What is rhetorical analysis?
A rhetorical analysis does not ask whether you agree with a text. It asks how the author or speaker tries to persuade a particular audience, and why those choices are effective (or not) in context.
Rhetorical analysis is central to senior English courses and university writing. It sharpens your reading, makes you a more persuasive writer and helps you resist manipulation.
The rhetorical situation
Every persuasive text responds to a rhetorical situation:
- Speaker / writer: who is communicating, and what is their identity, authority or perspective?
- Audience: who is being addressed (primary and secondary audiences)? What do they believe, value or fear?
- Purpose: what does the speaker want the audience to think, feel or do?
- Exigence: what event, problem or need prompted the text? Exigence is the “why now.”
- Context: the historical, cultural and political circumstances.
- Message: the central claim.
SOAPSTone
A useful tool for organizing your initial analysis is SOAPSTone:
| Letter | Element |
|---|---|
| S | Speaker |
| O | Occasion (time, place, exigence) |
| A | Audience |
| P | Purpose |
| S | Subject |
| Tone | attitude |
Rhetorical choices to analyze
Rhetorical choices are deliberate decisions writers make to achieve purpose.
Appeals
- Ethos: credibility, character, shared values.
- Pathos: emotion, imagination, values.
- Logos: logic, evidence, reasoning.
- Kairos: timeliness.
Language and style
- Diction: word choice and connotation.
- Imagery and figurative language.
- Tone and tone shifts.
- Syntax: sentence length, structure, fragments, questions.
Rhetorical devices
- Anaphora: repetition at the start of clauses. (“We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds…” — Winston Churchill)
- Antithesis: contrasting ideas in balanced form. (“Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” — John F. Kennedy)
- Parallelism, tricolon (groups of three), chiasmus (reversed structure).
- Rhetorical questions.
- Allusion: references to history, scripture, literature or culture.
- Concession and refutation.
Structure and evidence
- How is the argument organized? What is its line of reasoning?
- Why does the speaker begin or end a certain way?
- What kinds of evidence are chosen, and for what audience?
Writing a rhetorical analysis essay
Thesis
A strong thesis names the speaker’s purpose, key choices and their effect on the audience.
Weak: Kennedy uses ethos, pathos and logos in his inaugural address. (lists appeals; no insight)
Strong: In his 1961 inaugural address, John F. Kennedy uses antithesis and appeals to shared sacrifice to transform a moment of Cold War anxiety into a call for active citizenship, persuading Americans that their individual efforts could shape global events.
Organization
Option 1: Chronological. Follow the text from beginning to end, analyzing how the strategy develops. This works well for showing a line of reasoning.
Option 2: By choice or purpose. Organize paragraphs around key strategies or purposes.
Chronological organization often leads to more sophisticated analysis because it shows how persuasion builds.
Body paragraph model
- Topic sentence: identify a choice and connect it to purpose.
- Evidence: quote the text precisely.
- Analysis: explain how the choice works and why it would affect this audience.
- Link to purpose.
Verbs for rhetorical analysis
Avoid weak verbs like uses and shows repeatedly. Try: establishes, juxtaposes, underscores, evokes, invokes, refutes, concedes, appeals to, frames, contrasts, amplifies, characterizes, reinforces.
Worked paragraph
Kennedy opens by framing the inauguration not as a partisan victory but as “a celebration of freedom,” immediately establishing ethos as a unifying leader rather than a party winner. He reinforces this through antithesis: “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” The balanced reversal invites listeners to rethink citizenship as active contribution rather than passive benefit. For an audience anxious about the Cold War, the structure offers both moral clarity and personal agency, turning fear into a sense of shared purpose.
Going deeper: sophistication
Top-level analysis:
– Explains the complexity of the rhetorical situation (multiple audiences, tensions).
– Analyzes tensions or limitations in the argument.
– Considers the broader context and significance.
– Uses precise, varied vocabulary and a confident style.
Common mistakes
- Summarizing the text instead of analyzing choices.
- Listing devices without explaining their effect on the audience.
- Arguing with the speaker instead of analyzing.
- Ignoring audience and context.
- Vague verbs (uses, says, shows).
Try it yourself
- Identify the exigence: a principal’s speech the day after the school wins a provincial championship.
- Identify the device: “We came not to destroy, but to build; not to divide, but to unite.”
- Improve this thesis: The speaker uses pathos to persuade the audience.
- Replace uses with a stronger verb: The author uses statistics to support her argument.
Possible answers: 1. The championship victory and the community’s excitement. 2. Antithesis (and parallelism). 3. By recounting a student’s struggle to afford lunch, the speaker evokes compassion that moves the school board to fund a universal meal program. 4. The author marshals statistics to substantiate her argument.
Study tip
When you read a speech, annotate in two colours: one for what the speaker does (the choice), another for why it works on the audience (the effect). Your analysis paragraphs will practically write themselves.
Quick recap
- Rhetorical analysis explains how and why a text persuades a specific audience.
- Begin with the rhetorical situation: speaker, audience, purpose, exigence, context.
- Analyze appeals, diction, syntax, devices, structure and evidence.
- A strong thesis links choices, purpose and effect.
- Use precise verbs and explain effects on the audience.