+1 862 207 3288 Formal Essay One: Single Text Analysis
For this first formal essay assignment (FIVE to SIX pages/ 15 points), I want you to choose one text from our reader–print or
visual–to focus your scholarly analysis. Your job is to deconstruct the rhetorical strategies that the author(s) uses to assert
their purpose.
To deconstruct means:
— vb
1. to apply the theories of deconstruction to (a text, film, etc)
2. to expose or dismantle the existing structure in (a system, organization, etc)
That being so, you are deconstructing with the purpose of determining whether or not the rhetorical piece you chose is a successful
one. To this point, consider first examining your own subjectivity towards the piece. There is a reason you chose it amongst all the
rest. Perhaps you are in favor of its major premise, or perhaps you would like to take your best shot at a worldview with which you
fundamentally disagree. You will do yourself no harm, academically speaking, to reveal your own subjectivity in this essay. In fact,
it could be a shrewd rhetorical move (think: ethical appeal, establishing good credit with your reading audience). And when it comes
to your analysis, I still expect a solid scholarly treatment of the piece, but I also understand that personal opinion is often the
initial guide in these matters.
Consider the following a checklist to help you along the way:
• Identify and clarify the agenda of the author(s).
• Identify the general rhetorical approach: ethos, pathos, logos.
• Identify and deconstruct particular proofsemployed.
• Offer an argument as to where these proofs might align themselves in terms of rhetorical approach.
• Weigh and measure the effectiveness and/or success of these rhetorical strategies. Consider the following questions to help
in this particular task:
• Does the author seem to utilize these rhetorical strategies with a level of expertise? How can you tell?
• Are the proofs employed by the author relying on any suspicious or apparent fallacies? Where?
• Which premises in these proofs might be fallacious?
• Could they be maxims rather than axioms? How do you know?
• Where is the writer most successful in their arguments? In what ways specifically?
Final Due Date: ________________
Your best tool to analyze and critique this piece as a rhetorical performance is IN-TEXT CITATION. Use the text itself—direct quotes
or accurate paraphrasing—as a way to establish your analysis and qualification of the text. Please use MLA as both your formatting
for your paper as well as textual citation. I will not require you to have a Works-CITED page unless you use additional outside
research for your essay. In which case, you would definitely need to give credit to those sources.
Here is a MLA Format refresher:
MLA Formatting
I inch margins all around
Heading
Header
Title
Double Space
12 point font
Times New Roman
Indent first line of every paragraph
