Reading Questions for Writing a Rhetorical Analysis

Questions for Reading as a Writer (Reading for Technique):

1.  How does the writer begin?

2.  How does the writer end?

3.  Where does the writer state the main idea of the whole piece (thesis)?

4.  How long are the writer's paragraphs?

5.  Where does the writer express the main idea (topic sentence) of each paragraph?

6.  How does the writer support ideas (examples, explanations, statements of authorities [testimony], statistics, comparisons, analogies, and so on)?

7.  How does the writer use long sentences?

8.  How does the writer use short sentences?

9.  How does the writer connect ideas?

10.  What kind of repetition does the writer use?

11.  Does the writer repeat any grammatical structures (parallelism)?

12.  Does the writer use any figurative language (metaphors, similes, and so on)?

13.  Does the writer use any unusual words?

14.  How does the writer use commas and other punctuation marks?

Questions about Audience for Reading (Reading for Technique):

1.  Who is the intended audience?  Am I among that group?

2.  What does the writer assume the audience knows about the subject?

3.  What does the writer seem to know about the audience?

4.  What is the writer's relationship to the audience?

5.  How interested am I, as audience, in the subject?

6.  What does the writer do to stimulate my interest?

7.  What is my attitude toward the subject?

8.  What is my attitude toward the writer?

9.  Does the writer want to change what I know or how I feel about the writer and the subject?

10.  What experiences and knowledge does the writer assume we share?

11.  How does the writer use those experiences and that knowledge to present the subject?

12.  How do I perceive the rhetorical situation of this piece of writing: reflective, persuasive, informative, or something else?

13.  What assumptions does the writer make about my expectations of grammar, style, and vocabulary?