Choosing a style and design

The style of your rhetorical analyses will vary depending on audience, but you always face one problem that can sometimes be overcome by clever design: sharing the work you are analyzing with readers. They have to know what you are talking about.

Consider a high style. Rhetorical and critical analyses for school usually need a formal or high style. (define your style) Keep the tone respectful, the vocabulary technical, and the perspective impersonal — avoiding I and you. Such a style gives the impression of objectivity and seriousness and enhances your ethos as a critic.

Consider a middle style. Rhetorical and critical analyses appearing in the public arena — rather than in the classroom — are often less formal. To win over readers not compelled to read their stuff, writers turn to the middle style, which gives them ample options for expressing strong opinions and feelings (sometimes including anger, outrage, and contempt). Public writing is full of distinctive personal voices — from Stephen Carter and Paul Krugman to Naomi Klein and Peggy Noonan — offering opinions, making judgments, and advancing agendas. The ethos of middle style is often more cordial and sympathetic than that of high style, if somewhat less authoritative and commanding. You win the assent of readers by making them like and trust you.

Make the text accessible to readers. Your rhetorical analysis should be written as if readers do not have the text you are analyzing in hand or in front of them. One way to achieve that clarity is to summarize and quote selectively from the text as you examine it, or to provide visual images that are captioned or annotated. You can see examples of this technique in Matthew James Nance’s essay and in J. Reagan Tankersley’s analysis. Of course, you can always also attach photocopies or images of any short items you are analyzing or provide Web links to them. With other types of subjects — such as movies, advertising campaigns, and so on — simply describe or summarize the content of the work. Whatever you examine,always be sure to identify authors (or creators), titles, places/modes ofpublication, and dates in your paper.