News articles with limited credibility rarely stand up to scrutiny, and creating a rhetorical outline can help students to understand the background of an article, not only potentially exposing dishonest news but also helping them to understand the biases and perspectives that influence any article’s point of view and presentation.

Elements of the Rhetorical Outline

• Intended Audience: Whom do you think this piece was written for? What kind of background, experiences, or beliefs do you think the authors assume the audience has? How do you think an awareness of audience affected the text?

 

• Author: Who wrote the article? What background or experiences does this author bring to the text? How does this author’s personal narrative alter the text? Is this author supported by an organization or other backer? How does this affect the text?

 

• • Context: What kind of source published this article? What particular social, political, or cultural perspective does this source bring to the topic? What recent social, political, or cultural events might have taken place to alter the way this text is composed?
  • Purpose: What is this article trying to achieve or accomplish? We know what the article says, but what does the article try to do?
  • Tone and style: How is the information in the article presented? What kinds of language are used and in what ways is this language used? How does this style affect the audience?

 

• Free Observations: In addition to the above suggested categories, did you notice anything else in the article of note?