#1. Introduction and Definitions of Terminology
In the WRIT 1133 course, we define artifact as any humanly created object. Based on this, a rhetorical artifact is any artifact created to respond to an exigency that intends to communicate with its audience for a rhetorical purpose through the utilization of rhetorical strategies. Analyzing a rhetorical artifact is one of a few effective ways to interpret what a rhetorical artifact is aiming to communicate with, and on a deeper and more essential level, to persuade its audience.
Analyzing a rhetorical artifact is the process of dissociating the components from the artifact. Followed by this, it is essential to interpret these parts closely and carefully in order to find out how each part fits the others in order to produce coherent effects, as well as how each part contributes to the whole rhetorical effect that the rhetor aims to achieve.
This is also a process of treating a piece of rhetorical artifact into three specific rhetorical applications—logos, ethos, and pathos. One approach to analysis a rhetorical artifact is to focus on a strange and concrete detail, which inventively and rhetorically responds to the exigency, meets the artifact’s overall propose, mindfully respond to its audience. Furthermore, turning the constraints of the artifact into to its rhetorical advantage in a coherent and consistent way.
#2. Instructions
i. Decide which rhetorical artifact do you want to analyze.
ii. Consider about the following questions.
a. What is the exigence for this rhetorical artifact?
b. What is the purpose of it?
c. What is being argued?
d. Who is the targeted audience?
e. If the rhetorical artifact is a discourse, what persona did the speaker project?
f. What are the constraints on this situation?
iii. Determine which specific and strange detail you want to focus on.
iv. Consider how can you demonstrate that the piece you choose is critical to the artifact as a whole through analyzing with the questions in the list in mind.
#3. Demonstration Using a Piece of My Writing
In a piece of writing I did in WRIT1133 course, I analyzed a speech given by Potter, which was a civic event in Metro Denver. Potter is a former executive of Public Relations of health insurance company Cigna. He rhetorically persuaded his audience to take real actions to support a healthcare reform in the form of storytelling. I analyzed how Potter achieved rhetorically success by looking at a girl’s tragedy that he shared with this audience.
Example
Potter chose this girl’s story as the representative showing how insurance companies usually do to policyholders. While sharing this girl’s story, Potter spoke to the audience who are or will be at the age that requires dependable health insurance coverage marketed by companies they can trust. The girl’s story cruelly revealed the possible outcomes that could happen to them when in need of health insurance coverage. People logically assume that paying to have insurance will make them feel financially secure when emergencies happen. In order to appeal for more sympathy from people’s common feelings for girls generally, Potter told this tragedy with tears in his eyes. He also gained empathy from his audience rhetorically by taking advantage of the high average age of his audience. He rhetorically let his audience identify themselves as parents and grandparents and allowed them to feel empathy for the unbearable loss of the girl’s family. So where Potter got the audience to sympathize with the girl’s story was also on a deeper level that the audience is likely parents. Accumulating with all the emotions Potter had stirred among his audience through storytelling, Potter effectively let his audience realize that in the current healthcare system, things happen such as they pay to get nothing. The mistrust generated let his audience realize that they were being treated unfairly, and the only way to avoid such unfair treatments would be on board with him and take concrete actions.
By focusing on the girl’s tragedy as a detail of Potter’s speech, I analyzed the multiple reasons that Potter chose it. Potter shared this story through storytelling as a former insider, which built on his expertise in the topic of healthcare reform, while employing logos, ethos, and pathos coherently. He implied a logical assumption that policyholders tend to think about their insurance, but Potter used this girl’s story to demonstrate that insurers are not dependable. With his credibility he projected by his actions of quitting his high pay job and speaking out, he intertwined pathos by taking advantage of his audience’s average age, which could have been a constrain of this speech. By identifying his audience as possible victims of profit-driven insurers, then as parents and grandparents who can understand the extreme pain of losing their children and grandchildren, Potter successfully invented a rhetorical situation that required his audience to take actions. Moreover, this storytelling coherently responded to his purpose of giving such a speech publicly.
#4. An Assignment for You to Apply What You just Learned
Summary of what you learned
So now you have learned what is rhetorical artifact, how to analyze a rhetorical artifact in general, and an approach of analyzing through focusing on a concrete detail, which seems strange but can be dissociated into the utilizing of rhetorical strategies—logos, ethos, and pathos. By doing so, you can demonstrate how the detail you choose is contributive to the rhetorical purpose of such artifact.
An assignment for you to apply what you learned!
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