Saturday, June 20, 2009
Rhetorical Analysis- Blackberry
After going through several links and reading the articles, the article on Blackberry piqued my interest and it is what I chose to write my first paper about. I chose this article because it made me laugh and is something that I can relate to all too well, being a Blackberry addict myself. I especially liked that all the articles were on recent topics, things we can all relate to. My question about the analytical process is on identifying rhetorical strategies in general. I found that it was not always that easy to pick these out of the article. Do you have any tips that would make this an easier process?
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Hi Natasha,
ReplyDeleteWell, keep in mind that all texts use strategies, but they don't use ALL of them. A few that are easy places to begin (though you shouldn't rely on them too much as you won't dig deep enough into the text) are diction, tone, and perspective.
All authors use words, so there's diction (what kind of vocabulary does the author use and who does it seem to pinpoint, in terms of its readership), and all texts have tones: serious, condemning, light-hearted, quizzical, etc. Perspective asks you to look at whether the author writes in first, second, or third person (the perspective from which he/she writes) and of course there's a huge difference between the use of personal opinion/experience and outside research (appeal to authority). I hope this helps.
The more you read with an eye for what the author intends for the audience, the easier it will get. Although you write only one rhetorical analysis, building on this skill will prove most useful when writing your own arguments and having to rebut others (which you will do in the third paper).