Rhetorical Analysis Story

John Lauer
ENGL 250

Rhetorical Analysis Story
2/5/14

Analyzing Without Knowing

               When prompted with this assignment, it was hard for me to think of what to actually write about, and I’m still not exactly sure what kind of story the teacher was thinking was going to come out of this. All I can think of is what is the broad definition of “rhetorical analysis”? I would say that an easy definition is just the process of reviewing and judging someone’s work. Looking at all different aspects of their work and saying what is good and what can be improved on.

Some small examples on this in my life was when I was in speech class, and the teacher had us evaluate each speech that was given by other students and say one good thing about the presentation and one thing that they could improve on. This was just a small exercise but was exactly what rhetorical analysis is! Another example was when you would read over peoples essay drafts in English class, and give them critiques and ideas of what could improve their paper.

Maybe a more abstract example of when I used rhetorical analysis and I didn’t know it was when I was in the marching band. I was in band for six years starting in 6^th grade and I was in marching band all through high school. I was a section leader for two of those years, and part of leading the section was making them better by critiquing them and analyzing how to make them better. This was more of a physical way of keeping their posture perfect, their tone beautiful while wanting a strong sound and having them pay attention in rehearsals. This was more of a leadership opportunity than rhetorical analysis, but music and marching can always be improved on, so as a leader, I would judge and review a marcher, and give them tips to improve their performance.

These are all simple examples of rhetorical analysis and give a little insight to how different it is to judge someone’s work in all kinds of situations.