Happiness and success
it’s is rhetorical essay
now that you have read about, watched the PowerPoint on and taken the quiz on rhetorical analysis, let’s discuss how to structure your essay. Here is your prompt:
Paper 1 – Rhetorical Analysis Essay
Everyone uses rhetoric to achieve his/her goals and desires. Some goals and desires seem unimportant; others are obviously a bit more important.
Having read the transcript of the TED Talk by Shawn Achor: “The Happy Secret to Better Work.” and having watched it, analyze its rhetoric.
Decide on the speaker’s purpose and argument, then, analyze which rhetorical strategies he uses to develop said purpose and argument. Why are these effective or why are they not effective?
You must also include a Works Cited page with your paper.
Be sure your paper is well-organized with a clear thesis. Each paragraph should have a clear topic sentence and concluding sentence. It must be typed. Staple your outline and rough draft underneath your final draft and the rubric should be last.
Your paper should be 3 – 4 double-spaced typed pages and MLA formatted – one-inch margins and 12-point font. Use a MLA heading and a header. If a draft is not turned in, your final paper grade will be lowered by one letter grade.
Remember – I do not take late papers.
Here are the steps to take to organize your essay:
1. Prewrite and Outline
A. Do the rhetorical square. Decide on Achor’s purpose, argument, audience and persona.
Keep in mind purpose and argument are very similar, but they are not the same. Purpose
is the “what” – what the writer or speaker wants us to do or believe. Argument is the “how”
he/she persuades us – does he use ethos, pathos, logos, humor, anecdotes (stories),
diction, syntax, parallelism, etc? There are so many language elements you can use for
your paper. You may use one element; you may use four. You may use as many as you
like. It’s your call. You’re the writer; you’re the boss. Audience is important, and you are
analyzing a TED Talk: What do you know about them? Who watches/listens to them?
Persona is oftentimes the hardest. Who is Achor in this TED Talk? Is he advocating,
informing, educating, selling? Is he sad, excited, angry, happy?
B. After you have your prewriting, you will share it on our Discussion Board.
C. After you have shared your prewriting and read your classmates’, do your outline.
Remember, outlines are 50 points, and format counts. Use the format I gave you in the
Writing Process PowerPoint.
2. Structure
A. Your thesis should have Achor’s purpose in it, as well as the rhetorical strategies you will
discuss in your paper.
Each topic sentence should tell the rhetorical strategy you will analyze in that paragraph,
for example, pathos or diction. Next, choose an example, and only choose one. For
example, if you are analyzing pathos, perhaps you will talk about Achor’s story of his
sister and how it made the audience feel. Then, analyze it. This is the most important
part: Why did Achor choose that story? Who cares? So what? Connect it to his
purpose. If you have more than one example per paragraph, you will not analyze each
one fully, so choose only one per paragraph.
B. If you choose to write about different rhetorical strategies, each paragraph should be a
different one. For example, one paragraph discussing pathos, one on anecdotes, one on
logos. If you choose to do your whole paper on pathos, each paragraph will be a different
example of pathos.
3. Do your outline and optional rough draft.
Note: Because our course is accelerated, I am not requiring a rough draft; however, the outline is still required. That being said, I highly recommend you submit a rough draft because I will still expect the final draft to be revised and polished.