Rhetorical Analysis “The Happy Secret to Better Work.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLJsdqxnZb0 Watch this video and write a rhetorical essay Everyone uses rhetoric to achieve his/her goals and desires. Some goals and desires seem unimportant; others are obviously a bit more important. Having read the transcript of the TED Talk by Shawn Achor: “The Happy Secret to Better Work.” and having watched it, analyze its rhetoric. Decide on the speaker’s purpose and argument, then, analyze which rhetorical strategies he uses to develop said purpose and argument. Why are these effective or why are they not effective? You must also include a Works Cited page with your paper. Be sure your paper is well-organized with a clear thesis. Each paragraph should have a clear topic sentence and concluding sentence. It must be typed. Staple your outline and rough draft underneath your final draft and the rubric should be last. Your paper should be 3 – 4 double-spaced typed pages and MLA formatted – one-inch margins and 12-point font. Use a MLA heading and a header. Here are the steps to take to organize your essay: 1. Prewrite and Outline A. Do the rhetorical square. Decide on Achor’s purpose, argument, audience and persona. Keep in mind purpose and argument are very similar, but they are not the same. Purpose is the “what” – what the writer or speaker wants us to do or believe. Argument is the “how” he/she persuades us – does he use ethos, pathos, logos, humor, anecdotes (stories), diction, syntax, parallelism, etc? There are so many language elements you can use for your paper. You may use one element; you may use four. You may use as many as you like. It’s your call. You’re the writer; you’re the boss. Audience is important, and you are analyzing a TED Talk: What do you know about them? Who watches/listens to them? Persona is oftentimes the hardest. Who is Achor in this TED Talk? Is he advocating, informing, educating, selling? Is he sad, excited, angry, happy? B. After you have your prewriting, you will share it on our Discussion Board. C. After you have shared your prewriting and read your classmates’, do your outline. Remember, outlines are 50 points, and format counts. . 2. Structure A. Your thesis should have Achor’s purpose in it, as well as the rhetorical strategies you will discuss in your paper. Each topic sentence should tell the rhetorical strategy you will analyze in that paragraph, for example, pathos or diction. Next, choose an example, and only choose one. For example, if you are analyzing pathos, perhaps you will talk about Achor’s story of his sister and how it made the audience feel. Then, analyze it. This is the most important part: Why did Achor choose that story? Who cares? So what? Connect it to his purpose. If you have more than one example per paragraph, you will not analyze each one fully, so choose only one per paragraph. B. If you choose to write about different rhetorical strategies, each paragraph should be a different one. For example, one paragraph discussing pathos, one on anecdotes, one on logos. If you choose to do your whole paper on pathos, each paragraph will be a different example of pathos.
