So, what is a good text to analyze? There’s plenty of stuff out there–pretty much anything could work with enough care and thought.
You could think about a text you are currently reading/watching/listening to. You could think about something you just really love or are really interested in that you know you wouldn’t mind spending a bunch of hours with.
What do you think might be a text you want to do? We all have a lot that we look at through our lives.
On the prompt for this assignment (see Blackboard>Course Documents>Assignment Prompts>Major Writing Project Drafts>Rhetorical Analysis), here is the list of examples again:
| · An advertisement or ad campaign
|
· Video game |
| · Fashion item or line
|
· Film or television show |
| · Everyday material objects (e.g., furniture, computer, appliances, children’s toy)
|
· Short story, poem, novel, memoir |
| · Photograph, painting, tatoo
|
· Essay or nonfiction book |
| · Political speech | · News article or periodical issue
|
| · Song, music video, album | · Data visualization
|
| · Email, memo, letter, or other professional writing genre | · Academic journal article |
Finding Texts
Your search tools are:
- Your favorite search engine (e.g., Google, Bing)
- Newman Library. Make sure to “Define Your Search” by choosing one of the options from that drop bar (e.g., Books, Articles, Videos). Can also be helpful if you wanted to use any secondary research (i.e., other people talking about similar ideas or the same text in academic journals, books, etc.)
- Newman Library Databases. Browse through these to see if any might help you uncover an interesting text. Can also be helpful if you wanted to use any secondary research (i.e., other people talking about similar ideas or the same text in academic journals, books, etc.). There are ways to get access to periodicals like The New York Times (go to “M-N” to find that, for instance) as an example of finding a primary text to look at.
- Video streaming sites (e.g., YouTube, Netflix)
All of these sources will take you using ways of keywords and filtering.
For keywords, try to think of relevant terms to find interesting texts. For example, I might use keywords like “video games,” “gaming,” “review,” “top,” “best,” “2020” to try to find a list of recent video games that may have been written about to see if any catch my eye.
Notice that I used quotes? Whenever searching with more than one keyword or key-phrase, put quotes around them and use Boolean operators like AND, OR, and NOT. For example, I could use the following:
- “video games” AND “superheroes”
- “gaming” OR “video games”
- “gaming” AND NOT “tabletop”
The reason you use quotes is so that you capture the exact order of words that you want. For instance, that way you don’t get results that have both “video” and “games” on them but never “video games” together. (I tend to just always use quotes so I remember, but, technically, you don’t really have to use them around single keywords)
Filtering searches can also be helpful. Check out settings that say things like “Advanced Search” and you might be able to filter things by year. This can be helpful if you were looking for possible texts that were only produced in, say, the 1980s or 2010s.
Before moving on, choose something from one of the 4 categories of “search tools” at the top of this page and search. Then, try out some keywords and one of the Boolean options above (i.e., AND, OR, AND NOT).
The point here is not to find a text to analyze, necessarily, but to get some practice finding stuff in general for your writing (e.g., secondary sources that support claims you are making).
Comment below with the first 5 search results and tell us if anything seems worth pursuing and why. It could be a primary text your analyze for the assignment or it could be a secondary source that could help you think through a primary text. Don’t post links, because I think your comment will be flagged.
Once you have commented below, click the button below to continue.
I looked up new about Tiktok:
1. Tiktok Meets the Meddling Feds (Wall Street Journal)
2. Former Chinese Government Official ran Tiktok’s content policy as app went global (Financial Times)
3. Flight Attendant Goes Viral Detailing the ‘Nastiest Parts On a Plane’ in TikTok Video (People)
4. Claudia Conway announces she has coronavirus on TikTok (New York Post)
5.
Mick Fleetwood recreates viral TikTok video of man skateboarding and singing to “Dreams” (CBS News)
I feel that I would be interested in investigating the first one, because I have previously read and watch a lot of financial news about Tiktok, and I’d like to dissect the article to analyze the effectiveness of its arguments.
I looked up articles on cheating in sports. I settles on this topic because I have a lot to say about it and there is a lot of material written.
1. How Should We Punish Sports Cheaters? – The New York Times
2. The Future of Cheating in Sports | Science | Smithsonian
3. A History of Cheating in Sports | The Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism
4. The 40 Worst Cheaters in Sports History | Bleacher Report
5. The Psychology of Cheating in Sports | Aurora University Online
Obviously, a lot has been written in reaction to the Astros scandal that was recently exposed. However, the fact that there is a study in the results has me curious enough to see if there’s anything more.
1) Kicks: the great American story of sneakers ( Book by: Nicholas Smith)
2)Feature recognition and shape design in sneakers (article by Chung-Chuan Wang)
3) Shoes: A History from Sandals to Sneakers ( Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management)
4) Fashion, style and global culture with sneakers uniting us (Article by Joseph H. Hancock)
5) Sneakers 1978
I searched information relating to the history of sneakers. I definitely feel like the first, the third and the fourth source could give me information worth pursuing.
I found:
1. Logic, probability, and human reasoning by Johnson-Laird, P.N ; Khemlani, Sangeet S ; Goodwin, Geoffrey P
2. Heterosexuals’ Attitudes Toward Transgender People: Findings from a National Probability Sample of U.S. Adults by Norton, Aaron T ; Herek, Gregory M
3. The perception of probability by Gallistel, C R ; Krishan, Monika ; Liu, Ye ; Miller, Reilly ; Latham, Peter E
4. Quantum cognition: a new theoretical approach to psychology by Bruza, Peter D ; Wang, Zheng ; Busemeyer, Jerome R
5. Probability matching and strategy availability by J. Koehler, Derek ; James, Greta
I searched for “psychology” AND “probability” which are my two buggest major inclinations at the moment. This content is not relevan to the subject of my Analysis but I should probably read one of this when I have time to see if it is for me.
1. New York’s not dead, but the pandemic has laid deep seated issues for the future
2. New York City without Coronavirus deaths four months after first report
3. New York will test the dead more often for cornavirus and flu
4. There has been an increase in other causes of death, not just coronavirus
5. New York City reports first day with no confirmed coronavirus deaths since March 11
While I do find these interesting, my goal is to look more at how the coronavirus will affect business in the city, and I already have an article picked out for that.
I looked up “Tennis”
1) Tennis
2) Tennis Physiology: Training the Competitive Athlete
3)Intensity of Tennis Match Play
4)Tennis and Interventional Cardiology
5)Tennis Elbow
I found these interesting because I enjoy tennis and would read the article named Intensity of Tennis Match Play
1. The US government once poisoned alcohol to get people to stop drinking – VOX News
2. The Children in the Shadows: New York City’s Homeless Students – NY Times
3. Good School, Rich School; Bad School, Poor School: The inequality at the heart of America’s education system – The Atlantic
4. Lead-Laced Water In Flint: A Step-By-Step Look At The Makings Of A Crisis – NPR
5. The importance of Financial Literacy
I was able to look up current affair topics but I am interested in finding something historic that I can connect to these. I really liked how Chau was able to do that.
1. What’s the difference between race and ethnicity? (Live Science)
2. Race & Ethnicity (Gendered Innovations)
3. Race and ethnicity facts and information (National Geographic)
4. Examples of Race and Ethnicity (Your Dictionary)
5. Chapter 11 – Race and Ethnicity (Introduction to Sociology)
The last search result in the list above would be worth pursuing because the source is a secondary source which means it is reliable and useful in conducting further research.
I looked up news about hip-hop:
1. “After Switching From Hip-hop to pop-punk, Machine Gun Kelly lands his first No. 1 Album” – Forbes
2. “Hip Hop and Sexuality: Boston Femcees on Visibility and Controversy” – WBUR
3. “20 Questions with Doe Boy: Freebandz Signee on the Best Advice He Received from Future” – Billboard
4. “Kendrick Lamar Denies Leaving TDE: ‘Why Would I Fall Off?'” – UPROXX
5. “J. Cole Resurrects ‘kiLL edward’ Moniker, Teases New Music” – Billboard
I’d probably be most interested the article of the femcees talking about hip hop and sexuality intersecting. It seems like something I could genuinely dissect and make a good analytical argument out of.
I searched “colorism today”
1. Why black people discriminate among ourselves: the toxic legacy of colorism (theguardian)
2. ‘Colorism’ reveals many shades of prejudice in Hollywood (nbcnews)
3. Colorism Shaping the Lives of Black Women in America (Shanya Hayes)
4. The Difference Between Racism and Colorism (times)
5. “If You Is White, You Is White, You’s Alright. . . . ” Stories About Colorism in America (Kimberley Norwood)
Overall I think the search results are spot on and will be very helpful when writing my piece. I will be some work to go through everything but I think that doing so will be very helpful.