Monday, January 12, 2009

"Rhetoric: An Overview" Response

After reading the piece on rhetoric I have a much better understanding of what it is. It is, however, still a little unclear to me so I don't think I understand it completely.

What I got from the piece is that rhetoric is using language in different ways in order to affect the target audience in a specific way. Most of the choices we make about rhetoric are unconscious and something we do based upon the type of paper we are writing and who we are writing to.

The most helpful thing in the piece was the descriptions of purpose, audience and context. These are the three things you need to know in order to rhetorically analyze a writing piece. There was a good amount of detail describing what each means and how to do it.

What I still don't understand is how to rhetorically analyze. What is the difference between analyzing a paper and rhetorically analyzing a paper? Is there a difference? I understand what rhetoric is I just don't understand how to use it or identify it.

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