Exercise 2h - Bryan West Article

1.              I believe that the rhetorical analysis by Bryan West is in response to Gabriel McVey’s “Do Not Be Fooled by the Clinton’s Again” in the midst of the 2008 presidential election. I believe the writer’s main purpose is to show that McVey was unsuccessful in persuading the readers of the Collegiate Times that Hillary Clinton is an unqualified candidate for the presidency. The writer shows this by suggesting that people’s opinions cannot easily be persuaded, especially in matter related to politics and McVey’s attempts were a failed attempt. The audience appears to be college students, or more particularly, Collegiate Times readers. The audience for West may also be his professor. The audience seems to be apparent because the article was written for Ms. Reed’s class and the West also specifies that his paper is in response to an article featured in the Collegiate Times.

2.              Genre conventions that I recognize in the text are that it is a rhetorical analysis and it is also a distinct critical piece. I have written in this genre before for a school paper in response to the historical Iron Curtain Speech. I was to analyze the purpose of the speech and whether or not it was effective or not and in what ways. In this genre, I have read the Black Man’s History by Malcolm X.  Critical pieces are most familiar to me as opposed to simply a rhetorical analysis.

3.              Another genre the writer might have used to achieve the same purposes for the same audience is through sarcasm. This type of writing would allow West to entertain his audience and grab their attention more to get them to agree with his views more. The advantage of writing in the two genres he did is that it was straightforward and informative. The disadvantage was that it became tedious and dull throughout the article.

4.              If the writer was communicating with a younger audience, he would need to adapt his persuasive appeals by using a bit of a more informal approach. The vocabulary in the article would need to be adjusted to fit that of the younger audience. More comparisons to other life situations would need to be made to make connections for easier understanding.

5.              A teacher, a social worker, or a scientist should use ethos in a piece of writing. This would signify their credibility in their field of work and represent that in the paper.