Visual Analysis Paper

Draft workshop: F 9/21

Final Draft Due: M 9/24

Length: 1000 words

Overview:

This assignment is designed to give you an opportunity to demonstrate your ability to "think rhetorically," while practicing many of the strategies we've been working with since the beginning of the term. From a print medium choose an advertisement that you find rhetorically interesting. The ad could be one for which you consider yourself part of the target audience or not. Write an analysis of the ad that will help your reader--i.e., your instructor and the class or some other audience that would be interested--see how the ad works to influence its audience, both through its images and its text.

Invention:

Refer to pgs. 446-450 for some questions to help you ground your analysis.

Audience & Rhetorical Situation - Where was the advertisement published and when? What does the type of publication tell you about the probable audience for the advertisement? To get a better idea of a publication's target audience, look at the other advertisements in the publication. Are they targeted towards a  certain gender, age, income level, education level, and so on? The ad itself should help you to flesh out your audience analysis. What visual and verbal cues does the ad give that would connect to a particular audience? 

Ethos - Companies work carefully to build a recognizable brand image, and advertisements play a big role in this task. What kind of image does the ad create for the company? How does the ad try to build credibility? Look at the verbal cues, like "4 out of 5 dentists recommend Crest" or "Serving you for 75 years." Websites, 800 numbers, and even registered trademark symbols are also verbal cues. However, the images in an ad also provide cues to its ethos. What type of company do they want the audience to believe they are? Progressive, traditional, reliable, trendy, exciting?

Logos - First, identify the main claim of your ad. (In many cases, the main claim will be something like "You should buy product X"). What logical reasons does the advertisement use to support this claim? What evidence is provided to support these reasons? Again, look at the text, but also the visual cues. Remember that the logos of an argument isn't always stated explicitly - sometimes it's implied by the images, word choice, etc.

Pathos -Think about the values, emotions and beliefs contained in the ad. Once again, examine the images in the ad as well as the text. For example, do the colors used in the ad evoke a particular emotion or belief?

Composition:
Once you've worked through the invention topics above, look for a common thread that seems to connect most of your ideas together. For example, you might find that the theme of family values relates not just to the  pathos of your ad, but also to the ethos, logos, and target audience. You can use this common theme to formulate your thesis statement. As you write your paper, use concrete details from your advertisement to support your claims. You can quote directly from the ad's copy, or use detailed language to describe the images, colors, fonts, etc. in the ad. Although you're free to structure your paper however you want, it's often a good idea to organize it around the following categories: audience/rhetorical situation, ethos, pathos, logos. Keep in mind that your audience for this paper is your instructor, and that she will be looking for a solid understanding and application of the rhetorical concepts covered in class.

Include the ad or a photocopy of the ad with your paper.