Following the explanation from the chapter in Genres as well as in Jack Selzer’s essay on rhetorical analysis, you are to conduct an analysis of your own with particular attention to the rhetorical features of the essay.
1. Choose one of the attached essays linked below.
2. Write an analysis that specifies up front the kind of analysis you will do and why; will it be a textual analysis or contextual? Will you concentrate on one of the popular appeals: logos, pathos, ethos, kairos or perhaps one or two of the 5 canons of rhetoric? Perhaps you will be evaluating the author’s use of metaphor or irony, or some other rhetorical device.
3. Your analysis should be 4-5 pages, double spaced, 12 point font. You should use MLA citation, though most essays will not require outside sources (with the possible exception of a contextual analysis). No matter which sources you do use, you should provide citation for quotations, paraphrases, or summaries.
4. The most important thing to keep in mind with rhetorical analysis is that you are not as interested in the meaning of the text (what it says) as you are in how the author constructs that meaning. This difference requires somewhat of a switch in your attention and focus. Of course your investment and evaluation of how the text is working can also arrive at some conclusions and observations about what the text means. A better question than *is the thesis true?* then, is *are the rhetorical qualities working together toward a persuasive outcome, and how so?*
Bartholome, Inventing the University.pdf
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Women and the Labyrinth article.pdf
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The Coddling of the American Mind.pdf
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Good rhetorical analysis that evaluates HOW the text is working, as suggested by Selzer:
Critique of Vindictive Protectiveness
In Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt’s essay, “The Coddling of the American Mind,” the two discuss a relatively new phenomenon occurring on college campuses across the country and the effect it has on students. This phenomenon is described by Lukianoff and Haidt as “A movement… undirected and driven largely by students, to scrub campuses clean of words, ideas, and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offense” (1). In their essay, Lukianoff and Haidt attempt to answer a seemingly simple question regarding this new movement of vindictive protectiveness, trigger warnings, safe spaces, microaggressions, and the idea that words can be used as weapons: What are the effects this movement is having on university students? Is it benefitting the people it should be helping? Using a multitude of rhetorical devices, Lukianoff and Haidt prove that vindictive protectiveness will not benefit anyone in the short or long-term, students or otherwise. This textual analysis will analyze the rhetorical devices the authors use to shape their argument.
Crucial to the credibility of the speakers, Lukianoff and Haidt make sure to introduce themselves in the essay, after introducing their topic. Lukianoff is a constitutional lawyer and the president and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. He has advocated for many of the students and faculty involved in the incidents described in the essay. Haidt is a social psychologist who studies the American culture wars. This brief mention of both speakers’ occupations appeals to ethos, and speaks to their credibility. Lukianoff especially is personally invested in some of the incidents described in the essay, and Haidt is a social psychologist, which is what this essay is exploring. Going forward the audience knows who the speakers are and that they are knowledgeable in the topics.
Lukianoff and Haidt make their argument clear just a few paragraphs after asking the aforementioned questions in their opening section of the essay. They argue that vindictive protectiveness teaches students to think in a way that discourages critical thinking, as taught by the Socratic method. This in turn prepares the students poorly for professional life, “which often demands intellectual engagement with people and ideas one might find uncongenial or wrong” (3). They also argue that the harm of vindictive protectiveness may come even sooner than professional life, explaining that a campus culture that polices speech and punishes speakers can create thought patterns that are similar to those identified as causes of depression and anxiety (3).
Lukianoff and Haidt continue with these themes of mental illness and critical thinking when they transition into talking about cognitive behavior therapy, which helps form a major part of their argument. Using a logos appeal, they explain that CBT teaches and encourages critical thinking, because critical thinking requires one to ground their beliefs in evidence, not feelings or desires. On the other hand, college life discourages critical thinking and may cause students to think in more distorted ways, because of the similarities between safe space culture and cognitive distortions identified by CBT.
Lukianoff and Haidt compare fortune-telling and trigger warnings. Fortune-telling is one example of a cognitive distortion, defined as seeing potential danger in an everyday situation. Lukianoff and Haidt argue that the call for trigger warnings on reading materials or other media is an example of fortune-telling. To prove this, the authors first use pathos by referencing PTSD, and how it is known that stimuli (words, smells, noise, etc.) can certainly trigger memories and fear of past traumas. They go into the history of trigger warnings, how they were first used in online forums to help people who have suffered traumatic events avoid content that may trigger a panic attack or flashbacks, or worse. The pathos appeal comes when Lukianoff and Haidt poke fun at the fact that students and faculty are calling for trigger warnings for topics such as classism and privilege, when trigger warnings were initially used for people with PTSD. Their goal here is to help the audience see how ridiculous it is to use trigger warnings for topics such as classism and privilege by appealing to the audience’s emotions. Continuing with the example of trigger warnings, Lukianoff and Haidt also argue that there is a deeper problem that exists with the warnings. They state that according to the most basic tenets of psychology, the idea of helping those with anxiety disorders avoid the things they fear is extremely misguided. They then reference Ivan Pavlov and exposure therapy, in which someone with intense anxiety or phobias, is guided back to normalcy by being gradually exposed to their fears. Lukianoff and Haidt point out that students who call for trigger warnings to protect other students are wrong to try to prevent other students’ reactions to triggering content. They explain further, “Students with PTSD should of course get treatment, but they should not try to avoid normal life, with its many opportunities for habituation” (8). Here, Lukianoff and Haidt are using logos to get their point across. By using the phrases “most basic tenets” and “extremely misguided” they establish that it is well known that helping people with anxiety avoid fears is counterintuitive. They make the connection between trigger warnings and people with anxiety avoiding the triggers that give them anxiety crystal clear.
Lukianoff and Haidt go on to compare another cognitive distortion, mental filtering, which can be defined by focusing on the negatives in a situation, in turn thinking the whole situation is negative, with “disinvitation season.” Disinvitation season occurs when commencement speakers are announced, and students and teachers call for some of them to be disinvited because of past actions. It is easy to see the connection between these two. Because of something a possible commencement speaker did in his or her past, students and professors demand disinvitations, choosing to see only the negatives of the person, and let that skew their opinions of them so much that their other accomplishments and actions are forgotten about. It sounds exactly like the definition of mental filtering, so Lukianoff and Haidt used logos here again. They follow this up with specific examples of Condoleezza Rice and Christine Lagarde being disinvited from a commencement, a former US Secretary of State and the International; Monetary Fund’s managing director, respectively. By using specific people, Lukianoff and Haidt are appealing to the audience’s emotions. Who hasn’t made mistakes in their past? Nobody is perfect, and these women had an opportunity presented to them, an honor, and had it taken away because of past mistakes. Lukianoff and Haidt end the section with, “If campus culture conveys the idea that visitors must be pure, with résumés that never offend generally left-leaning campus sensibilities, then higher education will have taken a further step toward intellectual homogeneity and the creation of an environment in which students rarely encounter diverse viewpoints…. If students graduate believing that they can learn nothing from people they dislike or from those with whom they disagree, we will have done them a great intellectual disservice” (12). This quote is both a logos and pathos appeal. It is logos because diverse viewpoints are necessary in education and in life, and pathos because nobody wants to think that the college system is doing its students a disservice.
There is a new movement that is active across nearly all college campuses in America today. Attempts to shield students from words and ideas that may cause them or others emotional discomfort are becoming increasingly common. Lukianoff and Haidt set out to write about this movement and the detrimental effects it has, and will have on students. To do this they use rhetorical devices such as logos, ethos, and pathos to prove their argument that this movement is vitally flawed. They use cognitive behavioral therapy’s common cognitive distortions as a metaphor for the thought patterns that this movement encourages, and for the arrangement of the bulk of their argument. Lukianoff and Haidt did a thorough job of introducing their topic, their viewpoint and argument, and guiding the audience through their argument to get to a point where they understand.
Example of substandard work because it does not analyze how the essay is working or how it was written–it tries to interpret why it is important which is not the assignment.
Rhetorical Analysis
The power of women is invisible, it is a powerful force that creates pushes the world to unexpected heights. Bits and pieces of lives that are affected by women are filled with glory and happiness but awareness of how it got there. Why is the power of women invisible? Why is it so easy to forget what was the true author or success? Is there only one to blame for success or are there an infinite amount of reasons why success has arrived. Woman, and their work ethic are naturally place on the back burner. The way they are placed in the shadows varies from person to person. President Nixon said “I don’t think a woman should be in any government job whatsoever…mainly because they are erratic. And emotional. Men are erratic and emotional too, but the point is a woman is more likely to be.” (Eagly, Carli, 2007, p. 64). Others feel that both men and women are equal and naturally feel that each gender and population deserve the same place in contribution, work, and reward. But how can men and women fulfill their rights equally when they have different responsibilities?
Invisible barriers are a part of the lives of every individual, they are natural and provide challenge that push the human mind to achieve what they want. Barriers come from different sources and differ in quantity and size, most of the time it does not originate from the person themselves. In some cases, barriers appear from the action of others, what they decide to do or not to do can dictate a possible barrier to stop progression or the attainment of knowledge. Barriers are often frustrating because of the immediate results that they surface. Women in the environments that they are surrounded with, whether they choose to accept them or not, is a common experience to live through. Being passed up on a job offer simply chosen on the fact that you are not a man is a barrier that many women face, depending on the job field they are currently pursuing. Why are these barriers always here and why so frequent? The conscious and unconscious mental association with women is what drives the existence of these barriers. More often than not individual make these associations and assumptions not out of spite for women, but in common cases out of habit. Too often people have heard that a competitive environment not safe or a welcoming place for women. Hard decisions that could result in risky consequences is too much of a risk. The demands of life would overwhelm women and that is risk that should not be taken, it is the role of the man to ease that burden to create happiness in families across the world.
But what of situations and stories that have been told about the success of women in such circumstances? What then? Are those stories true and the success that was achieve a thing of not? Questions must be asked and pondered about if they are to be answered in the best way. Are women the best and most ideal individuals to provide the best care and nourishment for the human race or does it all depend upon the choice of one person to give the right nourishment and work ethic? Hard work is not a genetic code that is passed down from one offspring to the next, but it is learned about and practiced at to achieve success and satisfaction.
Reference:
Eagly, Alice H., and Linda L. Carli. “Women and the Labyrinth of Leadership.” Contemporary Issues in Leadership, Mar. 2018, pp. 147–162., doi:10.4324/9780429494000-17.
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