Rhetorical Analysis of a Commercal

Rhetorical Analysis of a Commercal Order Description 1. What makes a commercial good or bad? Make a brainstorming list of qualities that good commercials have. This list may evolve into the criteria you will use to evaluate the advertisement in your essay's thesis statement. 2. Please select one of the advertisements listed later in this Blackboard lesson. 3. Think about the commercial. Ask yourself the following questions, and jot down your answers on scratch paper. Your answers on this scratch paper may give you some supporting details for the body of your essay. In other words, the answers to these questions may provide your essay's prewriting. •What type of people make up this audience? How do you know? (Try not to answer, "This commercial is for a general audience." You may have more to write about if you can be more specific about the age, gender, and socio-economic make-up of the intended audience.). •The primary purpose of a commercial is almost always to persuade viewers to buy something. Does this particular commercial have a secondary purpose? If so, what is it?. •Look over "Identifying Rhetorical Appeals in Written and Visual Argument" on page 28 of A Rhetoric Handbook for English 1301 and 1302. In which specific ways does this commercial use pathos?. •How specifically does it uselogos?. •How does it use ethos? Use details, if possible.. •Do you know when this commercial aired on television? If so, how does the commercial use kairos? Does the time of airing let you know anything about the commercial's intended audience?. •Look over "Advertisements' Fifteen Basic Emotional Appeals" on page 29 of A Rhetoric Handbook for English 1301 and 1302. Do any of these emotional appeals appear in the commercial? If so, do they help or hinder the advertisement's pathos? How?. •Based on these questions, how well do you think this commercial works to achieve its purpose?. 4. Remember that the purpose of this essay is not to give your opinion on the product or service being advertised, but to analyze the rhetoric of the commercial. 5. Write the preliminary thesis statement in one sentence. You should identify the advertisement by its title (the restricted topic) and make your essay's main point in your thesis statement. Because this essay is evaluative, the main point should tell the reader your claim (in this case, your opinion about whether Here is a formula you might follow in your thesis statement: ___________(commercial's name) + adverb (synonym for effectively or ineffectively) + verb (encourages, persuades, convinces, or a similar term) + whom (the intended audience) + to do what. 6. Decide which evidence and which details should be included in your essay. For example, you may choose to discuss some of the following points: •intended audience. •intended purpose. •classical appeals (pathos, logos, ethos, kairos). •Fowles's Basic Appeals (sex, affiliation, nurture, and so forth). Your essay may follow the plan for the "Main Body Section" on pages 43-44 of A Rhetoric Handbook, using a section for ethos, one for logos, and one for pathos. (Note that a section may comprise more than one paragraph.) If you wish to modify or expand this three-section strategy, you may, as long as the essay's body is all an explanation of how the rhetoric of the commercial works. Then, find details in the commercial that support the idea you will make in each paragraph. For instance, consider the music (or lack thereof), the characters, the humor (or lack thereof), the colors, and any other supporting evidence you observe. Jot down your ideas to use as you continue to write your paper 7. Determine the method of organization that best suits your purpose and evidence. •Choose to use either a chronological or an emphatic order. A chronological order analyzes the parts of the commercial in the order in which they occur: what happens first, what happens second, and so forth. An emphatic order analyzes the parts of the commercial by placing the criteria in order by importance with the most compelling point last.. •Make a scratch outline for the essay's body. Be sure that your plan uses one point per body paragraph. If you have three points to make, your essay will have three body paragraphs. If you have four points to make, your essay's body will contain four points. Five points means five body paragraphs. If you only have two points to make, watch the commercial again to find more to say about it.. •Delete any ideas that do not closely fit with the supporting points in your essay. It's not necessary to write everything you know about the commercial, but only the points that give evidence for opinion in your thesis statement.. •Plan a catchy strategy for your essay's introduction and a way to conclude the essay that does not restate the points in the essay's body. For more information, please review the lecture in Unit 1 Lesson 2.. 8. Write the first draft of the essay. Your essay must be at least 450 words long, but no more than 1000 words long. If your essay is too short, decide whether you will add another point to the essay's body, add more supporting details, or both. If your essay is too long, delete some of the less important parts. Be sure to use quotation marks around any exact words from the commercial and to make a Work Cited. (The Work Cited is discussed in Unit 2 Lesson 3.) 9. Revise the first draft. •As you revise, be sure that this essay is consistently in the third person. Try highlighting every instance of I, me, my, mine, myself, we, us, our, ourselves, you, your, yours, yourself, and yourselves you see, and then modify the sentence so that it does not use these first and second person pronouns. Remember that for this essay, any use of these words (except inside a quotation) is considered an error.. •Be sure your paragraphs are well unified, which means having one topic per body paragraph. If you have three points to make, you should have three body paragraphs. If you are making more than three points, you will need more than three body paragraphs.. •Each paragraph should have a topic sentence that gives the paragraph's main point. Highlight this topic sentence. If you find a paragraph without a topic sentence, add one. Then, remove the highlighting from all the body paragraphs.. •The English language uses the present tense for two reasons. One is to write about what is happening now. The other is to write about events or conditions that happened in the past, are happening now, and are probably going to happen in the future. Because your commercial could have been viewed yesterday, can be viewed today, and probably will be viewable tomorrow, be sure that you write about the commercial in the present tense. . •You may revise your essay as often as you think is necessary until you are satisfied with your essay. If you need to generate more ideas, change your thesis, or reorganize your thoughts, do so. . 10. Proofread and edit the essay •Look over your graded Unit 1 essay. Did you make any errors on the first paper that can be avoided in the Unit 2 essay? If so, fix the errors.. •If you do not understand all the marks and comments on your graded Unit 1 essay, ask about them. The "Questions and Answers" discussion forum is the best place to do so unless the question refers to something private, such as your grade.. •Remember that the ethos of your essay is raised if you use diction appropriate for college papers. One part of achieving this diction is to change any contractions you may have written in your first draft to their spelled-out version. If you need a reminder about what a contraction is, please see pages 294-95 in Wadsworth.. •If you need a refresher on grammar, mechanics, or punctuation, now is the time to catch up. Please take advantage of the services explained in the "Free Tutoring" folder under the "Lessons" tab in our Blackboard class.. •Check again to be sure that your essay's last page is the Work Cited. . 11. Post your peer review draft in your peer review group. This posting will earn up to five points, provided you also review both of your classmates' essays. If a student submits a paper, but does not post comments on the fellow students' essays, that student will earn no points for posting the peer review or the peer review comments. 12. Peer review the essays of each member of your peer review group. Read over the essays and answer the questions, giving your group mates your best constructive criticism. 13. Using the comments provided by your peer reviewer, revise the essay again. 14. Submit the final draft in Blackboard on or before the date indicated in the course calendar. The essay is worth one hundred points.