56+ paper examples, study guides & outlines
Writing a rhetorical essay can come off as intimidating at first, but once you get the basics, it can flow just as easily as any other paper you’ve attempted.
At the basis of rhetorical essays is the ancient foundation of pathos, ethos, and logos.
Pathos is the emotional appeal, ethos is the ethical appeals, and logos touches on logical reasoning. The three points work together to examine another’s piece of work.
At its very core, rhetorical analysis examines how well the artist was able to convince you of their point.
Everything you read, watch, and listen to is rhetoric. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech is a rhetorical essay aimed to convince his audience to remove segregation and racism in the country. Social media posts are meant to force you to feel or act a certain way. A Ted Talk presentation is made to do the same.
Rhetorical analysis aims to prove or disprove if the piece of rhetoric actually did its job of persuasion.
Preparing to write your paper first starts with choosing a rhetorical analysis essay topic.
A good topic should be something you can write critically about from an unbiased standpoint. Rhetorical analysis ideas could be a show you watched once but didn’t stick to or a blog you read that convinced you to make a purchase.
For example, you wouldn’t be able to take a critical stance on a business your sister run’s latest blog because your emotional connection may be too strong to think academically about the body paragraphs, intended audience, and so on. However, you may choose a topic that you’re already familiar with and want to explore more critically from a new frame of reference.
Once you choose a rhetorical situation to analyze, the rest of the essay is set up similarly to any other with an intro, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. To persuade the audience of your point of view, approach writing the piece through an academic writing lenselens. This means avoiding first or second person and referring to the writer (you) and the reader in the third person.
Take a look at any of the rhetorical essay examples below and see what each piece has in common. You’ll notice a standard pattern among all of them:
An introductory section presenting the topic and the problem.
Body paragraphs filled with well-researched background information and cited sources to support each claim.
A conclusion summing up the information and presenting a final result as a product of the analysis.
The job of the writer here is to collect supporting evidence of whether or not the topic has or has not done its purpose of pursuation.
Below you’ll find rhetorical analysis thesis examples and persuasive strategies to help you get started on your paper. In each sample rhetorical analysis essay, notice how the writer set up the topic and hooked the audience into wanting to read more, then how they backed up their point of view using credible sources and examples of their own.
Throughout your piece, always consider how to pull in the foundations of rhetoric: pathos, ethos, and logos.