Rhetorical analysis

In practice

A rhetorical analysis is an essay that explains how a text tries to persuade or move its audience, and why those choices work. It does not argue whether the author is right. It takes a speech, an essay, an ad or a letter and shows how the writer's choices, such as word choice, structure, appeals and examples, serve their purpose for a particular audience in a particular moment.

The analysis starts with the rhetorical situation: who is speaking, to whom, when, why now and to what end. Those are the speaker, the audience, the context, the exigence and the purpose. Every choice you discuss is then tied back to them. A metaphor is not interesting because it is a metaphor; it is interesting because of what it does to this audience, given what the speaker wants.

In AP English Language, the rhetorical analysis is the second of the exam's three essays. Students read a passage, usually a speech or letter, and write an essay in about 40 minutes. It is scored on a six-point rubric: one point for a defensible thesis, up to four for evidence and commentary, and one for sophistication.

A rhetorical analysis learned at a debate practice

Ben names devices, which is where weak analyses stop. Riya connects the device to the audience and its effect: a question every teacher in the room could answer with a raised hand. Coach Reyes's last line is the whole method: identify the choice, then explain what it does to this audience and why the speaker wanted it.

How to write a rhetorical analysis essay

Read the text twice. The first time, read for what it says. The second time, mark the rhetorical situation (speaker, audience, context, exigence, purpose) and every place the writer seems to make a deliberate choice: a shift in tone, a repeated phrase, a story, a statistic, a question. Write in the margin what each choice does, not only what it is.

Write a thesis that names the speaker, the purpose and the main choices. "In her 2019 commencement speech, the author urges graduates to choose purpose over prestige, moving from self-deprecating humor that earns their trust to a direct challenge that asks them to act." A thesis like this gives you the structure of the essay: one body paragraph per major move.

Organize the body by the text's strategy, often in the order the text uses it, rather than by device. Paragraphs titled in your head as "ethos", "pathos" and "logos" tend to list; paragraphs that follow how the speaker builds trust, then raises the stakes, then makes the request tend to analyze.

In each paragraph, quote briefly and explain at length. A quotation followed by "this shows pathos" earns little. A short quotation followed by two or three sentences on what it makes this audience feel or think, and why the speaker needs that at this point in the speech, is what the rubric calls commentary.

A rhetorical analysis example, paragraph by paragraph

Text: Lou Gehrig's 1939 farewell speech at Yankee Stadium, given after he was diagnosed with the disease that now carries his name. Thesis: "Facing a crowd that came to mourn him, Gehrig turns a farewell into a thank-you, using understatement and a list of gratitude to comfort the audience rather than ask for its pity."

Body paragraph: "Gehrig's opening claim that he considers himself 'the luckiest man on the face of the earth' contradicts what every fan in the stadium knows about his illness. By choosing that contradiction as his first line, he takes control of the moment's meaning: the crowd is not allowed to see him as a victim, because he has already refused to see himself as one."

Notice what the paragraph does. It quotes a few words, names the audience's expectation, explains the effect of the choice and ties it to Gehrig's purpose. It never needs the word "pathos", although that is what it is analyzing.

What to look for: appeals, choices and shifts

The appeals are a starting point. Ethos is how the speaker earns trust, pathos how the text reaches the audience's emotions, logos how it reasons. But almost every text uses all three, so naming them proves little. Ask which one carries the most weight at each moment, and why.

Look past the appeals to concrete choices: diction (why "luckiest" and not "fortunate"), syntax (a long sentence that builds, a short one that stops), structure (where the story comes, where the request comes), repetition, contrast, rhetorical questions, examples and the speaker's persona. Each of these can be a paragraph's focus.

Watch for shifts. A change in tone, pronoun, sentence length or subject usually marks a change in strategy, and the strongest analyses explain why the speaker shifts there. "Up to this point he speaks about the team; from here he speaks only about others' kindness to him" is the kind of observation that earns the sophistication point.

Using rhetorical analysis on your own speeches and scenes

The same reading makes a better writer. Before you revise a monologue, a closing argument or a wedding toast in a script, analyze it as if someone else wrote it: who is in the room, what do they believe now, what does the speaker want them to believe by the end, and which line does the turning? If you cannot point to that line, the speech probably does not turn.

It also works on dialogue in general. Characters persuade each other constantly, and a scene in which one character changes another's mind is a rhetorical situation in miniature. Knowing what the speaker wants and what the listener resists tells you what the persuading line has to do.