • Identify the intended audience for the writing

Thesis. Capture the author’s main point as you develop your analysis. A thesis statement comes at the end of the introduction paragraph and may be two or three sentences. It should be specific and clear without ambiguity. It waters the readers’ appetite to read on and discover how the body of the paper offers evidence. With a clear thesis on your rhetorical analysis essay outline, the writing process should be walkover for you.

Tools. Clearly state the author’s tools in your thesis statement. For instance, include how the writer uses particular aspects of diction, smile or imagery. Diction refers to selection of words that one uses. Imagery is the visual and descriptive language.

All you should know about logos, pathos, and ethos when writing rhetorical analysis essay

The classical appeals in rhetorical analysis essay are logos, pathos and ethos. These concept focus on the logic, emotion and character, which the author appear use in convincing the audience. Let us help you to understand why you need these appeals on your rhetorical analysis essay outline.

What is ethos?

The author employs his truthfulness, credibility and reliability to win the audience in a persuasive strategy. As you analyze your document, it is possible to notice how the writer asserts his credentials in a bid to win the readers’ trust.

In essence, authors use ethos to change the perception of the reader towards them. Credentials serve as a hook to lure the reader into considering the writer as a credible source.

The definition of pathos and their role in rhetorical analysis

As one of the rhetorical appeals, an author uses pathos to engage the emotions and values of the audience as they go through a document.

In most cases, authors will evoke the emotions of the reader through personal anecdotes or by telling stories of people who may have experienced a problem or issue.

In this section of your rhetorical, bring out how the author uses emotional language or stories to reveal their argument.

The best way to understand logos

Here, the author woos the audience with the need for a logical flow of ideas. For example, the author may use claims, which are supportable and are reasonable to the reader. They achieve this using well-researched information and reliable sources.

You may analyze the approach of the writer in pushing his ideas logically, the research he employs and his general reasoning supporting the ideas.

Other important elements when drafting a rhetorical analysis essay outline

With the above information on introduction, ethos, pathos, and logos, it is important to have a conclusion on your rhetorical analysis essay outline. The aim of the conclusion is to round up the author’s content with something that will leave the audience thinking about the document. Discuss the strengths and weakness of the document before giving your overall assessment.

Sample #3

  1. Introduction:

 

  1. Background Information
  2. Thesis

 

  1. Body: Analysis, Interpretation, & Evaluation

 

  1. Main Point 1: Use of Logos in Source
  2. Supporting paragraph 1: Concrete examples
  3. Supporting paragraph 2: Explanation of why/why not

 

  1. Main Point 2: Use of Pathos in Source

 

  1. Main Point 3: Use of Ethos on argument

 

III. Conclusion:

You can see the entire outline here.

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ONLINE SOURCES:

http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Rhetorical-Analysis

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/725/03/

https://www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~cinichol/120/RhetoricalAnalysisOutlineandTips.htm

http://education.seattlepi.com/rhetorical-essay-format-2953.html

http://classroom.synonym.com/rhetorical-essay-format-3629.html