Write to a general audience of college-educated people, but assume that they have never read the articles before. The readings last week briefly explained the difference between an argument and a report. Think about your CCRA as a combination of the two. In your paper, you should report to your reader your “findings” from your rhetorical analysis: What are the writers’ arguments? How do they present those arguments? Why? But your essay is also evaluative: Based on your findings, were the arguments effective? How? And, your paper is also argumentative. Your paper may be framed by an argument about which author was more effective in their use of rhetorical strategies given their audiences and purposes.
The difficult part of the CCRA is always trying to approach the evaluation of the essays as objectively as possible. It is easy to conclude that the person making the stronger argument is the person with whom we agree, but we also know that that is not always true. Don’t you get frustrated when someone who is arguing about a topic you agree with is doing it terribly? Or when someone you disagree with makes a great argument that you find difficult to refute? A rhetorical analysis requires you to try to maintain some level of objectivity. However, it is okay to be honest with your reader about the ways in which the means of persuasion affected you as a reader. So, it doesn’t have to be totally dry and clinical as a piece of writing. Just remember that you have to be both reader and analyst. Be aware of why you find yourself agreeing or disagreeing with an author–see past the argument to the argument’s component parts!
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