Suggested Outline for Textual Evaluation

While we will go more in-depth on outlining in the rest of the course, I wanted to provide a visual example of how to organize this mini-essay for success. It may have been awhile since you reviewed outlining or setting up an essay, so PLEASE let me know if you need help! Remember, my office hours are designed for you to join me and get help on the course. ?

Format

Following the below outline will help you organize your thoughts. You can plug in your ideas where they go, and then take the outline and turn it into an essay format. While I am not collecting this outline, most (if not all) of my students said that using an outline to organize before jumping straight into their essay was very helpful. Remember that while this outline is in a bullet point style, your essay needs to be written in proper essays without numbers/letters at the beginning of each paragraph.

Outline

Introduction
1. Hook: A sentence or two to grab the attention of your audience, but it needs to be connected to your paper topic somehow.
2. Bridge: A few sentences connecting your hook to the text you chose to evaluate. In this section, you also need to provide the name of the text and the author/speaker.
3. Thesis: One (maybe two) sentence with your main claim.
  1. This text is/is not persuasive because X, Y, and Z.
4. Body Paragraph One: Reason X
  1. Topic Sentence – A statement that makes your first reason that your text is or is not persuasive.
    1. Example: Rowling’s use of large words makes it very difficult for her audience to understand, let alone be persuaded, by her speech.
  2. First piece of evidence (make sure to use quotation marks if you are pulling their words directly from the text!)
  3. Explanation of the evidence and connection to your point
    1. This should be 2-3 sentences immediately following the paraphrase/quote. You cannot just drop a piece of evidence in and expect your readers to make the connection back themselves.
  4. Repeat b & c at least once.

Body Paragraph Two: Reason Y
1. Topic Sentence – A statement that makes your first reason that your text is or is not persuasive.
  1. Example: Rowling’s use of large words makes it very difficult for her audience to understand, let alone be persuaded, by her speech.
2. First piece of evidence (make sure to use quotation marks if you are pulling their words directly from the text!)
3. Explanation of the evidence and connection to your point
  1. This should be 2-3 sentences immediately following the paraphrase/quote. You cannot just drop a piece of evidence in and expect your readers to make the connection back themselves.
4. Repeat b & c at least once.

Body Paragraph Three: Reason Z
1. Topic Sentence – A statement that makes your first reason that your text is or is not persuasive.
  1. Example: Rowling’s use of large words makes it very difficult for her audience to understand, let alone be persuaded, by her speech.
2. First piece of evidence (make sure to use quotation marks if you are pulling their words directly from the text!)
3. Explanation of the evidence and connection to your point
  1. This should be 2-3 sentences immediately following the paraphrase/quote. You cannot just drop a piece of evidence in and expect your readers to make the connection back themselves.
4. Repeat b & c at least once.
Conclusion
1. Restate your thesis – but it should not be copied and paste from the introduction. Say it in a new way.
2. Brief summary of why rhetoric matters when trying to persuade, connecting to your 3 main points (roughly 3-4 sentences).
3. A sentence or two connecting this idea to the larger picture of academic writing OR writing in general.

Helpful Notes

Don’t forget to take your information out of the outline format!
While I say you can just have two pieces of evidence in a paragraph for this first essay, remember that you yourself want to be convincing in your argument about the text. If that takes more evidence, then use more!
Sometimes it’s easier to write your introduction once you’re complete done. So, write your thesis and body paragraphs. Then go back for the introduction once you know where exactly you’re going in the essay.

Textual Analysis Essay

Using the discussion of the five rhetorical situations we’ve had, you will analyze a persuasive speech of your choosing. This speech can be from a book, a show, a movie, a historical person, etc. It just has to be designed to try to persuade someone/group of something. Analyze the rhetoric and effectiveness of the text. Is it persuasive? Why or why not? What are things that work for the speaker, what are things that don’t work for the speaker? You can also look at ethos, pathos, and logos in the speech. Is the speaker credible? Do they successfully use an emotional appeal? Do they make logical sense?

Once you’ve analyzed that, make a decision about whether or not you think the speech is truly persuasive or not. organize your points and consider your rhetoric. Create an analysis that lays out the speech for your classmates. Explain why or why not this text is persuasive and show them the different examples from the rhetorical situations or ethos, pathos, logos.

Here are some tips to help write your textual analysis. Have a short summary/description of the text. This can be a few sentences to a small paragraph, but it should be towards the beginning of your essay. Make sure that you are giving attention to the context (part of your five rhetorical strategies!) while you give a clear judgment on the text. Make sure you have reasonable support; this means the support makes sense and comes from the text! [In other situations, you may go to outside sources to help support, but that is not required for this assignment.]

Requirements

2 page minimum length
MLA paper setup
MLA citations & works cited
Textual Analysis
Mixture of paraphrasing and quotations used as evidence
Grammar to watch for:
- ○ Runons and fragments
- ○ No use of first or second person pronouns
- ○ No contractions
- ○ Proper capitalization and spelling