500-700 words
Due Thursday, 9/19 (Submitted as an editable file to our course Canvas page.)
Look around you. Unless youre in the middle of the woods or an ocean, you
will probably see dozens of ads. And Im not just talking about
commercialslogos, branding, and flyers all count as advertisements. Ads are
so commonplace, so plentiful that we almost never notice them. And yet in
spite of this, they are tremendously effective in influencing our desires and
behavior.
In this assignment, you are going to
rhetorically analyze
an ad or ad
campaign. You should take the following steps:
1. Review other rhetorical analyses
2. Choose an ad to review
3. Inquire, using the three ancient modes of persuasion
4. Research your ad
5. Draft your paper
Your paper will be graded according to the uniqueness and insightfulness of
your analysis, the quality of your research, and your ability to stick to the
outline provided by the textbook.
I encourage you to pick an ad that you have found especially interesting. It
can be one you really love or really hate, or one that you realize has
affected you in some way. This paper is supposed to help you with
introspection
, to come to an understanding of your self by thinking deeply
about your perceptions and beliefs.
For example, do you have any strong brand preferences? Perhaps you prefer
Coke to Pepsi, or Adidas to Nike, or Ford to Chevy. We all have many such
preference, and they are typically not founded in any kind of objective, or
even rational, judgments. This doesnt meant that they are invalid, but they
do need to be explored.
One last note: although you will be using
ethos, logos, and pathos
to help
guide you analysis, you should avoid using those terms directly. Strive to
write in an everyday tone; this will make your writing much clearer, and more
fun to read.
