I didn’t expect to go into this article thinking of first impressions as a similarity to rhetorical analysis, but it is actually a unique perspective on how to go about rhetorical analysis. First impressions come naturally to us and rhetorical analysis is something that we see in our everyday lives as well, we just don’t realize it’s being applied into the events we come across. Carroll uses examples of media such as advertisements, Twitter, TV shows, and so on, which is a very casual way of looking at it but it still applies. Rhetorical analysis for me was something more limited to English writing and formal articles like the ones I used to read in high school. Knowing it’s all around us gives a different view on how to approach it.
Carroll goes on in the article to explain how to go about making a rhetorical analysis. She says to start off with context, and build up from there while asking more in depth questions like who is the intended audience and how the context is presented based off of that. Her use of everyday examples such as an ad in a magazine and how you can look at it in the eyes of the intended audience as well as the secondary audience to analyze the context of a possible piece of rhetoric, and using examples like these make it easier to understand so that it is applicable for more formal and scholarly forms of writing.
Towards the end, Carroll brings us to the core of rhetorical analysis: the argument that the author is trying to make, and the general purpose of the piece. We are able to analyze the different techniques an author uses to present their information, such as ethos and pathos, and also learn how to recognize if the rhetoric fits into the context that is being analyzed. Her conclusion on why do this kind of analysis brings us back full circle into our everyday lives and how we can understand both formal works as well as things that happen around us.