Background: In this project, you will draw on Lloyd Bitzer’s theory of the rhetorical situation (see “Helpful Resources”) to rhetorically analyze a text (commercial, brochure, radio ad, donation letter, section of a website, billboard, banner ad, etc.) produced by a for-profit or nonprofit organization. By successfully completing this assignment, you will learn how to analyze a source’s rhetorical situation, a practice that can help you respond effectively to other writing situations you encounter in school and beyond.
Assignment: Locate a text composed by your selected organization and analyze its rhetorical situation in an essay that:
-Analyzes the text’s rhetorical situation, identifying its exigence, audience, and constraints
-Argues how and why the text presents a fitting (effective/ineffective) response to its rhetorical situation
For example, you might choose a Youtube commercial from the American Red Cross that asks viewers to donate blood due to a string of natural disasters.
Substantiate the claims you make about the text’s rhetorical situation, and its response to this situation, with evidence from the text itself and other relevant sources. In addition to your primary source, you must use a minimum of three secondary sources (at least one of your sources should be a peer reviewed journal article). All in all, you should have at least FOUR total sources (the primary source and three secondary sources). You may use the Bitzer article, but it will NOT count as one of your four sources. If you are unsure how to find peer reviewed journal articles, check under “Helpful Resources.”
Tips for Research & Writing:
-The text you select should be representative of the discourse produced by the organization, so you will need to do some preliminary research to determine what genres the organization utilizes.
-In addition to locating a text to rhetorically analyze, you will need to conduct secondary research to understand the rhetorical situation that gave rise to the text, to provide context, and to ensure you respectfully and responsibly represent the organization that produced the text. This means you will consult a variety of relevant sources and effectively incorporate them into your analysis.
Your essay should be at least 1,000 words. The word count should be included after the last sentence of the essay.