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Week Six: Thesis Statements and Analysis

Week Six: Thesis Statements and Analysis. Getting Prepared for the Rhetorical Analysis. Class Overview. Review of Last Week’s Materials: theses, persuasive purpose, and audience. Audience and Accuracy with our Four Articles Top Twenty Common Errors Mini-Lesson

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Week Six: Thesis Statements and Analysis

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  1. Week Six: Thesis Statements and Analysis Getting Prepared for the Rhetorical Analysis

  2. Class Overview • Review of Last Week’s Materials: theses, persuasive purpose, and audience. • Audience and Accuracy with our Four Articles • Top Twenty Common Errors Mini-Lesson • Reminders: MLA Format Citations, Absences, Readings, and Turn-in Dates • Brief Assignment #4 Directions • An In-Depth Look at Theses: What should a thesis for a rhetorical analysis contain or do? How does it structure an analysis? • Topic Sentences • Learning the Difference Between Summary/Description and Analysis • Mechanical Issues with Quotations

  3. Review • A thesisstatement makes a concise but accurate claim about the main idea of a text that can be supported through analysis. • In a rhetorical analysis, a thesis statement should make a claim about the author’s persuasive purpose. • Informing/telling/describing/conveying is not the same as persuasion. • An audience can be determined by the language an author uses but also through the assumptions, claims, and references they make in their works. • Research is necessary to determine an accurate audience for a text. Look at the original source for the text if it has been reprinted: was the article first printed in a magazine or journal? What sort of readership does that imply? Nationality? Background? Economic standing? Education level?

  4. Where Have We Seen These Before? • The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age (1994) • The Atlantic Monthly (Dec 1998) • The Lancet 351.9112 (2 May 1998) • The New York Times 11 Dec 2011

  5. Audience and Accuracy • In order to determine audience, research the original publication by doing the following: read the background information your textbook provides, read any relevant footnotes, and then try to locate information on the original publication. • You might look at the original work, if it’s available, or at a review of the book or article. If the article was printed in a popular newspaper, journal, or magazine, look into the background and readership of that magazine. • Consider nationality, profession, education, and economic standing with the audience(s): how does the author respond to these qualities? How is the author’s rhetoric connected to the audience’s background? Would you use high-level technical language about economics to persuade a group of uneducated people who have no experience with economics? What might you try instead? What would you need to know about them to make that call?

  6. Absences and Turn-In Dates • Pay attention to the Raider Writer turn-in dates for assignments: it occasionally changes. Most Brief Assignments are due on Mondays by 11:59 PM, but some are due on different days. • Your paper loses a letter-grade for every day it is late (automatic 10 point deduction) • You are allowed two unexcused absences, but these absences do not excuse you from failing to participate in class or turn in work. On your third unexcused absence, I must contact your academic dean and report your absences: you will lose 5% of your course grade for each unexcused absence from then on.

  7. Brief Assignment #4 • Objective: To develop new strategies for writing a thesis statement. • Purpose: One key to writing a successful essay is to develop a focused thesis statement. This assignment will enable you to do so. • Description: For your draft 1.1, you will write a rhetorical analysis. See the description of Draft 1.1 for a discussion of what a rhetorical analysis is and what you will be expected to do. • In this assignment, you will continue your preparation for writing your rhetorical analysis by writing thesis statements suitable for it. Using three texts specified by your classroom instructor, or three  of the four texts listed below, you will 1) identify the audience and purpose of each text and explain what those are, in about 75- 100 words, and 2) create a thesis statement for a rhetorical analysis of each text. • Remember that to successfully create your thesis statements, you will need to read these texts carefully (and, usually, several times) so that you thoroughly understand the audience, purpose, and content of the texts. • Texts for your thesis statements (use only if none are specified by your instructor): • - Sven Birkerts: "Into the Electronic Millennium" pp. 226-233 • - Johannes Borgstein: “The Poetry of Genetics” pp. 234-237 (this is in place of Scott Jaschick’s piece) • - Stephen Budiansky: "Lost in Translation" pp. 238-244 • - Tina Rosenberg: "Everyone Speaks Text Message" pp. 267-271

  8. More Directions for BA #4 • Write the purpose & audience and thesis sections in two separate paragraphs for each text. Number your identification of purpose and audience 1. and your thesis for that text 2., and label the article title and author above the sections. • You must include these sections for three of the four articles. This means you must identify purpose & audience and create a thesis statement for each of the three you select. • Example format: Borgstein, Johannes. “The Poetry of Genetics.” • Purpose and Audience • Thesis

  9. Works Cited for BA #4 • Please include a Works Cited list at the end of your paper. Order the article entries alphabetically by last, name first. Please use the format we’ve discussed in class. Example: Works Cited Fowles, Jib. “Advertising’s Fifteen Basic Appeals.” Advertising and Popular Culture (1996). Rpt. In First-Year Writing: Writing in the Disciplines. 7thCustom Ed. Boston: Pearson, 2013-2014. Print. 245-60. Jaschick, Scott. “Winning Hearts and Minds at War on Plagiarism.” Inside Higher Ed (7 Apr 2008). Rpt. In First-Year Writing: Writing in the Disciplines. 7th Custom Ed. Boston: Pearson, 2013-2014. Print. 261-266.

  10. BA #4 Continued • Please develop your paragraph on audience and purpose and make sure that you have identified a persuasive purpose for the text. Remember: nearly all writing informs, describes,or conveys information. This is not unique or necessarily rhetorical. What is rhetorical is how, what, and why an author persuades or influences a particular audience. • Be careful with your thesis statement’s grammar: persuasion needs to always be connected to an audience or people. You cannot persuade a point. This does not make sense. Examples: Correct: Birkerts uses (X) to persuade/convince his audience that (X) is… OR: … uses (X) to persuade his audience to (do X)… Incorrect: Borgstein uses X to persuade that poetry…

  11. Rhetorical Analysis Theses • A rhetorical analysis thesis should contain the following: • The author and article title • Two to three rhetorical choices significant to the persuasive purpose and audience of the text. • A persuasive purpose connected to a specific audience • Example: In his report “Winning Hearts and Minds at War on Plagiarism,” journalist Scott Jaschick emphasizes student-teacher dialogue and utilizes quotes from current educators to effectively persuade college-level teachers and administrators that plagiarism cannot be effectively addressed without conversation and a change to the current methods of control. • As in the example above, try to phrase the thesis in one sentence if possible. If you want to connect the rhetorical choices to appeals. • In a rhetorical analysis, a thesis should come at the end of your introductory paragraph, so some information regarding audience and the text’s background may already be established in that paragraph.

  12. Theses: Effective or Ineffective? INEFFECTIVE: • The author uses pathos and ethos to build credibility in order to better inform his audience that teachers need to change the way they deal with plagiarism. • Scott uses structure and diction to reach an audience mostly of teachers and administrators to report on plagiarism. • James P. Gee uses an analogy and illustration to describe video games and their relation to education. EFFECTIVE: • By using humor, a restrained tone, and a focus on student dialogue in “Winning Hearts and Minds at War on Plagiarism,” Jaschick effectively influences college instructors and administrators to see the how older methods of discipline for avoiding plagiarism are failing. • In his “Post-Katrina Speech,” President G. W. Bush employs religious diction, metaphors relating to jazz and culture, and statistics from the relief effort to convince his audience that his office has responded to Hurricane Katrina in an appropriate manner.

  13. Topic Sentences and Structure • In a rhetorical analysis, you will have to develop at least three large body paragraphs of analysis. • A topic sentence is the first sentence of a paragraph and establishes what the paragraph will cover. • The order of your rhetorical choices in your thesis statements matters: some may not make sense if they are evaluated in a different order. • For example, if one rhetorical choice is somewhat linked to the other, you will want to start with the one that is more significant to the text and audience.

  14. Examples of Thesis Order and Topic Sentences in an Analysis • Ex. 1. In his “Post-Katrina Speech,” President G. W. Bush employs religious diction, metaphors relating to jazz and culture, and statistics from the relief effort to convince his audience that his office has responded to Hurricane Katrina in an appropriate manner. • Note the order: “religious diction,” “metaphor,” and “statistics”: how does this set up a layered audience or point to which audience is more significant to the purpose? • Example topic sentence: Bush uses religious diction throughout his speech because it connects to his audience’s historically Catholic and Christian culture while also echoing American political rhetoric.

  15. Analysis or Description/Summary? • “After describing all of the medicine and relief the government has provided, Bush also uses a metaphor that relates to Jazz. He then connects that to the recovery effort. This shows that metaphors reach his audience and that they find them effective.” • “By using a metaphor comparing the recovery effort to the joy at the end of a New Orleans funeral, Bush demonstrates that he understands and sympathizes with New Orleans culture. The “second line” he refers to also connects to the religious concept of resurrection, which provides hope for those living in shelters and who have lost their personal livelihood (293). This helps build pathos that counters the audience’s assumption that Bush and the U.S. government abandoned the people of New Orleans because of their demographic and cultural background.”

  16. Help With Quotation Integration • Always “embed” any direct quotes in your own sentence. Stand-alone quotes are not allowed in a rhetorical analysis. Stand-alone quotes are akin to plagiarism because you are simply copying the authors words without commenting on them. A quote must be a grammatical part of your sentence. • Stand-alone quote: “Once the casket has been laid in place, the band breaks into a joyful “second line”—symbolizing the triumph of the spirit over death (293)” This shows that Bush understands Jazz. • Properly embedded quote: When Bush refers to the “joyful ‘second line’” in a jazz funeral procession, he demonstrates to his audience that […] (293). Bush states that the hurricane has “reminded us that we are often stronger than we know--with the help of grace and one another,” which extends his sympathy in a religious manner (293).

  17. Participation Assignment #6 READ: • St. Martin's Handbook: Chapter 3f-g, "Planning," "Drafting,"   • First-Year Writing: Ch. 10 pp. 197-207 • Reread the article you’ve selected for the rhetorical analysis. WRITE: Participation Assignment #6 ] • Write your working rhetorical analysis thesis at the top of the page. Label this 1. Make sure that the article title and author are clearly labeled as well. • For section 2., please select three quotes from the article you have chosen for your 1.1 Draft (analysis) and include these in full. Use appropriate MLA in-text citations (you will not receive credit if you forget these!). Please do not include quotes longer than two or three sentences. • Under each quote, please include a 100 to 150 word evaluation of how you would integrate the quote in your rhetorical analysis. Answer: how does the quote demonstrate what you are trying to analyze in the author’s rhetorical language? Would you paraphrase or directly quote the passage, and why? How does the rhetorical choice connect to the persuasive purpose and audience?

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