One of the big adjustments for doing a rhetorical analysis is learning the distinction between summary and analysis.
Many of us wrote book reports in school. If you did, you would mostly be doing summary.
Summary takes the most important parts that you think an audience would want to know, and assemble them in a “big picture” way to give your audience a sense of the meaningful parts of a given object. If it is a book report, that means the highlights and general trajectory of the plot. If it is an “executive summary” for, say, an annual report for a given business or non-profit, that means including the main takeaways in terms of yearly earnings, future directions, etc.
Summary is useful in a rhetorical analysis! Especially when you are analyzing an object that your audience is unfamiliar with–say a brief summary in the beginning (like no more than a paragraph).
But, the bulk of what you are doing in a rhetorical analysis is not summary, but (surprise!) analysis. It is a specific kind of analysis focused on text, but knowing how to analyze vs. summarize, generally, is a very important thing to develop as a writer for the kind of writing you do in college.
Analysis in Rhetorical Analysis
In the “Tools for Analyzing Texts” chapter, these are the sorts of things you are trying to figure out when analyzing a text:
- the central meanings of the text
- how meanings are expressed in the text
- why the text is important
- why the text is unusual, unique, or odd
- why it is influential or what influences it
- how it describes social, cultural, or historical ideas
- how it conceals, exposes, reinforces, or challenges hidden violence or prejudiced attitudes
- what philosophical, psychological, or affective concepts it channels
- or where it stands (or should stand) in relation to other texts
On pages 109-110, there is a great example of summarizing, summarizing + analyzing, and analyzing only. This can be very helpful to you as you work on your Rhetorical Analysis assignment.
Task
To get some practice with this distinction, and to get you in that revision headspace you all should be in now anyway (!), do the following in the comments below:
- Write a brief summary of a day from this past week or from a show or podcast you watched listened to. What happened?
- Write a brief analysis (about 100 words), using a lens from “Tools for Analyzing Texts,” of your day or show/podcast episode. Be creative! Try it out, don’t worry too much about being “right,” just take some chances here.
You can do a hybrid summary and analysis or do a separate summary and analysis in the same comment below (see p. 109-110). Make sure you have something substantive: about 150-300 words for your summary/analysis or summary + analysis.
After commenting below, click on the button to continue:
Lens: Critical Race theory/Disability Studies
I recently started watching the cartoon series Static Shock. In that show Virgil the main character otherwise known as Static is constantly feared and put under fire for being a “Bang Baby”, the shows term for those who are mutants. This is because many of these mutants are villains whether it be their fault or not, and the media usually focuses on these cases. There is also little known about the chemical which mutated these people which adds even more to the confusion. Even Virgil’s own father criticizes him albeit not knowing his son is this superhero. This is a statement on how the ignorance and lack of knowledge of someone’s illness or disability along with media portrayal of those disabilities can be harmful to those who have them. I also see it as a statement on racism since Virgil’s father frequently uses a form of the phrase “he is one of the good ones” which is frequently used in racist rhetoric, while Virgil’s sister is more open minded and can see that mutants are just humans. This is strengthened by the fact that the show is written by black people and stars a black superhero.
Lens: Ethos
In the 13-minute Tedx Talk video about Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willink discuss how war is one of the most brutal teachers he has learned from. He begins by describing the scenario he was in while in Iraq, where Willink was engulfed in a fire fight between what he thought was his enemies. It was later revealed that the enemy were friendly Iraqi soldiers. One Iraqi soldier ended up dead while multiple wounded on both sides. When he returned to the U.S., he was instructed to prepare a debrief for the situation that happened previously. When writing the debrief, he noted every detail, every mistake, and every Seal that were to be blamed, but never concluded on the single point of failure. He finally reflected and decided that all the mistakes and failures was his own, not his fellow Navy Seals. Willink begins talking about extreme ownership and the benefits of it. Extreme ownership can be interpreted as being held responsible for everything in your power. This can range from both success and failure. He also noted that growth can only come once you acknowledge your failures, if the blame of the failure were to be continuously tossed around, the problem will never be solved. He concludes by saying that once you take ownership of your mistakes, you can begin to work together and solve the problem.
Monday this week was quite an eventful day. I started the day at 8AM and instantly felt the lack of sleep taking its toll on my body. Maybe next time ill call Sunday night a bit early. Between surfing through school work and classes, I had to take a break to go to my grandparent’s house and “fix” their computer. By the evening I was already dead tired but still found enough strength to push myself to go to the gym. Looking back at this day it seems like a regular simple weekday for me. Analyzing it from the purpose perspective, I can see a lot more about this day. The three main things I did were school, helping my family, and going to the gym. Each one of these has its own purpose. My purpose in going to school is to gain an education, my purpose in helping my grandparents was to show them that I appreciate them, and my purpose for going to the gym was to stay healthy. The one common purpose in all the things I did through the day were self development and betterment.
BoJack Horseman Season 5, Episode 2: “The Dog Days are Over” details Diane Nguyen’s story of divorce and escaping reality to avoid a problem concerning her life. The episode also highlights subtle signs of depression through the various coping mechanisms Diane uses consequently to her divorce to Mr. Peanut Butter. The episode opens with Diane sobbing and heading to the airport to take a flight anywhere out of Los Angeles, which shows an impulsive decision in a time of distress. The impulsive decision ironically lands her in Vietnam, her native country, where she goes over her justifications for going to Vietnam through a blog post for her job called “10 Reasons to Go to Vietnam.” Her justifications outline her experiences leading up to her fleeing LA and her experiences in Vietnam while evading the real reason why she went to Vietnam. Through her justifications for her blog, Diane exhibits signs of depression through her high alcohol consumption, her drastic haircut, and the evasion of what is really bothering her through the episode hiding Diane’s real reason for her escape. After stating her 10 reasons to go to Vietnam, she reveals the truth of why she goes to Vietnam. The sadness and loneliness from the divorce and the break-up with someone she loved drove her straight into a mental breakdown shown in the beginning of the episode. After returning home to LA, she realizes that despite being alone and newly single after being divorced, she will survive because her experience in Vietnam made her feel lonelier than when she left LA, but she can survive being alone.
Last week Tuesday was a pretty hectic day for me personally. Something that happened during work that was very scary and sad was a home caught fire right near where I was working along with my brother-in-law. Everything happened so quickly, we smelled burning wood and plastic and were like to one another do you smell that? We looked around and saw nothing out of the ordinary at the time, so we continued working because we just thought someone was doing a controlled fire or something. Maybe about 15 minutes later we saw black smoke coming from a home 3 houses down from where we were working. We dropped everything and ran to the home. It was a fairly old home and the person living there was in his late 50’s and tears were coming down his face made and even me tear up. Turns out the man were friends with my brother-in-law because they had worked together before. It was very sad watching him cry and we couldn’t do anything because the flame was so big, 5 minutes later we heard the fireman coming and they got right to work. Then the fireman told all of us to leave and so we all did. The next day me and my brother-in-law went back and saw the aftermath, everything was burned and there was nothing left inside. I felt very bad for the owner and I wished him good luck.
Lucifer Morningstar is the devil who rules hell. One day he got bored of hell and went to earth for all types of entertainment. He decided to stay there as long as he can, along with his demon, Maze. He meets a cop named Chloe Decker and discovers that she causes him to be mortal when he should be immortal. Lucifer intends to find out more about Chloe and decides to be her consultant. Drama, conflict, romance and comedy comes along throughout the story as Lucifer and Chloe slowly fall in love. Sometimes it can be hard you to accept yourself for who are. It can be hard to find your own identity. Lucifer had a identity crisis when he was debating who. He didn’t know if he was the devil which is evil or he is the devil which punishes evil. His self conflict lead him to make rash decisions. Even when he did accept himself as the devil who punishes evil, when Cloe found out who he really is, she had a hard time accepting that fact for a while. There are many instances where acceptance and forgiveness was the moral.
House of Cards, this show is about politics and what it takes to rise to the top and potentially the presidency. There is a married couple in this show who are Mr. and Mrs. Underwood, here they show how they can work together to help each other raise to the top. While doing this they encounter difficulties and hard decisions to be made. They can be very cruel and be very unethical, but at the same time be very caring and an Allie instead of an enemy. This is a very powerful couple when they work together, but sometimes they lose trust in one another maybe one of them is more greedy than the other or is tired of being pushed around. The characters always remind each other how powerful they are together and all they can accomplish when together.
Set in a future dystopian society, a technology used to preserve human lives in the form of a chip to be taken out and implanted into another body when dead had been made. Takeshi Kovacs is a survivor of the now wiped out rebellion from long ago. These chips, in the name of “stacks” are often popular among the filthy rich, who live in the skies, while the more unfortunate live on their short lives in slums. Kovacs is hired by the richest man to find his murderer, and along his way in doing so, he is slowly carrying out his plan to rebel against this current oppressive oligarchical system. The inspiration behind this show could be retrieved from the various cases of wealth inequality and therefore life inequality in our current society. In the same way that the ultra wealthy can afford top of the line treatment and live out their lives to the fullest, most people nowadays don’t even have enough saved for a medical emergency. Theres also been scientific developments in blood treatments where younger blood being implanted into older bodies can prevent aging, which anyone can see will be a handy tool to the wealthy elites. All these medical benefits due to their vast amounts of wealth, along with some more tech thrown into the mix, and boom, you get the picture that is altered carbon. A world where the rich live forever as the rest of the world live like rats.
I often listen to a podcast called “Oh No Ross and Carrie” (ONRAC) they investigate and dissect claims of pseudoscience, spirituality, and the paranormal. This week was another installment of their investigation into an exorcism ministry. They specifically spoke of the church’s reliance on the controversial theories of repressed memories and Dissociative Identity Disorder. They touched on the fraught history of repressed memory theory and its continued damage in the present. The ONRAC fan base is composed mainly of well-educated skeptics, evidence-based science lovers, and ex-spiritualists. Therefore a lot of the discussion around the topic is centered around the research that has come up against repressed memory theory and specifically dives into the mechanisms of memory consolidation and reconsolidation. Carrie and Ross also appeal to their listeners by speaking of specific instances in which repressed memory therapy has hurt people in the past. However, because Ross and Carrie know that their audience is more skeptic minded they might not present evidence for DID and repressed memories.
This past week I’ve been watching this anime Jujutsu Kaisen its a show about curses being born into the world and attacking people as monsters. The main character is a super athletic normal person who has his friends from school encounter a curse and he ends up letting go of any fear he has and saves them. However a curse ends up catching him off guard and he has to eat a curse to be powerful enough to defeat the monster. After he defeats this monster he gets taken to a secret school to learn how to defeat curses and accomplish his new found goal to save people from dying a horrible death. This anime shows the importance of friendship and to have courage.
A few days ago I watched a well known movie from the early 2000s called “The Matrix”. I was looking into watching this movie for a long time, but I have found it difficult to invest myself into watching longer videos and films lately, so it was my first time watching it. I ended up watching the whole two hour movie and I really enjoyed it. The movie made some biblical allusions, conveyed some messages about the hierarchical nature of our society which enslaves us and it made me think about some larger existential questions through a lens that I had not seen before. I must say, some parts were too cheesy, even for a film in its era and the ending made me cringe a little, but I think the overall message of it is extremely relevant and slightly too cynical in my opinion.
On Hulu there’s a show called Blue Story. It’s about a group of teenagers who attended the same High School in a town name Peckham in London, England. The group consisted of four youths in year 11. You had the popular boy from Peckham, Marco. His older brother runs the gang in Peckham, Switcher. He’s a real rough rider in the streets. There’s Timmy from Deptford which is in Lewisham, rival territory. Then you have Dwayne & Biggz both from Peckham. The beef between Peckham and Lewisham is so grand you can’t even walk through Peckham if you’re from Lewisham. They would confront people until they confronted Timmy and Biggz along with Timmy’s girlfriend Leah. Marco is from Peckham so he talked to the men that were bothering Timmy knowing automatically that that’s Switchers little brother. Long story short Marco went the Deptford to eat dinner at Timmy’s and got confronted by GB boys from Lewisham. Down the line after visiting a lady friend Marco gets food and calls Timmy to link up. Unfortunately, Timmy was with his lady friend and missed his call in that space of time. Marco got jumped and had his arm broken by GB boys. The following business day the two best friends Timmy and Marco fell out. This resulted in the death of Timmy’s girlfriend Leah, Switcher, some GB boys, and even Timmy!!
Lens : Purpose
Last week on Friday it was a pretty nice day. I woke up knowing that I was going to be outside most of the day, since the weather was beautiful. I initially went outside to go for a walk but ended up playing basketball. I played for 2 hours then I went home to change, and straight after, I went to the gym to lift. The purpose of going outside that day was to stay in shape. Another reason was because when you go outside, it relieves a lot of stress and you feel more relaxed especially after you dealt with a stressful incident or time period.