Ethos Assumptions The Final Draft Essay
Instructions
Step 1 Read the Essay Project Assignment Sheet Carefully:
Essay 3: Rhetorical Analysis of a Speech
Overview: Now that you have a better understanding of the power of rhetoric to influence/convince a reader, we will look at the way rhetorical strategies are also used with speech. The purpose of this assignment is to listen to a speech that presents an argument, just like we did foranalyzing an article, and analyze the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of this argument.
Prompt: For this assignment, you will watch
• Pamela Meyer’s Ted talk, titled “How to Spot a Liar.”
• Nancy Duarte’s Ted talk, titled “The Secret Structure of Great Talks.”
• Karen Thompson’s Ted talks, titled “What Fear Can Teach Us.”
• Please watch all of these TedTalks online. Copy and Paste the title into the search bar, and you will locate the videos.
Then, you will write an essay in which you evaluate the ONE of the speaker’s arguments. This, of course, does NOT mean that you should agree or disagree with the speaker; instead, you will provide a deep analysis of the rhetorical strategies the speaker uses to convince his specified audience of his point.
You will need to restate his thesis/argument in your own words, identify his targeted audience, and show how he or she did an effective or ineffective job at convincing the audience. Identify the argument and audience in your introduction. Then, in your own thesis, state whether the presented argument is effective or not and spend the body paragraphs focusing on the different strategies and how they are being used.
You are analyzing the way the author presented his or her argument to determine whether it is an effective or ineffective argument.
In order to analyze the argument, you will consider the author’s use of:
• Appeals (pathos, logos, ethos)
• Assumptions
• Logical fallacies
• Tone
• Types/Strength of evidence
• Objectivity/Bias
• OR any other points we have discussed or you have encountered in the text
Directions:
You will need to (1) Point out any instances where the speaker used one of these elements by providing a quote from the speech, and (2) Comment on whether or not the speaker did so well/whether the use of this strategy contributed to effectiveness of his or her argument.
You do NOT have to address each of these elements, but you must pick a minimum of FIVE (5). Each of the five can be presented in its own separate paragraph or you may combine any as you see fit. Each paragraph should have a topic sentence that points back to the thesis.
Requirements:
• Length: 3-5 pages
• Your essay must include:
1. Introduction, including a hook, background information, the author’s thesis and his audience and your thesis with a clear preview of points
2. Up to 5 body paragraphs, including cited examples from the speech as well as your analysis of effectiveness after each citation
3. Conclusion with a clear restatement of the main points, thesis, and final argument.
Step 2 Write your final draft
Following the self review and the guidelines in the assignment letter for your draft, complete your final draft.
Step Save and submit your assignment
please make sure to look for those notes that my classmate partner sent them to me after reviewing my first draft:
- When I was reading your first paragraph, you presented your issue throughout the paragraph, I would just advise that you make it a bit more clear and restate it throughout the entire essay just to make sure the reader completely understands what you are presenting and that they don’t overlook it.
- You did a very good job on presenting the speaker and the title of the world you chose to analyze and you didn’t leave the reader guessing who you were talking about, and you stated the main point very well and what the speaker was trying to get across to the audience.
- You did a great job not just agreeing and disagreeing on the speakers main point and actually analyzing the validity of the subject given to you.But I would advise that you stated whether you believe the subject and argument was valid or not in the conclusion so that the reader doesn’t miss your stance.
- Although you don’t have any direct quotes, you do refer back to the speech quite a few times as your evidence, but just ensure you get the points I would say just add a few quotes into your essay.
- Your use of the example of the boat incident the speaker used as her source of evidence was pretty justified because it ties the whole point of view together throughout the speech and as stated before it was also the speakers main evidence.
- You have a very good conclusion and you restate your main claim very well and make sure the reader understands what you were trying to get throughout the essay.
- One last thing I would advise is just put your essay through a grammar checking tool just in case you missed anything, Ialways do this just in case I mess up, otherwise great essay.