ENGL 1001 Visual Rhetorical Analysis Assignment For this essay, you will be

ENGL 1001

Visual Rhetorical Analysis

Assignment

For this essay, you will be picking a movie poster, print or digital advertisement, or a commercial that shows the use of rhetorical appeals to persuade. You will be required to analyze your visual using the three rhetorical appeals (ethos, pathos, logos) previously discussed. Along with the three appeals, you will be looking at the rhetorical situation, such as who is the audience, what is the purpose or message, and who is the speaker. Here is another example of the rhetorical triangle and its elements:

Since this is an analysis essay, you will need to pick apart the visual you have chosen and break it down into its rhetorical situation using the appeals. It would be ideal for your visual to include all three of the appeals/situations, but if that is not the case, then your essay must at least include two of the appeals along with their situation. You will be point out the connections between the rhetorical elements and the visual elements. No outside research is required. You may use your textbook for support!

Questions to help you plan/think about your draft:

Who is the intended audience for the image?

What is the message that the image is conveying?

What other interpretations of the image could arise?

What does my audience know about the context of the image, or other images it refers to or relies on?

What are some visual elements used in it?

What is the purpose of the advertisement/poster/commercial?

Organization:

Intro: The introduction is the first paragraph of your essay You should begin with a hook which gets the attention of the audience. This is called an attention getter or hook and can be a question, shocking statistics, anecdote, or anything that draws the reader into your essay or makes them want to continue reading the essay. Next you should provide background information to orient the reader to the issue or the visual. Who produced the advertisement? When was it produced? What does the reader need to know about this issue or advertisement? You also want to describe your advertisement/commercial/poster here as well. Then, you may need to define terms that the reader might not be familiar with such as the rhetorical triangle, rhetorical situation, or rhetorical appeals. The last element is to create a thesis statement or assertion to guide the reader (Please note: I DO NOT WANT A PLOT SUMMARY!)

Thesis: Including at least two rhetorical elements and three visual elements. Here is an example of what an effective thesis statement for this kind of essay looks like:

Example:

“The Titanic movie poster from 1997 uses pathos and logos through the use of color, facial expressions/body language, and lettering made to resemble riveted steel to make a statement about elicit love among social classes in the early 1900s.”

3-4 Body Paragraphs: Each of these paragraphs should contain at least one visual criterion connected to at least one rhetorical criterion to help present your own analysis of the movie poster/commercial/advertisement. If I’m talking about the use of pathos and facial expression/body language on the Titanic poster, I might talk about how the placement of the actors’ faces contributes to a sense of both longing and separation. Maybe I will talk about the strength of love, symbolized by the riveted steel lettering in Titanic, or that the actual ship is used to provide a sense of authenticity. These are the kinds of issues you can explore in your body paragraphs.

Conclusion – Reinforce your “reading” of the image –How do specific visual elements connect with specific rhetorical elements to communicate with the target audience? How is the historical context represented through the poster/commercial/advertisement and what does that mean for your analysis? Are the visual/rhetorical appeals effective for the target audience? The conclusion is basically and inverted introduction. You should restate your thesis in a different way, summarize your main ideas, and then lastly what do you want the audience to do with the information you have stated. Wrap it up at the end!

Some Friendly Advice:

Choose a visual with enough “meat on the bone.” Trying to analyze an abstract, minimalist ad or poster is going to be far more difficult to discuss than a poster with more going on. If you don’t feel there is enough for you to write about, or if there aren’t more than one visual component involved, find a new image!

Pick an image you care about, not the first one you find. If you choose an image related to your interests, you’ll have a much easier time discussing it. But let me remind you again, I don’t want to read a plot summary in your essay. So, while it may be tempting to pick your favorite movie or commercial, you might also be tempted to talk too much about why it’s your favorite.

Have a thesis statement. Make sure you have a clear thesis statement that argues why your visual includes the rhetorical elements and how they use them in order to persuade by targeting a certain audience, creating a particular message, and showing credibility of the producer or creator. You will have an option to share your thesis with me early on in the writing process, so that I can help you revise it as needed.

Length:

This paper should be between 900 and 1,200 words, or three to four pages in length. As always, please follow standard MLA formatting (page margins, indents, double spacing, font size, heading) for your essay.

You will also have a Topic Proposal, a Rough Draft, and a Final Draft as part of your Visual Rhetorical Analysis.

Grade Breakdown:

The grade breakdown for this essay unit is:

Topic Proposal: 10 points

First Draft: 10 points

Final Draft: 100 points

Total: 120 points