Rhetorical Analysis – Journal Article
Choose a peer reviewed journal article from your field. You are looking for an article that has either made a new discovery or is reporting on primary research the authors have conducted using an IMRD structure. A literature review (summary of the research on a topic), as described in the handout on Blackboard, will not work well for this assignment. When you submit this worksheet, you must include a copy of the article. A link will NOT be sufficient. PDF, Word, or other “savable” files are acceptable. I will be reviewing your source article first and then your worksheet.
Read the article carefully until you have a good understanding of it and then answer 10 of the following questions. Use complete sentences, and insert your answers into this document. Please clearly identify your answers with an alternative font color or treatment, such as bolding or italics. Be specific and give examples.
- Based on class lecture and discussion, what is this article’s purpose?
- What is the article’s title? Where was it originally published and when?
- What is the article about and what is its thesis statement?
- Who wrote this document? What are their credentials? (What does the article tell you? What can you assume is true about this author or authors? What does additional research tell you? The first author’s credentials is sufficient for research outside of the article itself.)
Rhetorical Analysis – Journal Article
- Who is the audience of this article? Who are the primary readers? Describe them.
- What characteristics do these readers have based on language use, content, and format/organization choices? What does the writer seem to take for granted about the reader’s knowledge of the subject matter, methodologies, or conventions?
- Look at the introduction. What does the author/s say about relevant research that came before this project?
- In the introduction, what does the author/s say about how this project is different than other research?
- In the introduction, what sources are cited and how are they used? What are their purpose in this section?
- In the methods/materials section, what do you observe about the author/s description of the methods they used?
Rhetorical Analysis – Journal Article
- In the methods/materials section, what kind of sources does the writer cite? How many?
- What function do these citations perform in the methods/materials section?
- In the results section, on which data and analysis do the researchers-writers concentrate?
- In the discussion section, how do the researchers expand the context of the article away from the data collection site(s) to bring in larger issues and perhaps more places and a larger time span? Give an example.
- Describe the article’s document design and the article’s use of graphics.
- What claims about cause and effect are made?
- What correlations are drawn?
Rhetorical Analysis – Journal Article
- Pay attention to the qualifying language the writers use in expressing implications in the discussion section. Write down a few of the qualifying words or phrases. (Some common terms include “seems,” “may,” “possibly,” “probably,” “sometimes,” and many other related words or phrases.
- Think about the terms from question 18 in stating the implications. Do they affect your reaction to the implications? Do they appear to express the appropriate level of confidence? What changes would you suggest?
- What kind of data is offered to support claims? Qualitative? Quantitative? Give a couple of examples.
- What tense, mood, and voice are the verbs in? (Do they change from section to section?)
- What are the nouns like? (specialized jargon? common nouns?) Give a couple of examples.
- What are the adjectives like? (concrete, specific measurements? generally descriptive?) Give a couple of examples.
- What is the average length of sentences? Are the sentences mostly simple, compound, or complex?
- Give a general summary of whether you feel this article is effective in communicating the discovery with its audience or not and why. Use APA referencing style.
