ENG 102: Reading and Writing Connections (Fall 2017)
Paper 1: Rhetorical Analysis
Prompt: By the time you engage your first major writing assignment for this class, you will have read Carr’s: Is Google Making us Stupid and Churchills: What Socrates said to Phaedrus. This assignment demands that you construct a rhetorical analysis of Carr’s essay. An analysis is an argumentative line that (1) breaks its subject into component parts, (2) examines the nature of those parts, and (3) makes a claim about the subject as a whole based upon the examination of the subject’s parts. A rhetorical analysis, then, breaks down a work of rhetoric, examines how this text works, and makes a claim about the text’s strength (or lack thereof) based on that examination. You will be able to choose to write your paper on one or both of the articles read. You can make a comparison or just focus on one of the papers.
Be sure to begin your paper with an introduction and a strong claim (Thesis). You should support your claim with clearly defined reasons. In the body of your paper, ground these reasons, providing evidence that supports your claim and demonstrates your command of the piece you are analyzing. At the end of the paper, put forth a well-wrought conclusion that suggests avenues for further inquiry, rather than summarizing what you already will have stated.
Length: Your analysis should be at least three, but no longer than four, pages long.
Format: The paper must be typed and double-spaced, with one-inch margins on all sides. Your font will be Times New Roman, size twelve. The layout of your text should be in accordance with MLA guidelines (see your Brief Penguin Handbook). Likewise, your use of quotations and your documentation should be in line with MLA formatting principles.
Weight: This assignment will comprise 10 percent of your overall grade for the course.
Dates: The first draft of your rhetorical analysis is due on Friday Jan. 26, for a peer review. For that day, at a minimum, you need to have completed an introduction, which includes a claim and reasons, as well as an outline of the remainder of the essay. Your outline should be a formal one that references textual details you will cite as evidence. For the peer review, you and your fellow students will need to provide a hard copy of your work or an electronic version of your work. This means that before class begins, you should email a copy of your draft to yourself. Format this as a Microsoft Word attachment. A hard copy is much easier to work with in class.
A second draft of your paper, which I will assess, is due Wednesday, Jan. 31. You should submit this paper through ECN no later than 11:55 p.m. on that day. Your paper should be submitted as an attachment, to the assignment folder. It must be formatted as a Microsoft Word document. This paper should be accompanied by your first draft, as well as the responses you offered to your peers on our peer-review day. Use the “page break” option in Word, and cut and paste these supplementary materials into your final-draft document.
Final drafts that do not include these supplementary materials will suffer severe grade reductions. Remember this first paper and rest of the required work is worth 10% of your overall grade.