For this assignment, you will write a Rhetorical Analysis of one of the articles below. The Rhetorical Analysis asks you to think critically about the article and identify specific characteristics of the article you select. This is not a first/second person response essay (the week 4 video explains this). UNLESS you make a personal connection as an introductory technique (as the example essay response illustrates). You must determine the ultimate purpose of the assigned reading you select and the ideas expressed. A Rhetorical Analysis should do the following:

What is the purpose of this argument? What does it hope to achieve?
Who is the audience for this argument? Who is ignored or excluded?
What appeals or techniques does the argument use — emotional, logical, ethical?
What type of argument is it, and how does the genre affect the argument? (You might challenge the lack of evidence in editorials, but you wouldn’t make the same complaint about bumper stickers.)
Who is making the argument? What ethos does it create, and how does it do so? What values does the ethos evoke? How does it make the writer or creator seem trustworthy?
What authorities does the argument rely on or appeal to?
What facts, reasoning, and evidence are used in the argument? How are they presented?
What claims does the argument make? What issues are raised — or ignored or evaded?
What are the contexts — social, political, historical, cultural — for this argument? Whose interests does it serve? Who gains or loses by it?
How is the argument organized or arranged? What media does the argument use and how effectively?
How does the language or style of the argument persuade an audience?