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Wyatt's Notes — Qualifications

Rhetorical Analysis

The Rhetorical Situation

Before analysing any text, identify the rhetorical situation — the context in which the text was produced. The SOAPStone framework provides a systematic approach:

  • Speaker: Who is the author? What is their background, expertise, and relationship to the topic?
  • Occasion: What is the time, place, and context in which the text was written? What triggered the need to write?
  • Audience: Who is the intended reader? What are their beliefs, values, and knowledge level?
  • Purpose: What is the author trying to accomplish? (To persuade, inform, entertain, inspire, warn?)
  • Subject: What is the text about? What is the main topic and the specific claim?
  • Tone: What is the author’s attitude toward the subject and audience?

Understanding the rhetorical situation is essential because the author’s choices — every word, sentence structure, and device — are shaped by these factors.

The Rhetorical Triangle

Classical rhetoric identifies three primary means of persuasion:

Ethos (Credibility)

Ethos refers to the author’s credibility and trustworthiness. An author establishes ethos through:

  • Professional credentials and expertise: Academic titles, professional experience, published works, awards, and institutional affiliations
  • Personal experience: First-hand accounts that demonstrate direct knowledge of the subject
  • Fair and balanced reasoning: Acknowledging opposing views, using qualified language, avoiding exaggeration
  • Appropriate language and style: Formal register for academic audiences, conversational tone for general readers, specialised vocabulary for expert audiences
  • Moral character: Demonstrating honesty, integrity, and goodwill toward the audience

On the AP exam, avoid saying “the author uses ethos.” Instead, explain how the author establishes credibility: “By citing peer-reviewed research from leading epidemiologists, the author establishes her expertise on public health policy.”

Pathos (Emotion)

Pathos appeals to the audience’s emotions, values, and desires. Effective use of pathos engages the reader and makes the argument more persuasive and memorable. Techniques include:

  • Anecdotes and personal stories: Humanising abstract issues with concrete, relatable narratives
  • Vivid imagery and sensory language: Creating mental pictures that evoke emotional responses
  • Figurative language: Metaphors, similes, and personification that create emotional resonance
  • Connotative language: Words with strong emotional associations (e.g., “slaughter” vs “harvest”)
  • Rhetorical questions: Engaging the reader and prompting self-reflection
  • Appeals to shared values: Referencing freedom, justice, family, patriotism, or fairness
  • Tone shifts: Moving from calm to urgent, or from personal to universal, to manipulate emotion

Effective pathos is controlled and appropriate to the subject and audience. Manipulative or excessive emotional appeals weaken credibility.

Logos (Logic)

Logos is the use of logical reasoning, evidence, and structured argumentation. Techniques include:

  • Facts, statistics, and data: Quantitative evidence that supports claims objectively
  • Historical examples and precedents: Referencing established patterns and documented events
  • Cause-and-effect reasoning: Demonstrating that one event or condition leads to another
  • Analogies and comparisons: Drawing parallels between familiar and unfamiliar situations
  • Syllogisms and deductive reasoning: Moving from general principles to specific conclusions
  • Inductive reasoning: Building general conclusions from specific examples and evidence
  • Concessions and refutations: Addressing counterarguments to strengthen the logical structure

Strong logos requires that evidence is relevant, sufficient, accurate, and representative. Data without context or misleading statistics undermine logical appeals.

Rhetorical Strategies and Devices

Diction (Word Choice)

Diction is the author’s deliberate selection of words and their effect on meaning and tone.

  • Formal vs informal: Academic diction (“furthermore,” “thus”) vs conversational diction (“so,” “anyway”)
  • Concrete vs abstract: Specific, tangible words (“100 millilitres of blood”) vs general terms (“a significant amount”)
  • Denotation vs connotation: Literal dictionary meaning vs implied emotional meaning
  • Jargon vs accessible language: Technical terms that signal expertise vs plain language for broad audiences
  • Loaded language: Words with strong positive or negative emotional charge

When analysing diction on the exam, connect the word choice to the author’s purpose: “The author’s repeated use of clinical terminology such as ‘pathology’ and ‘prognosis’ distances the reader emotionally, reinforcing the objective, scientific purpose of the passage.”

Syntax (Sentence Structure)

Syntax refers to the arrangement of words into sentences and the effect of structural choices.

  • Simple sentences: Emphasise a single idea with force and clarity
  • Compound sentences: Connect related ideas, showing equality or contrast
  • Complex sentences: Establish relationships of subordination and hierarchy between ideas
  • Short sentences: Create emphasis, urgency, or dramatic effect
  • Long, flowing sentences: Suggest continuity, complexity, or accumulated thought
  • Fragments: Draw attention, mimic natural speech, or create a jarring effect
  • Parallel structure: Create rhythm, balance, and emphasis through grammatical repetition
  • Repetition: Anaphora, epistrophe, and other forms for emphasis and emotional impact
  • Inversion: Reversing normal word order for emphasis or rhetorical effect
  • Rhetorical questions: Engage the audience, imply answers, or challenge assumptions

Figurative Language

  • Metaphor: Direct comparison without “like” or “as” — creates vivid imagery and conceptual connections
  • Simile: Comparison using “like” or “as” — makes the unfamiliar concrete
  • Personification: Attributing human qualities to non-human entities — creates empathy and engagement
  • Allusion: Indirect reference to historical events, literary works, or cultural knowledge — enriches meaning through association
  • Hyperbole: Deliberate exaggeration — emphasises a point or creates irony
  • Litotes: Understatement using negation (“not bad”) — creates emphasis through restraint
  • Synecdoche and metonymy: Part representing the whole or associated object representing a concept

Imagery

Vivid sensory details that create mental pictures, appealing to sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. Effective imagery immerses the reader in the scene and evokes emotional and intellectual responses.

Analysing Tone

Tone is the author’s attitude toward the subject and audience. Identifying tone requires close attention to diction, syntax, and figurative language.

Common Tone Categories

  • Positive: Optimistic, appreciative, reverent, sympathetic, nostalgic
  • Negative: Critical, cynical, indignant, contemptuous, bitter
  • Neutral: Objective, analytical, detached, informative, formal
  • Complex: Ironic, ambivalent, conflicted, sarcastic, resigned, impassioned

How to Identify and Describe Tone

  1. Note specific words and phrases that carry emotional weight
  2. Consider sentence structure (short and choppy = urgent or tense; long and flowing = reflective or descriptive)
  3. Identify figurative language that shapes attitude
  4. Place the tone in the context of the rhetorical situation

On the exam, always support your tone identification with specific textual evidence and explain how the tone serves the author’s purpose.

Organisational Patterns

Authors structure their arguments using recognisable organisational patterns:

  • Narration: Telling a story or recounting events in chronological order
  • Description: Creating vivid sensory impressions of people, places, or things
  • Process analysis: Explaining how something works or how to do something
  • Comparison and contrast: Examining similarities and differences between subjects
  • Cause and effect: Tracing the reasons for or results of an event or situation
  • Problem and solution: Identifying an issue and proposing remedies
  • Classification and division: Organising subjects into categories or breaking them into parts

Writing a Rhetorical Analysis Essay

Structure

  1. Introduction: Identify the text (title, author, source), describe the rhetorical situation, state a thesis that answers: What is the author’s purpose, and what strategies does the author use to achieve it?
  2. Body paragraphs: Each paragraph should analyse one or two rhetorical strategies, explaining what the strategy is, how the author uses it (with specific quotations), and why it is effective given the purpose and audience
  3. Conclusion: Summarise the analysis and comment on the overall effectiveness of the text

Thesis Formula

“In [title], [author] [argues/persuades/informs] [audience] that [main claim] through the use of [strategy 1], [strategy 2], and [strategy 3] in order to [purpose].”

Key Reminders

  • Analysis over identification: Do not just name devices; explain their effect on the audience and their contribution to the author’s purpose
  • Use specific textual evidence embedded naturally into your analysis
  • Connect every analytical point back to the thesis
  • Avoid plot summary; focus on how the author constructs meaning
  • Use strong analytical verbs: suggests, implies, conveys, underscores, emphasises, reveals, juxtaposes, subverts

Common Pitfalls

  • Listing rhetorical devices without explaining their effect
  • Writing a summary rather than an analysis
  • Failing to connect analysis to the author’s purpose and audience
  • Using vague descriptions of tone without textual support
  • Confusing the author’s tone with the reader’s emotional response (mood)
  • Over-identifying devices at the expense of depth