rhetorical analysis of an image essay

Rhetorical Analysis of an Image

The political cartoon drawn by Jim Borgman eloquently illustrates the problems faced by many young American people nowadays. In particular, it shows that they often do not have any employment opportunities, and some may be forced to join the Army hoping that it can create at least some opportunities for them.

Apart from that, this image can be aimed at criticizing the policies of the government that attaches more importance to military spending, rather than economic development of the country and welfare of its citizens. These are the main argument that the cartoonist puts forward.

By using both imagery and verbal elements, Borgman succeeds in making a very powerful statement about the life contemporary society in which the feeling of insecurity is probably the most dominant one.

The key topic that the author explores is the lack of opportunities for American people, especially those ones who are relatively young. This cartoon was created in 2003 at the time when economic problems began to manifest themselves, and the country was conducting several military operations abroad.

Yet, nowadays when the impacts of recession have not been fully overcome, this issue is even more important for a greater number of people, namely school and college graduates. They may not always be able to achieve success in their social life. The audience of this cartoon is difficult to define, because it can include every person who is interested in the political, social, and economic life of the country.

Yet, one cannot say that there are distinct demographic characteristics of the audience. Overall, it is possible to argue that Jim Borgman supports left-wing ideology which emphasizes the necessity for social change and egalitarian relations in the society 1 . This cartoonist is extremely concerned with future development of American society.

This cartoon is a single-frame image in which the author depicts two characters; one of them is a soldier holding an assault rifle, while the other one is probably a college graduate 2 . It should be noted that Jim Borgman does not portray their faces in much detail. One can only see that these are male characters.

Overall, one can argue that this cartoon is quite realistic, especially as far as clothing of the characters is concerned. This description is supposed to show that these people represent two different social classes. One of them is a former student who is holding either his diploma or resume while the other person is a young man who preferred military career.

They have to represent different options that are available to young people in the contemporary United States. In particular, some of them may choose to get education while other may prefer the Army as a way of climbing social ladder. The main issue is that none of these options can guarantee success to a person.

The author relies on both word and image. The most important element is the textual message included into this cartoon. In particular, the soldier says, “I figure it’s easier to find a war than a job these days”. To a great extent, this sentence can be viewed as a title of the cartoon. This statement shows how difficult it is for a person find ones niche in the contemporary workforce.

This is the most obvious argument that this image contains. Jim Borgman’s tone is both comic and serious at the same time because the author portrays characters in a caricatural way, but this image also makes a viewer feel empathy of these people. The author does not refer to any particular person or specific event, but one can understand that the author describes the life of contemporary Americans.

Apart from that, it is possible to see a hidden or implied message in this cartoon. To a great extent, it is aimed at showing that the government is too concerned with military strength of the country, but not much attention is being paid to the economic welfare of citizens.

As a result, college graduates are often unable to find a job that can best suits their talents and education. Overall, Jim Borgman has been able to show the sense of insecurity that these people experience. To some degree, this situation can be explained by the policies and strategies of the state.

Thus, one can say that Jim Borgman can make several rhetorical statements with the help of this cartoon. Although the author does not calls for a specific change, he skillfully shows that current situation leaves much to be desired.

On the whole, the image drawn by Jim Borgman is excellent example of how visual and verbal messages can convey a deep rhetorical argument that can pose many thought-provoking questions to a person.

The cartoonist relies on both visual and verbal elements in order to express his argument. Through this cartoon, the author highlights some of the most important problems that can be encountered by young people. So, this image can be regarded as an excellent example of a political cartoon.

Picture 1. The cartoon by Jim Borgman

Bibliography

Borgman, Jim. I figure it’s easier to find a war than a job these days . Cartoon. 2003.

Accessed from http://paulocoelhoblog.com/images/image-of-the-day/Borgman.jpg

Hess Stephen and Sandy Northrop. American Political Cartoons: The Evolution of a National Identity, 1754-2010 . New York: Transaction Publishers, 2010.

1 Hess Stephen and Sandy Northrop. American Political Cartoons: The Evolution of a National Identity, 1754-2010 ( New York: Transaction Publishers, 2010), 134.

2 Please refer to the Appendixes, Picture 1.

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How to write a rhetorical analysis | Key concepts & examples

How to Write a Rhetorical Analysis | Key Concepts & Examples

Published on August 28, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

A rhetorical analysis is a type of essay that looks at a text in terms of rhetoric. This means it is less concerned with what the author is saying than with how they say it: their goals, techniques, and appeals to the audience.

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Key concepts in rhetoric, analyzing the text, introducing your rhetorical analysis, the body: doing the analysis, concluding a rhetorical analysis, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about rhetorical analysis.

Rhetoric, the art of effective speaking and writing, is a subject that trains you to look at texts, arguments and speeches in terms of how they are designed to persuade the audience. This section introduces a few of the key concepts of this field.

Appeals: Logos, ethos, pathos

Appeals are how the author convinces their audience. Three central appeals are discussed in rhetoric, established by the philosopher Aristotle and sometimes called the rhetorical triangle: logos, ethos, and pathos.

Logos , or the logical appeal, refers to the use of reasoned argument to persuade. This is the dominant approach in academic writing , where arguments are built up using reasoning and evidence.

Ethos , or the ethical appeal, involves the author presenting themselves as an authority on their subject. For example, someone making a moral argument might highlight their own morally admirable behavior; someone speaking about a technical subject might present themselves as an expert by mentioning their qualifications.

Pathos , or the pathetic appeal, evokes the audience’s emotions. This might involve speaking in a passionate way, employing vivid imagery, or trying to provoke anger, sympathy, or any other emotional response in the audience.

These three appeals are all treated as integral parts of rhetoric, and a given author may combine all three of them to convince their audience.

Text and context

In rhetoric, a text is not necessarily a piece of writing (though it may be this). A text is whatever piece of communication you are analyzing. This could be, for example, a speech, an advertisement, or a satirical image.

In these cases, your analysis would focus on more than just language—you might look at visual or sonic elements of the text too.

The context is everything surrounding the text: Who is the author (or speaker, designer, etc.)? Who is their (intended or actual) audience? When and where was the text produced, and for what purpose?

Looking at the context can help to inform your rhetorical analysis. For example, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech has universal power, but the context of the civil rights movement is an important part of understanding why.

Claims, supports, and warrants

A piece of rhetoric is always making some sort of argument, whether it’s a very clearly defined and logical one (e.g. in a philosophy essay) or one that the reader has to infer (e.g. in a satirical article). These arguments are built up with claims, supports, and warrants.

A claim is the fact or idea the author wants to convince the reader of. An argument might center on a single claim, or be built up out of many. Claims are usually explicitly stated, but they may also just be implied in some kinds of text.

The author uses supports to back up each claim they make. These might range from hard evidence to emotional appeals—anything that is used to convince the reader to accept a claim.

The warrant is the logic or assumption that connects a support with a claim. Outside of quite formal argumentation, the warrant is often unstated—the author assumes their audience will understand the connection without it. But that doesn’t mean you can’t still explore the implicit warrant in these cases.

For example, look at the following statement:

We can see a claim and a support here, but the warrant is implicit. Here, the warrant is the assumption that more likeable candidates would have inspired greater turnout. We might be more or less convinced by the argument depending on whether we think this is a fair assumption.

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Rhetorical analysis isn’t a matter of choosing concepts in advance and applying them to a text. Instead, it starts with looking at the text in detail and asking the appropriate questions about how it works:

What is the author’s purpose?
Do they focus closely on their key claims, or do they discuss various topics?
What tone do they take—angry or sympathetic? Personal or authoritative? Formal or informal?
Who seems to be the intended audience? Is this audience likely to be successfully reached and convinced?
What kinds of evidence are presented?

By asking these questions, you’ll discover the various rhetorical devices the text uses. Don’t feel that you have to cram in every rhetorical term you know—focus on those that are most important to the text.

The following sections show how to write the different parts of a rhetorical analysis.

Like all essays, a rhetorical analysis begins with an introduction . The introduction tells readers what text you’ll be discussing, provides relevant background information, and presents your thesis statement .

Hover over different parts of the example below to see how an introduction works.

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech is widely regarded as one of the most important pieces of oratory in American history. Delivered in 1963 to thousands of civil rights activists outside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the speech has come to symbolize the spirit of the civil rights movement and even to function as a major part of the American national myth. This rhetorical analysis argues that King’s assumption of the prophetic voice, amplified by the historic size of his audience, creates a powerful sense of ethos that has retained its inspirational power over the years.

The body of your rhetorical analysis is where you’ll tackle the text directly. It’s often divided into three paragraphs, although it may be more in a longer essay.

Each paragraph should focus on a different element of the text, and they should all contribute to your overall argument for your thesis statement.

Hover over the example to explore how a typical body paragraph is constructed.

King’s speech is infused with prophetic language throughout. Even before the famous “dream” part of the speech, King’s language consistently strikes a prophetic tone. He refers to the Lincoln Memorial as a “hallowed spot” and speaks of rising “from the dark and desolate valley of segregation” to “make justice a reality for all of God’s children.” The assumption of this prophetic voice constitutes the text’s strongest ethical appeal; after linking himself with political figures like Lincoln and the Founding Fathers, King’s ethos adopts a distinctly religious tone, recalling Biblical prophets and preachers of change from across history. This adds significant force to his words; standing before an audience of hundreds of thousands, he states not just what the future should be, but what it will be: “The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.” This warning is almost apocalyptic in tone, though it concludes with the positive image of the “bright day of justice.” The power of King’s rhetoric thus stems not only from the pathos of his vision of a brighter future, but from the ethos of the prophetic voice he adopts in expressing this vision.

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The conclusion of a rhetorical analysis wraps up the essay by restating the main argument and showing how it has been developed by your analysis. It may also try to link the text, and your analysis of it, with broader concerns.

Explore the example below to get a sense of the conclusion.

It is clear from this analysis that the effectiveness of King’s rhetoric stems less from the pathetic appeal of his utopian “dream” than it does from the ethos he carefully constructs to give force to his statements. By framing contemporary upheavals as part of a prophecy whose fulfillment will result in the better future he imagines, King ensures not only the effectiveness of his words in the moment but their continuing resonance today. Even if we have not yet achieved King’s dream, we cannot deny the role his words played in setting us on the path toward it.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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The goal of a rhetorical analysis is to explain the effect a piece of writing or oratory has on its audience, how successful it is, and the devices and appeals it uses to achieve its goals.

Unlike a standard argumentative essay , it’s less about taking a position on the arguments presented, and more about exploring how they are constructed.

The term “text” in a rhetorical analysis essay refers to whatever object you’re analyzing. It’s frequently a piece of writing or a speech, but it doesn’t have to be. For example, you could also treat an advertisement or political cartoon as a text.

Logos appeals to the audience’s reason, building up logical arguments . Ethos appeals to the speaker’s status or authority, making the audience more likely to trust them. Pathos appeals to the emotions, trying to make the audience feel angry or sympathetic, for example.

Collectively, these three appeals are sometimes called the rhetorical triangle . They are central to rhetorical analysis , though a piece of rhetoric might not necessarily use all of them.

In rhetorical analysis , a claim is something the author wants the audience to believe. A support is the evidence or appeal they use to convince the reader to believe the claim. A warrant is the (often implicit) assumption that links the support with the claim.

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Rhetorical Analysis Essay

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example - Free Samples

11 min read

Good Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example

The step-by-step writing process of a rhetorical analysis essay is far more complicated than ordinary academic essays. This essay type critically analyzes the rhetorical means used to persuade the audience and their efficiency.

The example provided below is the best rhetorical analysis essay example:

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Sample

In this essay type, the author uses rhetorical approaches such as ethos, pathos, and logos . These approaches are then studied and analyzed deeply by the essay writers to weigh their effectiveness in delivering the message.

Let’s take a look at the following example to get a better idea;

The outline and structure of a rhetorical analysis essay are important.

According to the essay outline, the essay is divided into three sections:

Introduction
Ethos
Logos

A rhetorical analysis essay outline is the same as the traditional one. The different parts of the rhetorical analysis essay are written in the following way:

Rhetorical Analysis Introduction Example

The introductory paragraph of a rhetorical analysis essay is written for the following purpose:

To provide basic background information about the chosen author and the text.
Identify the target audience of the essay.

An introduction for a rhetorical essay is drafted by:

Stating an opening sentence known as the hook statement. This catchy sentence is prepared to grab the audience’s attention to the paper.
After the opening sentence, the background information of the author and the original text are provided.

For example, a rhetorical analysis essay written by Lee Jennings on“The Right Stuff” by David Suzuki. Lee started the essay by providing the introduction in the following way:

Analysis of the Example:

Suzuki stresses the importance of high school education. He prepares his readers for a proposal to make that education as valuable as possible.
A rhetorical analysis can show how successful Suzuki was in using logos, pathos, and ethos. He had a strong ethos because of his reputation.
He also used pathos to appeal to parents and educators. However, his use of logos could have been more successful.
Here Jennings stated the background information about the text and highlighted the rhetorical techniques used and their effectiveness.

Thesis Statement Example for Rhetorical Analysis Essay

A thesis statement of a rhetorical analysis essay is the writer’s stance on the original text. It is the argument that a writer holds and proves it using the evidence from the original text.

A thesis statement for a rhetorical essay is written by analyzing the following elements of the original text:

Diction - It refers to the author’s choice of words and the tone
Imagery - The visual descriptive language that the author used in the content.
Simile - The comparison of things and ideas

In Jennings's analysis of “The Right Stuff,” the thesis statement was:

Example For Rhetorical Analysis Thesis Statement

Rhetorical Analysis Body Paragraph Example

In the body paragraphs of your rhetorical analysis essay, you dissect the author's work, analyze their use of rhetorical techniques, and provide evidence to support your analysis.

Let's look at an example that analyzes the use of ethos in David Suzuki's essay:

Rhetorical Analysis Conclusion Example

All the body paragraphs lead the audience towards the conclusion.

For example, the conclusion of “The Right Stuff” is written in the following way by Jennings:

In the conclusion section, Jennings summarized the major points and restated the thesis statement to prove them.

Rhetorical Essay Example For The Right Stuff by David Suzuki

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example AP Lang 2023

Writing a rhetorical analysis for the AP Language and Composition course can be challenging. So drafting it correctly is important to earn good grades.

To make your essay effective and winning, follow the tips provided by professionals below:

Step #1: Understand the Prompt

Understanding the prompt is the first thing to produce an influential rhetorical paper. It is mandatory for this academic writing to read and understand the prompt to know what the task demands from you.

Step #2: Stick to the Format

The content for the rhetorical analysis should be appropriately organized and structured. For this purpose, a proper outline is drafted.

The rhetorical analysis essay outline divides all the information into different sections, such as the introduction, body, and conclusion. The introduction should explicitly state the background information and the thesis statement.

All the body paragraphs should start with a topic sentence to convey a claim to the readers. Provide a thorough analysis of these claims in the paragraph to support your topic sentence.

Step #3: Use Rhetorical Elements to Form an Argument

Analyze the following things in the text to form an argument for your essay:

Language (tone and words)
Organizational structure
Rhetorical Appeals ( ethos, pathos, and logos)

Once you have analyzed the rhetorical appeals and other devices like imagery and diction, you can form a strong thesis statement. The thesis statement will be the foundation on which your essay will be standing.

AP Language Rhetorical Essay Sample

AP Rhetorical Analysis Essay Template

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example AP Lang

AP Lang Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Examples for Students

Here are a few more examples to help the students write a rhetorical analysis essay:

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example Ethos, Pathos, Logos

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example Outline

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example College

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example APA Format

Compare and Contrast Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example

Comparative Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example

How to Start Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example High School

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example APA Sample

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example Of a Song

Florence Kelley Speech Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example MLA

Writing a Visual Rhetorical Analysis Essay with Example

The visual rhetorical analysis essay determines how pictures and images communicate messages and persuade the audience.

Usually, visual rhetorical analysis papers are written for advertisements. This is because they use strong images to convince the audience to behave in a certain way.

To draft a perfect visual rhetorical analysis essay, follow the tips below:

Analyze the advertisement deeply and note every minor detail.
Notice objects and colors used in the image to gather every detail.
Determine the importance of the colors and objects and analyze why the advertiser chose the particular picture.
See what you feel about the image.
Consider the objective of the image. Identify the message that the image is portraying.
Identify the targeted audience and how they respond to the picture.

An example is provided below to give students a better idea of the concept.

Simplicity Breeds Clarity Visual Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Writing Tips

Follow the tips provided below to make your rhetorical writing compelling.

Choose an engaging topic for your essay. The rhetorical analysis essay topic should be engaging to grab the reader’s attention.
Thoroughly read the original text.
Identify the SOAPSTone. From the text, determine the speaker, occasions, audience, purpose, subject, and tone.
Develop a thesis statement to state your claim over the text.
Draft a rhetorical analysis essay outline.
Write an engaging essay introduction by giving a hook statement and background information. At the end of the introductory paragraph, state the thesis statement.
The body paragraphs of the rhetorical essay should have a topic sentence. Also, in the paragraph, a thorough analysis should be presented.
For writing a satisfactory rhetorical essay conclusion, restate the thesis statement and summarize the main points.
Proofread your essay to check for mistakes in the content. Make your edits before submitting the draft.

Following the tips and the essay's correct writing procedure will guarantee success in your academics.

We have given you plenty of examples of a rhetorical analysis essay. But if you are still struggling to draft a great rhetorical analysis essay, it is suggested to take a professional’s help.

MyPerfectWords.com can assist you with all your academic assignments. The top essay writer service that we provide is reliable. If you are confused about your writing assignments and have difficulty meeting the deadline, get help from the legal essay writing service .

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What Is a Rhetorical Analysis and How to Write a Great One

Helly Douglas

Do you have to write a rhetorical analysis essay? Fear not! We’re here to explain exactly what rhetorical analysis means, how you should structure your essay, and give you some essential “dos and don’ts.”

What is a Rhetorical Analysis Essay?

How do you write a rhetorical analysis, what are the three rhetorical strategies, what are the five rhetorical situations, how to plan a rhetorical analysis essay, creating a rhetorical analysis essay, examples of great rhetorical analysis essays, final thoughts.

A rhetorical analysis essay studies how writers and speakers have used words to influence their audience. Think less about the words the author has used and more about the techniques they employ, their goals, and the effect this has on the audience.

In your analysis essay, you break a piece of text (including cartoons, adverts, and speeches) into sections and explain how each part works to persuade, inform, or entertain. You’ll explore the effectiveness of the techniques used, how the argument has been constructed, and give examples from the text.

A strong rhetorical analysis evaluates a text rather than just describes the techniques used. You don’t include whether you personally agree or disagree with the argument.

Structure a rhetorical analysis in the same way as most other types of academic essays . You’ll have an introduction to present your thesis, a main body where you analyze the text, which then leads to a conclusion.

Think about how the writer (also known as a rhetor) considers the situation that frames their communication:

Topic: the overall purpose of the rhetoric
Audience: this includes primary, secondary, and tertiary audiences
Purpose: there are often more than one to consider
Context and culture: the wider situation within which the rhetoric is placed

Back in the 4th century BC, Aristotle was talking about how language can be used as a means of persuasion. He described three principal forms —Ethos, Logos, and Pathos—often referred to as the Rhetorical Triangle . These persuasive techniques are still used today.

Rhetorical Strategy 1: Ethos

Are you more likely to buy a car from an established company that’s been an important part of your community for 50 years, or someone new who just started their business?

Reputation matters. Ethos explores how the character, disposition, and fundamental values of the author create appeal, along with their expertise and knowledge in the subject area.

Aristotle breaks ethos down into three further categories:

Phronesis: skills and practical wisdom
Arete: virtue
Eunoia: goodwill towards the audience

Ethos-driven speeches and text rely on the reputation of the author. In your analysis, you can look at how the writer establishes ethos through both direct and indirect means.

Rhetorical Strategy 2: Pathos

Pathos-driven rhetoric hooks into our emotions. You’ll often see it used in advertisements, particularly by charities wanting you to donate money towards an appeal.

Common use of pathos includes:

Vivid description so the reader can imagine themselves in the situation
Personal stories to create feelings of empathy
Emotional vocabulary that evokes a response

By using pathos to make the audience feel a particular emotion, the author can persuade them that the argument they’re making is compelling.

Rhetorical Strategy 3: Logos

Logos uses logic or reason. It’s commonly used in academic writing when arguments are created using evidence and reasoning rather than an emotional response. It’s constructed in a step-by-step approach that builds methodically to create a powerful effect upon the reader.

Rhetoric can use any one of these three techniques, but effective arguments often appeal to all three elements.

The rhetorical situation explains the circumstances behind and around a piece of rhetoric. It helps you think about why a text exists, its purpose, and how it’s carried out.

The rhetorical situations are:

1) Purpose: Why is this being written? (It could be trying to inform, persuade, instruct, or entertain.)
2) Audience: Which groups or individuals will read and take action (or have done so in the past)?
3) Genre: What type of writing is this?
4) Stance: What is the tone of the text? What position are they taking?
5) Media/Visuals: What means of communication are used?

Understanding and analyzing the rhetorical situation is essential for building a strong essay. Also think about any rhetoric restraints on the text, such as beliefs, attitudes, and traditions that could affect the author's decisions.

Before leaping into your essay, it’s worth taking time to explore the text at a deeper level and considering the rhetorical situations we looked at before. Throw away your assumptions and use these simple questions to help you unpick how and why the text is having an effect on the audience.

Image showing what to consider when planning a rhetorical essay

1: What is the Rhetorical Situation?

Why is there a need or opportunity for persuasion?
How do words and references help you identify the time and location?
What are the rhetoric restraints?
What historical occasions would lead to this text being created?

2: Who is the Author?

How do they position themselves as an expert worth listening to?
What is their ethos?
Do they have a reputation that gives them authority?
What is their intention?
What values or customs do they have?

3: Who is it Written For?

Who is the intended audience?
How is this appealing to this particular audience?
Who are the possible secondary and tertiary audiences?

4: What is the Central Idea?

Can you summarize the key point of this rhetoric?
What arguments are used?
How has it developed a line of reasoning?

5: How is it Structured?

What structure is used?
How is the content arranged within the structure?

6: What Form is Used?

Does this follow a specific literary genre?
What type of style and tone is used, and why is this?
Does the form used complement the content?
What effect could this form have on the audience?

7: Is the Rhetoric Effective?

Does the content fulfil the author’s intentions?
Does the message effectively fit the audience, location, and time period?

Once you’ve fully explored the text, you’ll have a better understanding of the impact it’s having on the audience and feel more confident about writing your essay outline.

A great essay starts with an interesting topic. Choose carefully so you’re personally invested in the subject and familiar with it rather than just following trending topics. There are lots of great ideas on this blog post by My Perfect Words if you need some inspiration. Take some time to do background research to ensure your topic offers good analysis opportunities.

Image showing considerations for a rhetorical analysis topic

Remember to check the information given to you by your professor so you follow their preferred style guidelines. This outline example gives you a general idea of a format to follow, but there will likely be specific requests about layout and content in your course handbook. It’s always worth asking your institution if you’re unsure.

Make notes for each section of your essay before you write. This makes it easy for you to write a well-structured text that flows naturally to a conclusion. You will develop each note into a paragraph. Look at this example by College Essay for useful ideas about the structure.

1: Introduction

This is a short, informative section that shows you understand the purpose of the text. It tempts the reader to find out more by mentioning what will come in the main body of your essay.

Name the author of the text and the title of their work followed by the date in parentheses
Use a verb to describe what the author does, e.g. “implies,” “asserts,” or “claims”
Briefly summarize the text in your own words
Mention the persuasive techniques used by the rhetor and its effect

Create a thesis statement to come at the end of your introduction.

After your introduction, move on to your critical analysis. This is the principal part of your essay.

Explain the methods used by the author to inform, entertain, and/or persuade the audience using Aristotle's rhetorical triangle
Use quotations to prove the statements you make
Explain why the writer used this approach and how successful it is
Consider how it makes the audience feel and react

Make each strategy a new paragraph rather than cramming them together, and always use proper citations. Check back to your course handbook if you’re unsure which citation style is preferred.

3: Conclusion

Your conclusion should summarize the points you’ve made in the main body of your essay. While you will draw the points together, this is not the place to introduce new information you’ve not previously mentioned.

Use your last sentence to share a powerful concluding statement that talks about the impact the text has on the audience(s) and wider society. How have its strategies helped to shape history?

Before You Submit

Poor spelling and grammatical errors ruin a great essay. Use ProWritingAid to check through your finished essay before you submit. It will pick up all the minor errors you’ve missed and help you give your essay a final polish. Look at this useful ProWritingAid webinar for further ideas to help you significantly improve your essays. Sign up for a free trial today and start editing your essays!

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You’ll find countless examples of rhetorical analysis online, but they range widely in quality. Your institution may have example essays they can share with you to show you exactly what they’re looking for.

The following links should give you a good starting point if you’re looking for ideas:

Pearson Canada has a range of good examples. Look at how embedded quotations are used to prove the points being made. The end questions help you unpick how successful each essay is.

Excelsior College has an excellent sample essay complete with useful comments highlighting the techniques used.

Brighton Online has a selection of interesting essays to look at. In this specific example, consider how wider reading has deepened the exploration of the text.

Image showing tips when reading a sample essay

Writing a rhetorical analysis essay can seem daunting, but spending significant time deeply analyzing the text before you write will make it far more achievable and result in a better-quality essay overall.

It can take some time to write a good essay. Aim to complete it well before the deadline so you don’t feel rushed. Use ProWritingAid’s comprehensive checks to find any errors and make changes to improve readability. Then you’ll be ready to submit your finished essay, knowing it’s as good as you can possibly make it.

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Helly Douglas is a UK writer and teacher, specialising in education, children, and parenting. She loves making the complex seem simple through blogs, articles, and curriculum content. You can check out her work at hellydouglas.com or connect on Twitter @hellydouglas. When she’s not writing, you will find her in a classroom, being a mum or battling against the wilderness of her garden—the garden is winning!

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Visual and Spatial Rhetoric: Analyzing Images

Most texts are more than words on a page. Photographs, works of art, graphic novels, political cartoons, computer or video game screens, television or magazine advertisements, webpages, billboards, and more are all texts composed and designed to communicate ideas.

The texts you encounter in college also have visual or spatial components—an author’s profile picture on a publisher’s website, a reporter’s blog with hyperlinks to recommended websites, embedded videos and podcasts, a scientist’s precise figures and tables within a cutting-edge scientific journal, a business person’s PowerPoint presentation to prospective investors, or the photographic forensic evidence a police detective collects during a routine crime scene investigation.

A viewer or reader will come to many substantial conclusions analyzing a visual or spatial text. There often is not a “right” answer as much as a well-supported approach to a possible idea. Each viewer interprets the image separately (Alfano & O’Brien, 2017).

Whatever discipline you study, chances are you’ll come into contact with images, illustrations, and designs that require a sophisticated and close reading, so you may draw conclusions about the text’s rhetorical significance—its argument—that which the text makes the reader understand or believe.

Audience, Context, Subject, and Purpose

Analyzing a text’s rhetorical significance begins with determining the rhetorical situation—how the communication format, be it visual, written, aural, or any other multimodal form, situates itself on four main concepts: the audience, context, subject, and purpose.

Audience : Who is the intended audience for the text, and how do you know?

Context : What historical, sociological, cultural, political, ideological, or genre situations influence the text? What was happening during the time this text was being created?

Subject and Purpose : What is the author expressing? Why do you think her or she is communicating about this particular idea, issue, or concept?

Visual and spatial rhetoric uses images to communicate ideas. What is Figure 1 communicating?

Visual Rhetoric Sample Analysis: “Cake Batter With Eggs”

Subject : What the author wants the audience to explore. Example : Homemade cake batter with fresh eggs.

Purpose : Why is the author creating this text? Example : Perhaps the creator of this photograph wanted to document kitchen adventures or she or he may love to bake.

Audience : Who is the author trying to reach? Example : Possibly food lovers who like to see how ingredients morph into baked goods.

Context : What historical or value-based situation surrounds this text? Example : A personal food blog? Perhaps a cooking website? Something fairly contemporary and American given the style of cooking instruments being used (plastic bowl, spatula, and measuring cups (in cups rather than pints or liters used outside the US).

What to Look for in a Visual Text

Next, you’ll want to look at the grounding, color scheme, medium, and typography of the text:

Grounding or the placement of images within a text : What is the most and least prominent element? The first place the eye focuses may seem the most important, but the background may be influencing your understanding of the text as well.

Color scheme, the colors the artist chooses : Blues and greys are associated with water and stone, so they suggest a cooling and calming mood; greens remind people of living plants as well as money, so they can suggest both health and wealth; yellows are commonly used on hospital walls to evoke a softness (in an otherwise noisy environment); and reds express passion as well as anger, creating feelings of energy and excitement.

Medium, the materials the artist chooses : A painter may use watercolor or oil; a sculptor may choose clay, copper, bronze, or iron; a cartoonist may use pencils on paper; and a writer may use a digital medium. The medium can suggest the intended audience as well as the purpose of the communication.

Typography, the appearance of printed characters : What moods do the fonts create?

Typography on a Bakery and Catering Storefront Window

Heading fonts may be different than body text fonts for the purpose of readability. Depending on the intended reader and purpose, fonts may be chosen to express formality or playfulness or to express a particular cultural or historical context.

Visual Rhetoric and Color Theory

Color theory looks at how colors work together to create effective and appealing designs. Certain colors also act symbolically to affect us emotionally.

The color wheel, first developed by Sir Issac Newton, provides a framework for understanding color harmony. The color wheel depicts the primary colors (red, blue, and yellow) and the secondary colors (green, orange, and purple), which are formed from mixing the primary colors. The tertiary colors (red-orange, yellow-orange, red-violet, blue-violet, blue-green, and yellow-green) are formed when primary and secondary colors are mixed.

The Color Wheel

Color harmony suggests that certain colors together create palates that are pleasing to the eye. These color combinations include analogous colors, or any set of three colors that appear next to each other on the color wheel such as blue, blue-green, and green.

Another formula for pleasing color arrangements is to choose complementary colors, or two colors which appear directly opposite each other on the color wheel such as purple and yellow. Finally, a designer may choose to mimic a combination found in nature such as the yellow, red, orange, and brown colors found in autumn foliage.

Image of Markers, Drafting Tools, and Pantone Color Swatches

Color theory also includes the emotional effect of certain colors through natural association and symbolism.

Visual Rhetoric: Analyzing Pictures

When analyzing the rhetorical significance of a photograph, the goal is to uncover its argument. Does the photograph say something about love? Family? Patriotism? Wellness? Success? What happiness is?

In determining the argument, the first elements to analyze are the audience, context, subject, and purpose . Additionally, you’ll want to consider the following:

Material context : Where was the picture published? Where is it displayed? Is it the original version or a reproduction (as might be the case for artwork and paintings)?
Rhetorical Stance : What is the point-of-view of the photographer? Is the photographer a participant in the activity or scene being depicted, or is the photographer an observer? Are the subjects in the picture aware that their photo is being taken? Where is the focus of the image?
Reality or Abstraction : Is the photograph of a realistic scene, or has it been edited into an abstract piece of art? How do the modifications (if any) affect the meaning of the image? Does the editing serve the purpose of making the people in the picture look younger or more attractive than they might be otherwise?
Caption and Accompanying Text : Does the photo have a title and/or a caption? Does it accompany written text such as on a website, in a newspaper, or in a magazine? How does the photograph support or illustrate the text? How does the text affect the meaning of the picture? The next section of this resource covers images with text in more detail.

Analyzing Pictures

Photographic elements work together to communicate ideas.

Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, February 23, 1945

Note. From Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima , by Joe Rosenthal, 1945, Archives.gov ( https://unwritten-record.blogs.archives.gov/2015/02/23/raising-the-flag-over-iwo-jima/ ). In the public domain.

Subject or content : The scene or people the photo is depicting. Example : Five marines and a Navy hospital corpsman raising an American flag on top of Mt. Surabachi, Iwo Jima during World War II.

Purpose : Why is the author creating this text? Example : The photographer was from the Associated Press. He was documenting the battle of Iwo Jima during WWII.

Audience : Who is the author trying to reach? Example : The photographer likely intended to reach the American public who revere the American Flag as a symbol of pride and patriotism and who were awaiting news about the progress of the war.

Cultural Context : What is the cultural or historical context of the photograph, and how does that context affect the photograph’s meaning and importance? Example : This photo was taken during the bloodiest battle of WWII when the American public needed reassurance that they were doing the right thing. The photograph was immediately popular and widely reproduced as a message to support the war.

Visual Rhetoric: Images and Text

Authors and designers carefully consider the inclusion and interplay of visual images with text. For example, consider this picture quote from the Purdue Global Facebook page:

Image of Children in the Rain

In this example, the image of the children holding hands sharing an umbrella interacts with the quote from Tomas Carlyle (1795-1891): “A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.” The text expresses a possible idea behind the image of the children who appear loving. And as this was a Facebook post by a university, the connection to knowledge fits with the context of the webpage.

Consider how your reaction to this picture would be different if the text were removed? What about if the image were removed? Or if the image were changed? These questions are valuable when analyzing and discussing the visual rhetoric of print advertisements, television commercials, websites, and cartoons too.

Visual and spatial texts make arguments, and readers will have different understandings and beliefs about them. Analyzing a text’s subject, purpose, audience, and context, taking into consideration the colors, design, perspective, and the interplay of visuals and language is critical when it comes to developing your own understandings and beliefs and then communicating your own arguments about them.

Alfano, C. & O’Brien, A. (2017). Envision: Writing and researching arguments (5th ed.). Pierson Education. https://bit.ly/32RxV4x

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So far you have examined how primarily written arguments work rhetorically. But visuals (symbols, paintings, photographs, advertisements, cartoons, etc.) also work rhetorically, and their meaning changes from context to context.

Imagine two straight lines intersecting each other at right angles. One line runs from north to south. The other from east to west. Now think about the meanings that this sign evokes.

What came to mind as you pondered this sign? Crossroads? A first aid sign? The Swiss flag? Your little brother making a cross sign with his forefingers that signals “step away from the hallowed ground that is my bedroom”?

Now think of a circle around those lines so that the ends of the lines hit, or cross over, the circumference of the circle. What is the image’s purpose now?

What did you come up with? The Celtic cross? A surveyor’s target? A pizza cut into really generous sizes?

Did you know that this symbol is also the symbol for our planet Earth? And it’s the symbol for the Norse god, Odin. Furthermore, a quick web search will also tell you that John Dalton, a British chemist who led the way in atomic theory and died in 1844, used this exact same symbol to indicate the element sulfur.

Recently, however, the symbol became the subject of a fiery political controversy. The marketing team of former Alaska governor (and former vice-presidential candidate), Sarah Palin, placed several of these symbols—the lines crossed over the circumference of the circle in this case—on a map of the United States. The symbols indicated where the Republican Party had to concentrate their campaign because these two seemingly innocuous lines encompassed by a circle evoked, in this context, the symbol for crosshairs—which itself invokes a myriad of meanings that range from “focus” to “target.”

However, after the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona in January 2011, the symbol, and the image it was mapped onto, sparked a vehement nationwide debate about its connotative meaning. Clearly, the image’s rhetorical effectiveness had transformed into something that some considered offensive. Palin’s team withdrew the image from her website.

How we understand symbols rhetorically, and indeed all images, depends on how the symbols work with the words they accompany, and on how we understand and read the image’s context, or the social “landscape” within which the image is situated. As you have learned from earlier chapters, much of this contextual knowledge in persuasive situations is tacit, or unspoken.

Like writing, how we use images has real implications in the world. So when we examine visuals in rhetorical circumstances, we need to uncover this tacit knowledge. Even a seemingly innocuous symbol, like the one above, can denote a huge variety of meanings, and these meanings can become culturally loaded. The same is true for more complex images—something we will examine at length below.

In this chapter, we will explore how context—as well as purpose, audience, and design—render symbols and images rhetorically effective. The political anecdote above may seem shocking, but, nevertheless, it indicates how persuasively potent visuals are, especially when they enhance the meaning of a text’s words or vice versa. Our goal for this chapter, then, is to come to terms with the basics of visual analysis, which can encompass the analysis of words working with images or the analysis of images alone. When you compose your own arguments, you can put to use what you discover in this chapter when you select or consider creating visuals to accompany your own work.

Here is an overview of Visual Rhetoric from the OWL at Purdue:

Rhetorical Analysis of Visual Texts

Let’s start with by reviewing what we mean by analysis. Imagine that your old car has broken down and your Uncle Bob has announced that he will fix it for you. The next day, you go to Uncle Bob’s garage and find the engine of your car in pieces all over the driveway; you are further greeted with a vision of your hapless uncle greasily jabbing at the radiator with a screwdriver. Uncle Bob (whom you may never speak to again) has broken the car engine down into its component parts to try and figure out how your poor old car works and what is wrong with it.

Happy days are ahead, however. Despite the shock and horror that the scene above inspires, there is a method to Uncle Bob’s madness. Amid the wreckage, he finds out how your car works and what is wrong with it, so he can fix it and put it back together.

Likewise, analyzing entails breaking down a text or an image into component parts (like your engine). And while analyzing doesn’t entail fixing per se, it does allow you to figure out how a text or image works to convey the message it is trying to communicate. What constitutes the component parts of an image? How might we analyze a visual? What should we be looking for? To a certain extent we can analyze visuals in the same way we analyze written language; we break down a written text into component parts to figure out just what the creator’s agenda might be and what effect the text might have on its readers.

When we analyze visuals we do take into account the same sorts of things we do when we analyze written texts, with some added features.

Please watch “Visual Rhetoric: How to Analyze Images”:

Genres that use visuals tell us a lot about what we can and can’t do with them. Coming to terms with genre is rather like learning a new dance—certain moves, or conventions, are expected that dictate what kind of dance you have to learn. If you’re asked to moonwalk, for instance, you know you have to glide backwards across the floor like Michael Jackson. It’s sort of the same with visuals and texts; certain moves, or conventions, are expected that dictate what the genre allows and doesn’t allow.

Below is a wonderful old bumper sticker from the 1960s 19. A bumper sticker, as we will discover, is a genre that involves specific conventions.

In bumper sticker format, the top line reads "Kennedy" in white font against a red background. The lower line reads "FOR PRESIDENT" in blue font against a white background. Kennedy's smiling head is superimposed over the words in the middle of the sticker.

Bumper stickers today look quite a bit different, but the amount of space that a sticker’s creator has to work with hasn’t really changed. Bumper stickers demand that their creators come up with short phrases that are contextually understandable and accompanied by images that are easily readable—a photograph of an oil painting trying to squeeze itself on a bumper sticker would just be incomprehensible. In short, bumper stickers are an argument in a rush!

A bumper sticker calls for an analysis of images and words working together to create an argument. As for their rhetorical content, bumper stickers can demand that we vote a certain way, pay attention to a problem, act as part of a solution, or even recognize the affiliations of the driver of the car the sticker is stuck to. But their very success, given that their content is minimal, depends wholly on our understanding of the words and the symbols that accompany them in context.

The procedure for doing a rhetorical analysis of a visual text is essentially the same as for a spoken/written text.

Step 1: Read the Text

In the case of a visual text, there might be words or there might not. If there are no words, “read” the image and think about what the creator of the image is trying to portray. Rather than a summary of the text, you might write a description of the image, including what you believe the author’s main intent is. In this case, your description might be fairly short:

Step 2: Define the Rhetorical Situation

Again, this step is very similar to what you would do for a written/spoken text. Simply answer the same questions about the visual text. Remember the acronym SOAP:

In this case, the speaker isn’t as clear as it might be in a spoken or written text. In general, a speech is made by a specific person, and a written text has an author. In some cases, determining the origin of a visual text could be difficult. In this case, we can presume that the bumper sticker was made by the Democratic Party as a campaign effort.

Audience and Medium

In their book Picturing Texts , Lester Faigley et al claim that, when determining the audience for a visual, we must “think about how an author might expect the audience to receive the work” (104). Medium, then, dominates an audience’s reception of an image. For instance, Faigley states that readers will most likely accept a photograph in a newspaper as news—unless of course one thinks that pictures in the tabloids of alien babies impersonating Elvis constitute news. Alien babies aside, readers of the news would expect that the picture on the front page of the New York Times , for instance, is a “faithful representation of something that actually happened” (105). An audience for a political cartoon in the newspaper, on the other hand, would know that the pictures they see in cartoons are not faithful representations of the news but opinions about current events and their participants, caricatured by a cartoonist. The expectations of the audience in terms of medium, then, determine much about how the visual is received.

As for our bumper sticker then, we might argue that the image of JFK speeding down the highway on the bumper of a spiffy new Ford Falcon would be persuasive to those who put their faith in the efficacy of bumper stickers, as well as the image of the man on the bumper sticker. Moreover, given that the Falcon is speeding by, we might assume that the bumper sticker would mostly appeal to those folks who are already thinking of voting for JFK—otherwise there’s a chance that the Falcon’s driver would be the recipient of some 1960s-style road rage.

Today, the audience for our bumper sticker has changed considerably. We might find it in a library collection. Or we might find it collecting bids on eBay. Once again, the audience for this example of images and words working together rhetorically depends largely on its contextual landscape.

Occasion/Context

Thinking about context is crucial when we are analyzing visuals, as it is with analyzing writing. We need to understand the political, social, economic, or historical situations from which the visual emerges. Moreover, we have to remember that the meaning of images change as time passes. For instance, what do we have to understand about the context from which the Kennedy sticker emerged in order to grasp its meaning? Furthermore, how has its meaning changed in the past 50 years?

First, to read the bumper sticker at face value, we have to know that a man named Kennedy is running for president. But president of what? Maybe that’s obvious, but then again, how many know who the Australian prime minister was 50 years ago, or, for that matter, the leading official in China? Of course, we should know that the face on the bumper sticker belongs to John F. Kennedy, a US Democrat, who ran against the Republican nominee Richard Nixon, and who won the US presidential election in 1960. (We hope you know that anyway.)

Now think how someone seeing this bumper sticker, and the image of Kennedy on it, today would react differently than someone in 1960 would have. Since his election, JFK’s status has transformed from American president into an icon of American history. We remember his historic debate with Nixon, the first televised presidential debate.

One wonders how much of a role this event played in his election given that the TV, a visual medium, turned a political underdog into a celebrity. We also remember Kennedy for his part in the Cuban missile crisis, his integral role in the Civil Rights Movement and, tragically, we remember his assassination in 1963. In other words, after the passage of 50 years, we might read the face on the bumper sticker quite differently than we might have in 1960.

While we examine this “text” from 50 years ago, it reminds us that the images we are surrounded by now change in meaning all the time. For instance, we are all familiar with the Apple logo. The image itself, on its own terms, is simply a silhouette of an apple with a bite taken out of it. But, the visual does not now evoke the nourishment of a Granny Smith or a Golden Delicious. Instead, the logo is globally recognized as an icon of computer technology.

Words and images can work together to present a point of view. But, in terms of visuals, that point of view often relies on what isn’t explicit—what, as we noted above, is tacit.

The words on the sticker say quite simply “Kennedy For President.” We know now that this simple statement reveals that John F. Kennedy ran for president in 1960. But what was its rhetorical value back then? What did the bumper sticker want us to do with its message? After all, taken literally, it doesn’t really tell us to do anything.

For now, let’s cheat and jump the gun and guess that the bumper sticker’s argument in 1960 was “Vote to Elect John F Kennedy for United States President.”

Okay. So knowing what we know from history, we can accept that the sticker is urging us to vote for Kennedy. It’s trying to persuade us to do something. And the reason we know what we know about it is because we know how to read its genre and we comprehend its social, political, and historical context. But in order to be persuaded by its purpose, we need to know why voting for JFK is a good thing. We need to understand that its underlying message, “Vote for JFK,” is that to vote for JFK is a good thing for the future of the United States.

So, to be persuaded by the bumper sticker, we must agree with the reasons why voting for JFK is a good thing. But the bumper sticker doesn’t give us any. Instead, it relies on what we are supposed to know about why we should vote for Kennedy. For instance, if we were present for the campaign, we would know that JFK campaigned on a platform of liberal reform as well as increased spending for the military and space travel technology. Moreover, we would be aware of the evidence for why we should vote that way. Consequently, if we voted for JFK, we accepted the above claim, reasons, and evidence driving the bumper sticker’s purpose without being told any of it by the bumper sticker. The claim, reasons and evidence are all tacit.

What about the image itself? How does that further the bumper sticker’s purpose? We see that the image of JFK’s smiling face is projected on top of the words “Kennedy for President.” The image is not placed off to the side; it is right in the middle of the bumper sticker. So for this bumper sticker to be visually persuasive, we need to agree that JFK, here represented by his smiling face, located right in the middle of the bumper sticker, on a backdrop of red, white, and blue, signifies a person we can trust to run the country.

Nowadays, JFK’s face on the bumper sticker—or in any other genre for that matter —might underscore a different purpose. It might encompass nostalgia for an era gone by or it might be used as a resemblance argument, in order to compare President Kennedy with President Obama for example.

Overall then, when we see a visual used for rhetorical purposes, we must first determine the argument (claim, reasons, evidence) from which the visual is situated and then try to grasp why the visual is being used to further its purpose.

To these, we will add one more element–Setting–making our acronym SOAPS.

When analyzing visual texts, the style in which the text is created is important. In rhetorical analysis, you should consider why this particular style was chosen–why use a bumper sticker or a billboard instead of writing an article in the newspaper?

Consider what format or medium the text being made: image? written essay? speech? song? protest sign? meme? sculpture?

What is gained by having a text composed in a particular format/medium?
What limitations does that format/medium have?
What opportunities for expression does that format/medium have (that perhaps other formats do not have?)

3. Identify Rhetorical Strategies

Think through how the creator of the text uses ethos, pathos, logos, and kairos to portray the message. While you might see some rhetorical devices being employed, they might not play as large a role in visual texts. The elements of Design will play a much larger role in a visual analysis.

Design actually involves several factors.

Arrangement

Designers are trained to emphasize certain features of a visual text. And they are also trained to compose images that are balanced and harmonized. Faigley et al suggest that we look at a text that uses images (with or without words) and think about where our eyes are drawn first (34). Moreover, in Western cultures, we are trained to read from left to right and top to bottom—a pattern that often has an impact on what text or image is accentuated in a visual arrangement.

Other arrangements that Faigley et al discuss are closed and open forms (105). A closed-form image means that, like our bumper sticker, everything we need to know about the image is enclosed within its frame. An open form, on the other hand, suggests that the visual’s narrative continues outside the frame of the visual. Many sports ads employ open-frame visuals that suggest the dynamic of physical movement.

Another method of arrangement that is well known to designers is the rule of thirds . Here’s an example of that rule in action:

A 3x3 grid appears in light gray font in the background. On top of this, a drawing of a man, a horizon line, and a sun appear. The sun is centered in the crosspoint of the top left corner of the grid. The horizon line roughly follows the bottom third line of the grid, and the human figure appears on the right vertical line of the grid, over the horizon line.

Note how the illustration above has been cordoned off into 9 sections. The drawings of the sun and the person, as well as the horizon, coincide with those lines. The rule of thirds dictates that this compositional method allows for an interesting and dynamic arrangement as opposed to one that is static. Now, unfortunately, our bumper sticker above doesn’t really obey that rule. Nevertheless, our eye is still drawn to the image of JFK’s head. Many modern bumper stickers do, however, obey the rule of thirds. Next time you see a bumper sticker on a parked car, check if the artist has paid attention to this rule. Or, seek out some landscape photography. The rule of thirds is the golden rule in landscape art and photography and is more or less a comprehensive way to analyze arrangement in design circles because of its focus on where one’s eye is drawn.

Rhetorically speaking, what is accentuated in a visual is the most important thing to remember about arrangement. As far as professional design is concerned, it is never haphazard. Even a great photo, which might be seem to be the result of serendipity, can be cropped to highlight what a newspaper editor, for instance, wants highlighted.

Texts and Image in Play

Is the visual supported by words? How do the words support the visual? What is gained by the words and what would be lost if they weren’t in accompaniment? What if we were to remove the words “Kennedy for President” from our bumper sticker? Would the sticker have the same rhetorical effect?

Moreover, when examining visual rhetoric, we should pinpoint how font emphasizes language. How does font render things more or less important, for instance? Is the font playful, like Comic Sans MS, or formal, like Arial? Is the font blocked, large, or small? What difference does the font make to the overall meaning of the visual? Imagine that our JFK bumper sticker was composed with a swirly- curly font. It probably wouldn’t send the desired message. Why not, do you think?

Alternately, think about the default font in Microsoft Word. What does it look like and why? What happens to the font if it is bolded or enlarged? Does it maintain a sense of continuity with the rest of the text? If you scroll through the different fonts available to you on your computer, which do you think are most appropriate for essay writing, website design, or the poster you may have to compose?

Lastly, even the use of white (or negative) space in relation to text deserves attention in terms of arrangement. The mismanagement of the relation of space to text and/or visual can result in visual overload! For instance, in an essay, double spacing is often advised because it is easier on the reader’s eye. In other words, the blank spaces between the lines of text render reading more manageable than would dense bricks of text. Similarly, one might arrange text and image against the blank space to create a balanced arrangement of both.

While in some situations the arrangement of text and visual (or white space) might not seem rhetorical (in an essay, for example), one could make the argument that cluttering one’s work is not especially rhetorically effective. After all, if you are trying to persuade your instructor to give you an ‘A’, making your essay effortlessly readable seems like a good place to start.

Visual Figures

Faigley et al also ask us to consider the use of figures in a visual argument (32). Figurative language is highly rhetorical, as are figurative images. For instance, visual metaphors abound in visual rhetoric, especially advertising (32). A visual metaphor is at play when you encounter an image that signifies something other than its literal meaning. For instance, think of your favorite cereal: which cartoon character on the cereal box makes you salivate in anticipation of breakfast time? Next time, when you see a cartoon gnome and your tummy start to rumble in anticipation of chocolate-covered rice puffs, you’ll know that the design folks down at ACME cereals have done their job. Let’s hope, however, that you don’t want to chow down on the nearest short fat fellow in a red cap that comes your way.

Visual rhetoric also relies on synecdoche, a trope in which a part of something represents the whole . In England, for instance, a crown is used to represent the British monarchy. The image of JFK’s face on the bumper sticker, then, might suggest his competency to head up the country.

Colors are loaded with rhetorical meaning, both in terms of the values and emotions associated with them and their contextual background. Gunther Kress and Theo Van Leeuwen show how the use of color is as contextually bound as writing and images themselves. For instance, they write, “red is for danger, green for hope. In most parts of Europe, black is for mourning, though in northern parts of Portugal, and perhaps elsewhere in Europe as well, brides wear black gowns for their wedding day. In China, and other parts of East Asia, white is the color of mourning; in most of Europe it is the color of purity, worn by the bride at her wedding. Contrasts like these shake our confidence in the security of meaning of colour and colour terms” (343).

So what colors have seemingly unshakeable meaning in the US? How about red, white, and blue? Red and blue are two out of the three primary colors. They evoke a sense of sturdiness. After all, they are the base colors from which others are formed.

The combined colors of the American flag have come to signal patriotism and American values. But even American values, reflected in the appearance of the red, white, and blue, change in different contexts. To prompt further thought, Faigley shows us that the flag has been used to lend different meaning to a variety of magazine covers—from American Vogue (fashion) to Fortune magazine (money) (91). An image of the red, white and blue on the cover lends a particularly American flavor to each magazine. And this can change the theme of each magazine? For instance, with what would you acquaint a picture of the American flag on the cover of Bon Appétit or Rolling Stone ? Hot dogs and Bruce Springsteen perhaps?

What then does the red, white, and blue lend our bumper sticker? A distinctly patriotic flavor, for sure. Politically patriotic. And that can mean different things for different people. Thus, given that meanings change in a variety of contexts, we can see that the meaning of color can actually be more fluid than we might have originally thought.

Alternately, if our JFK sticker colors were anything other than red, white, and blue, we might read it very differently; indeed, it might seem extremely odd to us.

Kress and Van Leeuwen ask us to consider the modality in which an image is composed. Very simply, this means, how “real” does the image look? And what does this “realness” contribute to its persuasiveness? They write, “visuals can represent people, places, and things as though they are real, as though they actually exist in this way . . . or as though they do not” (161). Photographs are thus considered a more naturalistic representation of the world than clip art, for instance.

We expect photographs to give us a representation of reality. Thus, when a photograph is manipulated to signify something fantastic, like a unicorn or a dinosaur, we marvel at its ability to construct something that looks “real.” And when a visual shifts from one modality to another, it takes on additional meaning.

For instance, how might we read a cartoon version of JFK compared to the photograph that we see on our bumper sticker? Would the cartoon render the bumper sticker less formal? Less significant perhaps? Would a cartoon, given its associative meanings, somehow lessen the authenticity of the sticker’s purpose? Or the authority of its subject?

Perspective/Point of View

Imagine standing beneath a wind turbine. Intimidating? Impressive Overwhelming? Now envision that you are flying over it in airplane. That very enormous thing seems rather insignificant now—a wind turbine in Toyland.

Now imagine the same proportions depicted in a photograph. One might get the same sense of power if the photo was taken from the bottom of the turbine, the lens pointed heavenward. Then again, an aerial photograph might offer us a different perspective. If the landscape presents us with an endless array of turbines stretching into the distance, we might get a sense that they are infinite—as infinite as wind energy.

Our Kennedy sticker offers neither of the above-described senses of perspective. Coming face to face with Kennedy, we neither feel overwhelmed nor superior. In fact, it’s as if Kennedy’s gaze is meeting ours at our own level. The artist is still using his powers of perspective; it’s just that our gaze meets Kennedy’s face to face. Consequently, Kennedy is portrayed as friendly and approachable.

Social distance

Jewitt and Van Leeuwen include social distance in the components of design. Social distance accounts for the “psychology of people’s use of space” (Van Leeuwen and Jewitt, 29). In short, a visual artist can exploit social distance to create a certain psychological effect between a person in an image and the image’s audience.

Image licensed free to use.“Look at me,” both seem to say, “buy this product; we invite you.” Likewise, Kennedy smiles into the camera. “Vote for me,” he encourages. “I’m a nice guy.” Depicting head and shoulders only, we are given a sense of what Van Leeuwen and Carey Jewitt call “Close Personal Distance.” The result is one of intimacy.

Alternately, a visual of several people, or a crowd, would suggest far less intimacy.

Mood and Lighting

Have you ever put a flashlight under your chin and lit your face from underneath? Maybe we aren’t all budding scary movie makers, but jump out of the closet on a dark night with all the lights turned off and the flashlight propped under your chin and you’re sure to give at least the cat a fright. What you have experimented with is mood and lighting. In short, the lighting as described eerily captures facial features that aren’t usually accentuated. It can be quite off-putting. Thus the position of the light has created a creepy face; it’s created a visual mood . And, the mood combines with other elements of the visual to create an effect, which of course is rhetorical.

The next time you watch a movie, note how the filmmaker has played with lighting to create a mood. In the illustration below, we can see how Film Noir , for instance, capitalizes on techniques of mood and lighting to create an uncanny effect.

4. Connect the Text to the Purpose

Think about how the author’s purpose connects to the visual text. Do they match up? Has the author’s feelings or desire for creativity interfered with the message?

You may want to bookmark this worksheet on your computer, as it will help you as you write your own rhetorical analyses:

Worksheet for Rhetorical Analysis

Attributions

Faigley, Lester, Diana George, Anna Palchik and Cynthia Selfe. Picturing Texts . London: Norton, 2004. Print.
Kress, Gunther, and Theo Van Leeuwen: “Colour as a Semiotic Mode: Notes for a Grammar or Colour.” Visual Communication 1.3 (2002): 343-68.
Kress, Gunther and Theo Van Leeuwen. Reading Images . London: Routledge, 1996. Print.
Van Leeuwen, Theo and Carey Jewitt. The Handbook of Visual Analysis . Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2003. Print.
Content adapted from “ Visual Elements ” licensed under CC BY SA .
Adapted from “ What is the Rhetorical Situation? ” by Robin Jeffrey and Emilie Zickel licensed under CC BY SA .
Other content written by Dr. Karen Palmer and licensed CC BY NC SA .

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Collaboration, information literacy, writing process, breaking down an image.

CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 by Jenna Pack Sheffield

We come across many images on a daily basis, but we rarely stop to think about what those images mean or about how they persuade us. Yet, images have power, which is why we need to understand how to analyze them. When you’re analyzing an image to understand the message it portrays, this is called visual rhetoric . Visual rhetoric is a means of communication that uses images to create meaning or to make an argument .

The first thing to consider when breaking down, or analyzing, an image is the rhetorical situation : the audience , context , and purpose .

Each of these elements is essential in order to understand the message an image portrays. It is important to remember that you can analyze all different types of images, including advertisements, Public Service Announcements (PSAs), websites, paintings, photographs, and more. Here, we will look at an advertisement:

Belviso, Luciano, “Day 34” June 11, 2011 via Flickr. Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 2.0)

The audience consists of who is being targeted by the author, designer, or creator. In the above image, it appears that the audience is men. How do we know this? Not only is the person running in the background a man, but the color of the watch and the size of the watch face indicate that the watch is likely a man’s watch. Of course, women could indirectly be an audience, too, since they might want to buy this watch for someone or wear it themselves. In addition, the audience might be male athletes or outdoor enthusiasts . If you pay close attention to the watch features, it includes North, South, East, and West orientations; it is digital with various modes that likely include a stopwatch, and it has a light for when it is dark. All of these features are likely to appeal to outdoors types, athletes, or both.

The context includes any background information that will help you understand and analyze an image. In the above image, the most important context is that the watch is a Pro Trek watch. If you did some research, you would find out that Pro Trek watches are part of Casio, an electronics manufacturing company. Knowing that Casio is an electronics company, we might assume that they value functionality over aesthetics; therefore, this might be the reason why the above watch is not very decorative or complex, but is still the focal point of the image. This is because Casio wants to feature the watch’s functionality.

Purpose refers to the overall goal for creating an image. With advertisements, that goal is fairly easy to understand. Advertisements are almost always made to sell items. In our example image, the purpose is to sell the Pro Trek watch.

There are many other strategies to consider when breaking down an image. It’s always important to consider the rhetorical situation first, since that will help you interpret the purpose of the other strategies the designer uses. Then, you can begin to interpret the other persuasive techniques that influence the overall message of the image, including the tone, arrangement, text, typography, and color.

In literature, tone refers to the author’s attitude toward the subject. So, with regard to images, tone can also refer to the photographer/artist’s/designer’s perspective on the issue. In our image above, the tone is a bit hard to interpret. However, the fact that the watch is focused and up close while the background image of a person is blurred gives us a clue: it seems that the designer is portraying that the wearer of the watch is not that important. The watch is what’s significant. Perhaps the message is that anyone can wear these watches. Whether or not this is an effective approach to selling the watch is up for debate!

Arrangement

Arrangement refers to the placement of images, graphics, and text in an image. There are two key elements of arrangement—location and scale. Location refers to where a text or image is placed, whereas scale refers to the relative size of the visual components.

Typically, our eyes scan an image, text, and/or webpage from left to right and from top to bottom. The designer of this advertisement has placed the Pro Trek logo and the image of the watch to the right side of the page—top and bottom, respectively. If the designer wanted our eyes to go to the logo first, he or she probably should have placed the logo at the top left corner so our eyes would catch that logo first. However, because the size of the watch is so large, it is obvious that the focus is the watch. This brings us to the term scale.

As discussed, image of the watch is both large and focused (compared to the blurred image of the man). Thus, the scale of the watch (its size in relation to everything else on the page), along with the sharp focus, indicates that the designer wants to viewer to focus on the watch, ensuring that viewers can see all the neat features this watch has to offer, while not getting distracted by other text or images.

Text is another important element to analyze, assuming an image includes text. If it does, the text is obviously there for a purpose. Now, the only text on this advertisement is the company logo. This is obviously there for the purpose of showing viewers what type of watch it is so they can find it online or in a store. However, it is possible that this image could have been more effective if it included a catch phrase like those we often see in print ads or in commercials (think of Skittles’ “Taste the Rainbow” or Subway’s “Eat Fresh” slogans). If you see an image with text, consider the connotations of the words, the possible underlying assumptions of the phrase, and the effect the words are meant to have on the audience.

Typography refers to the font size and font type choices that are made in a visual composition.

Notice that the font size of Pro Trek is actually smaller than the time indicated on the watch! This seems to actually reduce the importance of the company as compared to the importance of the watch itself. Do you think this is an effective visual strategy to persuade the audience to buy a Pro Trek watch?

The font type we see with the words Pro Trek is strong, bolded, and in ALL CAPS. Since this advertisement is for a men’s athletic watch, the STRONG, SERIOUS FONT TYPE is probably more effective than a silly or playful font type .

Color choices can really affect your audience, too. Colors can have different meanings ( connotations ) that implicitly portray a message. Colors can also enhance or detract from an image’s readability depending on the level of contrast used.

Connotation

Notice that this advertisement has red hues in the background and orange/yellow hues in the background and on the watch. The orange/yellow hues from the background tie in nicely with this same color in the watch, creating a sense of coherence that makes the design feel professional and therefore convincing. The red hues could connote warmth, raising the heart beat, getting the blood pumping, which all symbolize that the watch is effective for athletes.

Readability

You also should think about practical concerns with color, such as whether or not the text color is contrasted well enough with the background so that it is readable. For instance, THIS is more effective than THIS .

The white/black contrast of the Pro Trek logo makes it easy to read.

Ultimately, the image we have just broken down has both effective and ineffective rhetorical effects (persuasive effects). For instance, the absence of a catchy phrase might detract from its persuasiveness, or the blurred image of the man might indirectly signal that the company cares more about the watch than who its users are. On the other hand, though, the absence of text might send the message that the watch is so amazing it speaks for itself. The blurred image might simply reflect the movement of a man running, further emphasizing that this man is using the watch for athletic purposes. These decisions about the effectiveness of each strategy really depend on your individual analysis of the image. This is how you will make an argument about its effectiveness. While the above terminology will be helpful for analysis, regardless of the terminology, the most important thing to remember is this: visuals portray meaning, just as language does. If you take the time to understand the strategies used in images to create meaning, then you will become a stronger critical thinker, understanding how images are persuading you on a daily basis.

Brevity – Say More with Less

Clarity (in Speech and Writing)

Coherence – How to Achieve Coherence in Writing

Flow – How to Create Flow in Writing

Inclusivity – Inclusive Language

The Elements of Style – The DNA of Powerful Writing

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Rhetorical Analysis

Understanding Visual Rhetoric

Visuals can dramatically impact our understanding of a rhetorical situation. In a writing class, students do not always think that they will need to be attentive to visuals, but visual information can be a critical component to understanding and analyzing the rhetorical impacts of a multimodal text. This chapter gives examples of what visual rhetoric looks like in everyday situations, unpacking how seemingly mundane images like a food picture on social media or a menu at a restaurant, can have a persuasive impact on the viewer. The chapter then offers students some terms to use when describing visuals in a variety of situations.

Introduction

It’s Friday night and you’re hungry. So, you corral some friends and you all decide that you’d like to go out to eat somewhere new. You hop online to explore your options, and, in the process, you find a wealth of information from menus and visitor reviews to hours and locations. But there’s one factor that has an especially strong influence on your choice: the pictures of the food.

A cheeseburger is held in a close-up shot

You check out a review page for a hamburger joint and find yourself drooling over a close-up shot of a juicy burger with a slice of cheese oozing over the edge (see figure 1). You click to the next shot and see a cascade of golden French fries on a tray with an ombre-tinted iced tea and lemonade (see figure 2). You click one more time and find yet another delectable shot: a frosty milkshake with a mountain of whipped cream on top. You’re feeling increasingly convinced that this restaurant is where you’ll suggest that you and your friends go out to eat.

You decide to click through to see one more picture, expecting to see yet another culinary delight (see figure 3). But this next photo surprises you: it’s a picture of someone’s tray of food, but it’s dimly lit and a little hard to tell what’s there. The hamburger looks squished and flat, the meat greasy and paltry. The French fries curled up next to the burger look a bit dried out. There’s a mysterious puddle of sauce in a bowl next to the plate burger, and it’s not totally clear what’s in it. The meal suddenly doesn’t look so appetizing after all.

You find yourself confused. All of these pictures are supposedly of food at the same restaurant, but the pictures look so different from each other. Knowing that the images may not accurately reflect the reality of the restaurant experience, you feel angry and misled: how can you possibly know which photos capture the “real” experience at the restaurant? Why trust any photos of restaurant food at all?

The fact of the matter is that you can’t know exactly what your restauranting experience will be like when you walk in the door of a new place. But the images clearly had a persuasive impact on you as a decision-maker: the contrast between the appetizing images and the unappetizing photos made you question the quality and consistency of the restaurant’s food, a contrast that made you wonder whether the restaurant would be the kind of place where you’d like to visit.

The point here is those photos of the food you found at the restaurant impacted your decision-making, which makes them a perfect example of visual rhetoric in action. Visual rhetoric refers to any communicative moment where visuals (photographs, illustrations, cartoons, maps, diagrams, etc.) contribute to making meaning and displaying information. You’re in a writing class right now (which is probably why you’re reading this essay and wondering what hamburgers have to do with anything), and you may think of writing mostly as words on the page. However, as more writers publish and distribute their work online, the more readers expect to find that information may be communicated in multiple modes, from text to visuals and audio. As writing and rhetoric scholar Carolyn Handa puts it,

rhetoric’s association with the written word is arbitrary, a byproduct of print culture rather than the epistemological limits of rhetoric itself. We use rhetoric to help us think more clearly, write more elegantly, design more logically. Rhetoric works both to scaffold our ideas for clearer understanding and to structure our critical examinations of both visual and verbal objects. (2)

What Handa means by “the epistemological limits of rhetoric itself” (and yes, that is a mouthful!) is that, when we think of making meaning, building arguments, and reaching our target audiences, we are not limited to words as a tool. In fact, if we limit ourselves to words in our arguments, we may not successfully reach our audiences at all. Some audiences need visuals to think through an idea, and using graphs and diagrams can ex- press some ideas more clearly than text can. So, we have to take visuals into account as part of understanding communication.

You may be thinking that this all sounds good, but what about images that are just pretty for the sake of being pretty? Well, those exist too, but we call those “art.” A picture of a hamburger framed in an art museum does not exist to market hamburgers (though it might make you hungry!). However, a picture of a hamburger on an Instagram feed for a particular restaurant exists as a way to encourage visitors to come and dine at the restaurant. As composition scholar and teacher Kristen Welch describes it: “visual rhetoric is a focus on the practical, relevant, and functional as op- posed to an aesthetic analysis or use of visual elements for beauty” (256). It is important to recognize when a visual exists to help us appreciate beauty (and we may even appreciate the beauty of a picture of a hamburger on an Instagram feed), but the context in which we see visuals matters an awful lot in terms of how we analyze and understand their impacts on us as viewers.

Our example of finding food photos from a restaurant online exemplifies just how accessible visual rhetoric really is in our everyday lives. Clearly, the lighting, composition, and angle of the image clearly makes a big difference in our reaction to the image and potentially our willingness to take action and respond to the image (either by going to the restaurant or not). After reading through the opening story, you may have thought of lots of other ways that you encounter other pictures of food online. On social media, for example, a lot of users post images of food they’ve cooked or eaten as a way to share eating experiences. Because of how consumer interests are driven by the platforms they use to access information, visuals are more important than ever for people to make decisions or become attracted to visiting particular spaces. But visual rhetoric is not just about persuading someone to like something or not. Visual rhetoric can also be used to help people understand a concept, break down an idea, or access important pieces of information.

We’ll explore a few more examples of what visual rhetoric can look like in a few other situations where the visuals may not just be persuasive, but they may offer necessary guidance or instruction for the viewer. After that, this chapter will offer you some advice on how you might analyze visuals in your future writing classes so that you, too, can interpret the visuals you encounter in rhetorical situations.

Why Do Visuals Matter?

Let’s think back to the restaurant example one more time. You’ve picked a restaurant for your Friday night dinner and now you’re with your friends and are seated at the dining table. A waiter hands you a menu and guess what? You’re seeing yet another example of visual rhetoric in action. This particular menu comes from a real restaurant, called Oren’s Hummus, which has locations around the San Francisco Bay Area in California (see figure 4).

menu for Oren’s Hummus with three columns containing various menu items

This restaurant menu doesn’t have pictures on it, but it makes visual choices that may impact which food items you decide to order. For example, separating certain food items under headers, like “Hummus Bowls” and “Grilled Entrees” gives you some quick visual information about what items you can expect to find in those sections. Even more noticeably, the section titled “Dips & Sides” is separated from the other menu items by a green box. While the words “Dips & Sides” may have helped us under- stand that the items in that section would be smaller-sized than the menu items outside the green box, the use of the green box is a rhetorical tool; it makes it really obvious to the restaurant goer that if they order an item from the Dips & Sides section, it’s going to be smaller than the items that are not inside the green box.

Think about this particular restaurant’s context even more: the restaurant advertises its “hummus,” a Mediterranean dip made out of garbanzo beans, in its name, but for many visitors, they may not have experienced eating hummus in the way that this restaurant serves it. For many diners, they may have experienced hummus as a dip or side rather than as a main course. However, because “Hummus Bowls” appear on the menu separately from the Dips & Sides, it’s clear that the hummus bowls can actually be eaten as a main dish rather than as a side dish. This is a new situation, a subversion of expectations, for many restaurant-goers, so the menu has to do some visual work to help the visitor understand what to expect from the food they order.

Do you see how many words it took me to explain how the Dips & Sides section differs from the other menu sections? If you were a hungry diner, would you want to take the time to listen to all of that or read that long explanation? Probably not. That’s why the document design on the menu is so important: it aligns our expectations quickly, simply, and clearly. Document design is yet another example of visual rhetoric in action, as it persuades us to make particular choices (in this case, about what we order). To learn more about components of document design in particular, you may want to look to another essay in the Writing Spaces series, called “Beyond Black on White: Document Design and Formatting in the Writing Classroom” by Michael J. Klein and Kristi L. Shackleford. They make the important case that, “Good document design integrates the words on the page with appropriate imagery to fully illustrate your meaning,” a sentiment that reflects exactly what we saw happen with the menu (333).

The menu also includes some symbols to indicate which menu items may adhere to particular dietary needs, a piece of visual information that may be critical to those with allergies or sensitivities. Next to the descriptions of particular menu items, the letters “gf” and “v” indicate which items on the menu are “gluten free” (items that don’t contain binding proteins found in wheat and other grains) or “vegan” (items that don’t contain animal products, like meat or dairy); a key for these restrictions is in the bottom right-hand corner of the menu for visitors to reference if they are seeking out those indications.

Some menus will indicate these dietary restrictions using visual symbols instead; for example, other menus may include a green leaf icon next to particular items to indicate that the menu item is vegetarian or a brown-colored “G” inside a circle often indicates that the menu item is gluten-free. While you, as a reader, may have some critiques of how clearly the Oren’s Hummus menu makes these dietary restrictions clear, the point is that the visual indicators are there to guide visitors in critical ways.

You may also notice that, on the menu, the two biggest visual items are the restaurant’s logo and slogan (“Rip, Scoop, Eat!”) and the inclusion of “Gluten Free Pita” on its menu. These largest items show the restaurant’s priorities: by making its slogan and name large, the menu reminds you of its branding, while also offering you an instruction for enjoying its signature dishes: to rip a piece of pita, scoop the pita into dip, and eat it! Making the words “Gluten Free Pita” among the largest on the menu also suggests that the restaurant aims to reach a diversity of diners, even those who may be sensitive to or avoiding eating wheat-based products. The restaurant’s priorities are clear: to educate unfamiliar hummus-eaters with the process and experience of eating hummus while also convincing diners that, regardless of their dietary restrictions, there will likely be something at the restaurant that the diner will enjoy.

The point of all this analysis of the Oren’s Hummus menu is that choices in document text, color, image, and spacing matter in order to help you make choices, big and small. As you can see, visuals play a tremendous role in a) how we make decisions, b) how we receive instructions, and c) how we understand information. But let’s get a little bit more fine-grained: what elements of visual design exactly can help make certain ideas clearer than others? How do we name and define the persuasive elements of a visual? Let’s look to some elements of visual design to answer those questions.

Elements of Visual Design: Line, Color, Shape, Size, Space, Value, Texture

The elements of visual design are one way to help us understand more clearly why a visual has a particular kind of effect on its viewer. The elements of visual design may not necessarily help us understand purpose or intent, but they can help us break down different component parts of images so that we can start to puzzle out what an image might do for us as viewers and readers. We, naturally, should understand these elements in their particular contexts, and the impacts of these elements will likely differ depending on where and how we’re viewing a particular image. With that said, beginning to name what we notice is one important step to gathering more information about images so that we can articulate their meaning more clearly.

Here are six elements of visual design you may want to consider in order to understand how an image is communicating a particular idea.

Lines are visual markers that are often used to divide different sections of an image or document into multiple parts. Lines can create order in some- thing disorderly, offering the eyes a sense of where to go or how to differentiate between different elements. Many artists and graphic designers often rely on grids of lines to help them determine where to place particular elements in a picture or a graphic to ensure that the viewer can understand where to focus their attention or where to differentiate one piece of information from another (see figure 5).

barred orange fence near the road is casting a shadow on the sidewalk

When you look at a visual, consider asking questions about line in the following ways:

What role is the line playing in helping me understand what to emphasize? What to deemphasize?
What role is the line playing in connecting one part of the image with the other? What relationships between the parts of the image are at play?
What kind of pattern do I see in this image or diagram? How does the pattern help shape my understanding of the image, graph, or shape?

Color can help evoke emotions in the viewer while also helping the viewer distinguish what’s important or what should be emphasized. In fact, many designers use resources like color wheels to help them determine what kinds of color combinations complement each other and what kinds of color combinations offer contrast (see figure 6). It is generally agreed upon that particular colors evoke different emotions than others; for example, colors like orange and red tend to convey warmth or passion while colors like blue and purple tend to convey coolness or calm.

However, some colors have deep cultural associations. For example, in China, the color red tends to signify good luck, joy, and happiness; that’s why gifts given at Chinese New Year’s tend to be in red envelopes and also why wedding dresses in China are often red-colored. In Western cultures, on the other hand, red can more often signify danger or caution. In the United States, we may think of red as the color for a stop sign, for example. Lots of resources online exist to help designers keep particular cultural associations with color in mind, especially in sensitive situations! For example, while wearing black to a funeral in the United States would be conventional and respectful, it would actually be considered quite odd to wear black to a funeral in Cambodia, where the color white is much more often worn for events of mourning.

You may not be able to account for all of the different situations where colors may signify different things to different viewers, but as a reader and composer, you will want to be attentive to how and where color is used, even if the possibilities for interpretation may vary.

An abstract pattern of rectangles in a variety of muted earth tones, ranging from oranges to greens, blues, and browns.

When you look at a visual, consider asking questions about color in the following ways:

What is color (or the lack of color if the visual is black-and-white) emphasizing here? What is de-emphasized?
Given my understanding of color, what emotions does the color evoke for me? What do the colors in the image remind me of?
How might this visual change if the color scheme was inverted? How would the impact on the viewer be altered?

All visuals contain elements that take on different shapes (see figure 7). We probably learned about shapes at some point when we were children, especially if we played with toy blocks. Have you ever seen toy blocks in the shapes of squares, triangles, and circles? If so, congratulations, you’ve had exposure to the three basic shape types that exist in the world!

Many other shapes build off of these three fundamental shape types. For example, in the natural world, we may easily recognize shapes like clouds, trees, and water droplets. Similarly, certain man-made objects take on particular meanings through their shapes alone. For example, lightbulbs are shapes that typically symbolize new or “bright” ideas, while the shape of a rocket or airplane often signifies innovation or the accomplishment of a goal.

Shapes that come from the real world—like the clouds and trees or the light bulbs and rocket ships—tend to be culturally situated in the same way that colors can have different cultural associations. Yet as readers of visuals, we can analyze the roles that shapes play based on our own understanding of the audience’s needs and purposes when accessing the visual.

A pattern of circles, squares, and triangles in bright colors contrasted on an asphalt surface.

When you look at a visual, consider asking questions about shapes in the following ways:

What does this shape typically signify? Where have I seen this kind of shape before?
Given my understanding of this shape, what emotions does the shape evoke for me?
What might the shape be drawing attention to?

In visuals, different elements may be large while other elements may be small. Typically, the elements that are larger sizes than other elements are of greater importance than the elements that are smaller sizes. But larger things are not always more valuable; the other elements in the visual may visually draw attention to smaller-sized items so that we don’t lose sight of the smaller parts of the visual entirely. Large images next to small images may also be used to help us compare two parts so that we can see how they are related to each other (see figure 8).

A row of three giraffes, ranging from a small giraffe to a larger one, line up outside of a doorway.

When you look at a visual, consider asking questions about size in the following ways:

Which elements in the visual are larger than the other elements?
How do the sizes of different elements in the visual impact your understanding of what’s in the visual?
What is your reaction to seeing the different sizes in the visual? Do any of the sizes of the elements surprise you? Why or why not?

In between or around the elements in a particular visual, there is always some empty space. Some designers call this “white space” or “neutral space.” Space is critical to help distinguish between the different elements in a visual. Without space, particular elements in the visual may be hard to distinguish or may have the effect that the visual is “busy” and, therefore, hard to read and understand.

Even in a document that is mostly text, space signifies meaning. For example, when you split paragraphs into their individual units, the space before and after the paragraph indicates that one thought is about to begin while another thought ends. Similarly, in other kinds of visuals, space might help a certain element stand out from other parts or it might help you understand where one part of the image begins and another part ends (see figure 9).

Two red apples are clustered in one corner of a wooden table, drawing attention to the fruit in an open space.

When you look at a visual, consider asking questions about space in the following ways:

How much “white space” or “neutral space” is there in the visual? Is this space evenly distributed or are the spaces uneven?
What effect does the space in this visual have? How does the space break up or distinguish different elements of the visual?
What is your reaction to seeing the space in the visual?

Value refers to the lightness or darkness of a particular element in a visual. For example, think of a visual that may use different shades of the color blue; the elements that are darker blue than the lighter blue elements convey that the darker blue elements have greater value than the lighter blue elements. Just as something that is larger in size may signify greater importance than something that is smaller in size, something that is darker in color tends to signify greater value than something that is lighter in color. Value is a comparative function by default; a dark color by itself may not mean anything unless a lighter color is present by comparison. Similarly, a “dark” visual may not necessarily have greater value than a “light” visual; however, if there are both dark and light elements in a particular visual, those shades signify differing levels of importance or attention in the visual itself. Sometimes, the dark elements may be meant to obscure information and make the lighter elements more visible. At other times, darker shades of a particular color may draw more attention to them than lighter shades of a color (see figure 10).

Light illuminates a dirt pathway in a forest; the trees around the path- way are shaded.

When you look at a visual, consider asking questions about value in the following ways:

How do different values create importance? Depth? What is emphasized?
What effect does value in this visual have? How does value break up or distinguish different elements of the visual?
What is your reaction to seeing different values of visual depth in this visual?

We may think of texture primarily from a tactile perspective initially. When we touch different objects, we tend to notice texture right away: silk tend to be smooth to the touch while burlap tends to be rough and bumpy. But we can look at a picture and detect different surfaces just by the look of it too, and the conveyance of those textures may also impact our orientation and understanding of what the image conveys. For example, a visual that includes lots of tiny dots may convey a bumpy texture while a visual that includes lots of wavy lines and wavy images may convey a smoother or more “watery” texture. Textures might be used to evoke particular sensations in the viewer, but they may also be used to distinguish one visual element from another (see figure 11).

A craggy-textured rock is on the rippled sandy shore of a beach.

When you look at a visual, consider asking questions about texture in the following ways:

What kinds of textures do I see in this visual? Are textures clearly implied or does the visual just include one kind of texture?
What effect does texture (or the lack of texture) have on under- standing what I should focus on in this image? How does texture break up or distinguish different elements of the visual?
What is your reaction to seeing different textures in this visual?

Concluding Thoughts

Once we start noticing the role that visuals play all around us, we gain a greater awareness of the range of strategies that communicators use to get our attention. This chapter is just a start in helping you to recognize some examples of visual rhetoric and the roles that visuals can play to help make meaning and persuade others. There is a lot more to learn about designing and making your own visuals. But just as reading will help you become a better writer, viewing and training your eye to recognize what’s happening in images will help you to become a better designer.

As you look ahead to thinking capaciously about the strategies you might use to employ images and other media in your writing, bear in mind that not all of your readers will have equal access to all of the communicative strategies you’re employing. For visuals in particular, you may have readers who are visually impaired or blind and may not be able to under- stand or recognize the role that your images are playing in your text. How- ever, as a writer, there are some strategies you can use to help your reader appreciate your use of visuals even if they are not able to see images in the same way that you can. Captions (as you saw included in this chapter) and alternative text (for Web-based images) are ways that you, as a writer, can describe what’s happening in a picture so that even if a reader cannot see the image, they can get a sense of what the picture might look like and what effect the picture is having on the document itself.

A picture is often worth a thousand words because it implies so much and can give us a lot of information quickly. Seeing may not always be believing, but visual rhetoric can be a pretty powerful way to help people understand an idea differently than they may have otherwise.

Works Cited

Handa, Carolyn. V isual Rhetoric in a Digital World: A Critical Sourcebook . Bedford/St. Martins, 2004.

Klein, Michael J., and Kristi L. Shackelford. “Beyond Black on White: Document Design and Formatting in the Writing Classroom.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing , edited by Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky, vol II, Parlor Press, 201, pp. 333-349. http://writingspaces.org/ klein-schackleford--beyond-black-on-white.

Welch, Kristen, Nicholas Lee, and Dustin Shuman. “Teaching Visual Rhetoric in the First-Year Composition Classroom.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College vol. 37, no. 3 March 2010, pp. 256-264.

Teacher Resources for Understanding Visual Rhetoric

By jenae cohn, overview and teaching strategies.

This essay is intended as an overview of what visual rhetoric is and how it functions alongside other rhetorical strategies that students may encounter in their composition courses. This essay could work well in a unit introducing students to definitions of “rhetoric” so that students can continue to complicate their understanding of rhetoric beyond alphabetic text. This chapter may also be useful to introduce a unit on multimodal composition, especially when students are starting to look at examples of model multimodal texts and understanding the role that visuals may play in those texts. Students may have varying degrees of abilities to describe or name the effects that visuals may have on an audience, and this reading is intended to help students articulate the rhetorical work that visuals do while also giving them some vocabulary to name the basic elements of a visual. This chapter focuses primarily on the analysis of visuals rather than on the composition of visuals, so bear in mind that this chapter does not include tool suggestions or any “how-to” tips on creating visuals. This chapter also does not cover best practices on attributing images appropriately (via Creative Commons licensing, for example) though a conversation around visual rhetoric for multimodal composing should orient students to these best practices so that students understand how to use and incorporate images legally and ethically into their work.

In this chapter, I bring in examples that are accessible to a diverse student populace. That said, it may be worth engaging in class conversation about the ways in which certain visuals may have different effects on different audiences, as particular pieces of iconography or certain photographs may be understood differently by audiences with various cultural backgrounds or experiences. When selecting images for students to choose or analyze, bringing in historical or cultural context is useful since that information may shape students’ abilities to understand the rhetorical purpose and situation for particular visuals.

Here I offer several in-class activities that I regularly use in line with the conversations offered in the textbook chapter to supplement what the chapter introduces.

In the first section of this essay, you experienced the story of choosing a restaurant to dine out at with your friends. In this story, the different kinds of pictures shaped the decision made. When have you made a decision based on pictures or visuals? How did the pictures or visuals affect your decision exactly?
In the discussion of the menu from Oren’s Hummus, it’s clear that the organization and design of the information may impact how a diner might decide what to eat. If you had the opportunity to re-design the menu at Oren’s, what decisions would you make? Why would you make those decisions?
There are six elements of visual design named in this chapter. Which of these elements were new to you? Which were ones you had encountered before? Individually or in a small group, take a look at either a picture of a poster from the Works Progress Administration (www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/wpapos/) OR find a photograph from the Associated Press images database (www.apimages.com/) and see if you and your group members can identify the elements of design in one or two of the historical posters or photographs. Use the guiding questions in the “Elements of Visual Design” section of the chapter to help guide your understanding of the images.

The following are four class activities that can help support students in their development of understanding and interpreting visual rhetoric.

Three Keywords.

Pick an image, photograph, or data visualization for the whole class to look at together. You may want to pick something that is related to a topic that the class has been discussing or perhaps something that could act as a source for an upcoming research assignment that the students will conduct. Project or share the visual in a shared space and ask each student to come up with three keywords that they would use to describe the image. Students may submit their three keywords to a polling platform (like PollEverywhere, Google Forms, or a quiz feature in a learning management system) so that all of the results are anonymized and collected in one place. When every student has submitted their three keywords, display or share the results to the class. Use the keywords as conversation points to discuss the different impacts the visuals had on different users. How did the keywords overlap? Where did they differ? How might the keywords that students identified align with how they might analyze and contextualize the impact of the visual? Another discussion point may be to consider how their keywords might have changed if they encountered the visual in a different context or situation.

Extreme Makeover: Document Edition

Ask each student to identify an essay, multimodal project, or class assignment. It can be something that they produced for your class or for a different class. After they’ve picked the project they’ve made, ask them to analyze the design choices for the document. What size fonts did they choose? What kinds of pictures did they include, if any? What were some other choices in terms of the document and visual design that they made? Ask them to name the audience and purpose for the document too so that they recognize and name the full context for creating the document. Then, ask them to consider who else might have had a stake in the document they produced. Is there a different audience that they can imagine being invested in that piece of work? Once the students have each named an alternative or a secondary audience for the document, ask them to take a few minutes to do an extreme “makeover” on the document, considering how they would change the layout, organization, design, and inclusion of visuals to accommodate the new audience’s needs. An alternative for them would be to consider how they would redesign the document for publication in a particular platform or news site aggregate, like Buzzfeed or The Huffington Post. These platforms might also change the way they’re orienting the text as well, but for the purposes of this exercise, you may want to encourage students to think primarily about the visuals. After they’ve done a version of their “extreme makeover,” engage in a conversation about the makeover process. What elements of the design did they decide to change? How did their understanding of audience and purpose impact their visual choices?

Comparing Data Visualizations

Pick a few data visualizations (i.e. infographics) from sites like Information is Beautiful (https://informationisbeautiful.net/) or FlowingData (https:// flowingdata.com/) (both of which have large databases of data visualizations and infographics available). Put students into small groups and ask them to analyze what they notice in the data visualizations. What kind of information is being communicated? What is the purpose of using the infographic? How would the understanding of the information differ if it was displayed in text rather than in visuals? How does seeing the visual alter their understanding of the content? A follow-up activity may be to invite them to visualize an aspect of their own writing projects (or research projects) using one of the techniques in the example data visualizations that they explored.

Caption Contest: Creating Effective Captions and Alt-Text for Image

Asking students to write captions for images can be a really interesting moment for students to interrogate and unpack their assumptions about particular images and what they’re privileging as viewers and authors of multimodal or image-rich projects. A conversation about captions can also be a good opportunity to help students understand accessibility and ways to make images readable for a variety of audiences. To start this class activity, you will want to define two different kinds of image captions that exist for visuals published on the Web: captions and alt text. The caption is the text that displays below an image (much like what you would see in a printed textbook and in this particular textbook chapter for that matter). Alt text, on the other hand, is a short, written description of an image Web authors use to describe an image in a sentence for someone using screen reader software. For a reader using screen reader software, the alt text and the caption are both read to offer clarity on what the visual includes. For this class activity, project an image or photograph in a shared space and ask everyone in the class to write both a caption and alt text for the image. You may find it useful to show a few examples of captions and alt text to help clarify the activity. Alternatively, you could have students start with writing captions (since students may have more exposure to reading captions than alt text) and then move to alt text. After students have written their captions, ask them to share with a partner, comparing how their captions are similar or different. Each pair should then take a few minutes to decide which caption they would use for the photo or image if they were publishing the image themselves, justifying their choice as a pair. The results can then be shared with the class where the instructor can lead a longer class conversation about the impacts of captions and the challenges in writing captions to capture the impacts of visuals on the audience.

This essay was written by Jenae Cohn, and it was published as a chapter in Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing , Volume 3, a peer-reviewed open textbook series for the writing classroom. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) .

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Resources For

Rhetorical Analysis Definition and Examples

The analysis can be used on any communication, even a bumper sticker

An Introduction to Punctuation

Sample Rhetorical Analyses

Examples and observations, analyzing effects, analyzing greeting card verse, analyzing starbucks, rhetorical analysis vs. literary criticism.

Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
B.A., English, State University of New York

Rhetorical analysis is a form of criticism or close reading that employs the principles of rhetoric to examine the interactions between a text, an author, and an audience . It's also called rhetorical criticism or pragmatic criticism.

Rhetorical analysis may be applied to virtually any text or image—a speech , an essay , an advertisement, a poem, a photograph, a web page, even a bumper sticker. When applied to a literary work, rhetorical analysis regards the work not as an aesthetic object but as an artistically structured instrument for communication. As Edward P.J. Corbett has observed, rhetorical analysis "is more interested in a literary work for what it does than for what it is."

A Rhetorical Analysis of Claude McKay's "Africa"
A Rhetorical Analysis of E.B. White's "The Ring of Time"
A Rhetorical Analysis of U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday"
"Our response to the character of the author—whether it is called ethos, or 'implied author,' or style , or even tone—is part of our experience of his work, an experience of the voice within the masks, personae , of the work...Rhetorical criticism intensifies our sense of the dynamic relationships between the author as a real person and the more or less fictive person implied by the work." (Thomas O. Sloan, "Restoration of Rhetoric to Literary Study." The Speech Teacher )
"[R]hetorical criticism is a mode of analysis that focuses on the text itself. In that respect, it is like the practical criticism that the New Critics and the Chicago School indulge in. It is unlike these modes of criticism in that it does not remain inside the literary work but works outward from the text to considerations of the author and the audience...In talking about the ethical appeal in his 'Rhetoric,' Aristotle made the point that although a speaker may come before an audience with a certain antecedent reputation, his ethical appeal is exerted primarily by what he says in that particular speech before that particular audience. Likewise, in rhetorical criticism, we gain our impression of the author from what we can glean from the text itself—from looking at such things as his ideas and attitudes, his stance, his tone, his style. This reading back to the author is not the same sort of thing as the attempt to reconstruct the biography of a writer from his literary work. Rhetorical criticism seeks simply to ascertain the particular posture or image that the author is establishing in this particular work in order to produce a particular effect on a particular audience." (Edward P.J. Corbett, "Introduction" to " Rhetorical Analyses of Literary Works ")

"[A] complete rhetorical analysis requires the researcher to move beyond identifying and labeling in that creating an inventory of the parts of a text represents only the starting point of the analyst's work. From the earliest examples of rhetorical analysis to the present, this analytical work has involved the analyst in interpreting the meaning of these textual components—both in isolation and in combination—for the person (or people) experiencing the text. This highly interpretive aspect of rhetorical analysis requires the analyst to address the effects of the different identified textual elements on the perception of the person experiencing the text. So, for example, the analyst might say that the presence of feature x will condition the reception of the text in a particular way. Most texts, of course, include multiple features, so this analytical work involves addressing the cumulative effects of the selected combination of features in the text." (Mark Zachry, "Rhetorical Analysis" from " The Handbook of Business Discourse , " Francesca Bargiela-Chiappini, editor)

"Perhaps the most pervasive type of repeated-word sentence used in greeting card verse is the sentence in which a word or group of words is repeated anywhere within the sentence, as in the following example:

In quiet and thoughtful ways , in happy and fun ways , all ways , and always , I love you.

In this sentence, the word ways is repeated at the end of two successive phrases, picked up again at the beginning of the next phrase, and then repeated as part of the word always . Similarly, the root word all initially appears in the phrase 'all ways' and is then repeated in a slightly different form in the homophonic word always . The movement is from the particular ('quiet and thoughtful ways,' 'happy and fun ways'), to the general ('all ways'), to the hyperbolic ('always')." (Frank D'Angelo, "The Rhetoric of Sentimental Greeting Card Verse." Rhetoric Review )

"Starbucks not just as an institution or as a set of verbal discourses or even advertising but as a material and physical site is deeply rhetorical...Starbucks weaves us directly into the cultural conditions of which it is constitutive. The color of the logo, the performative practices of ordering, making, and drinking the coffee, the conversations around the tables, and the whole host of other materialities and performances of/in Starbucks are at once the rhetorical claims and the enactment of the rhetorical action urged. In short, Starbucks draws together the tripartite relationships among place, body, and subjectivity. As a material/rhetorical place, Starbucks addresses and is the very site of a comforting and discomforting negotiation of these relationships." (Greg Dickinson, "Joe's Rhetoric: Finding Authenticity at Starbucks." Rhetoric Society Quarterly )

"What essentially are the differences between literary criticism analysis and rhetorical analysis? When a critic explicates Ezra Pound's Canto XLV , for example, and shows how Pound inveighs against usury as an offense against nature that corrupts society and the arts, the critic must point out the 'evidence'—the 'artistic proofs' of example and enthymeme [a formal syllogistic argument that is incompletely stated}—that Pound has drawn upon for his fulmination. The critic will also call attention to the 'arrangement' of the parts of that argument as a feature of the 'form' of the poem just as he may inquire into the language and syntax. Again these are matters that Aristotle assigned mainly to rhetoric...

"All critical essays dealing with the persona of a literary work are in reality studies of the 'Ethos' of the 'speaker' or 'narrator'—the voice—source of the rhythmic language which attracts and holds the kind of readers the poet desires as his audience, and the means this persona consciously or unconsciously chooses, in Kenneth Burke's term, to 'woo' that reader-audience." (Alexander Scharbach, "Rhetoric and Literary Criticism: Why Their Separation." College Composition and Communication )

Definition and Examples of Explication (Analysis)
Audience Analysis in Speech and Composition
Definition and Examples of Ethos in Classical Rhetoric
Stylistics and Elements of Style in Literature
A Rhetorical Analysis of U2's 'Sunday Bloody Sunday'
Definition of Belles-Lettres in English Grammer
Definition of Audience
Invented Ethos (Rhetoric)
What is a Rhetorical Situation?
Rhetoric: Definitions and Observations
Critical Analysis in Composition
Definition and Examples of the Topoi in Rhetoric
What Is the Second Persona?
Feminist Literary Criticism
What Is Phronesis?
Quotes About Close Reading

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Visual Rhetoric: Use of Images

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These resources will help students and teachers better understand the use of visual elements for rhetorical purposes.

The impact of images on one's ethos (credibility) cannot be understated. The illustrations you use, the charts or graphs that make up a presentation, and even the photographs you place within a design will have significant impact as to whether an audience takes you seriously.

A. Clip-Art

Very little commercially-available clip-art looks good or has any type of sophistication—especially clip art that comes packaged with common software programs. Clip-art is often cartoony and silly, or abstract and general to the point of being useless. And remember: every user of Microsoft Word has the same clipart, and has probably used it, and will recognize it when you use it, and be unimpressed accordingly.

When choosing visuals, think about the kinds of extra information that is conveyed. For example, this piece of clipart seems to be a nice touch for advertising a pipe and cigar shop:

This image shows an example of clip art. The clip art is a man with a pipe.

But then there are so many elements that surround the main object of emphasis, which in this case is the pipe. Besides, again, the “cartoony” look, there are ridiculous, outmoded fashions (which may be OK if the design is striving for an antique/nostalgic look), plus there is an issue of colors that get introduced by the clipart (if your design scheme is using deep reds and yellows, say, this is going to look awful). And what’s with the guy’s facial expression? Yet most beginning designers will look no further than the pipe, and ruin their design because of it. Worse still, for this rhetorical situation (but certainly not for public health), there is the depiction of the health-hazardous act of smoking.

If the pipe is what’s important, then perhaps seek out something along these lines:

Pipe Clipart

Again, there is a palette at work here (although it’s natural to what we think of as pipe); but more importantly, there is a style: the rough lines, for example. While it's not cartoony, this pipe may not fit into a total design (see the Overall Design section below).

Why is clipart so difficult to work with? Because clipart is often stylized and colored, it may be hard to find some that really works well with your design, and manages to pull off the kind of ethos you’re striving for.

B. Illustrations and Diagrams

Like clipart, illustrations and diagrams can make or break a design. However, unlike clipart, which is meant usually as an accent, illustrations and diagrams often serve a central purpose to inform.

Always strive for clarity in illustrations and diagrams. Think about maps, for example. A driving atlas of the United States does not include representations and labels of every single office building, townhouse, apartment, gas station, and tool shed between New York City and Los Angeles. If it did, we’d have a hard time reading what we really want out of the map: the roads! Illustrations and diagrams are selective pictures of reality; that’s what makes them useful. In the case of representing large amounts of complex information, it is probably helpful to break up the information spatially—that's why driving atlases of the United States are in book form, and not gigantic maps; each state gets its own page, rather than the entire country squeezed onto a bedsheet-sized piece of paper.

Programs like Microsoft Excel will automatically generate everything from bar graphs to pie charts; you can choose things like color and scale. Some issues to consider when choosing to graphically represent quantitative information:

Everyone likes pie charts, but they are only helpful in terms of showing parts of a whole. So if your figures are not in percentages, pie charts won’t be of much help to you. And unless several pie charts are included, they are not useful for demonstrating changes over time.
Bar graphs are especially helpful for comparisons between a number of different numeric variables, even over time.
Line graphs are excellent for plotting changes in one variable over time, particularly over small time segments. When multiple colors are used, several variables can be plotted, but too many lines may be confusing, and a bar graph might be a better choice.

D. Photographs and Manipulated Images

With the availability of digital cameras, scanners, and other imaging devices coupled with the easy electronic distribution of photo-quality images, photographs are more popular than ever. Yet many beginning designers tend to avoid capturing their own images. Many will search the Web for images and, quality or not, copyright or not, will select the first available image. Again, we stumble onto the important question of ethos, which in the world of photographic images is primarily tied to two aspects of the photographic image: composition and quality.

We'll start with the second aspect, quality. Practically every computer image format has some settings for "compressing" the image. That is, areas of similar color lose their information, and are filled in with approximations when the image is opened in a Web browser or other program. Especially when designing for a Web audience, there is a constant push and pull between the quality of the image, and its size on disk. The better quality image, the larger it is on disk, and thus the longer it takes to load in a Web browser. However, in terms of ethos—and this itself is audience-dependent—it is often wise to opt for a slightly larger image file, rather than sacrifice quality.

Consider these two photos of the Purdue Memorial Union:

This image shows a picture of Purdue University Memorial Union on the West Lafayette, Indiana, campus.

Good Picture

This images shows a picture of Purdue University Memorial Union on the West Lafayette, Indiana, campus. The quality of the picture is not as good as the previous picture of Memorial Union.

Poor Picture

In both photos, the subject matter is clear; however, the quality is strikingly different. While the first photo still uses a fairly high compression, little details like the wisps of clouds and treetops are clear, as is the texture of the bricks and the panes in the windows. The second photo is clearly degraded—there are large blocks of blue visible in the sky area, and there are “sparkles” between the treetops and clouds, and the building and sky. Of course, the top photo file is three times larger than the bottom—but is the speed with which the second photo can be transferred worth the loss in quality? If this photo were in the context of a Web page meant to encourage students to come study at Purdue, which would likely have a more powerful effect on your impression of the University? Why?

In terms of composition, remember that photos are basically frames of reality. Any given subject can be photographed an infinite number of ways, both in terms of the framing (what is where in the shot) and the exposure (shutter speed, aperture, etc.) When shooting or selecting your images, pay careful attention to how the shot is composed. Is the image light? Dark? What gets highlighted? What is the central subject in the shot? What do you notice? Is there anything inappropriate in the shot that you wouldn’t want? Now, there are entire books and courses on photography, so we’ll have to limit our discussion to what has been said so far, with the exception of that last question: Is there anything inappropriate in the shot that you wouldn’t want? Digital photo manipulation has opened up huge possibilities for image manipulation. Consider the following two images:

This image shows a picture of downtown Lafayette, Indiana.

Original Picture

This image shows the same picture of downtown Lafayette, Indiana, but the picture has been manipulated to alter the color.

Manipulated Picture

In the top image, various clutter (in this case, street lights) have been removed to improve the overall look of the Lafayette skyline. The question is this: what is the line between an accurate portrayal of reality, and an aesthetic representation of it? How is our ethos as visually-oriented writers affected, positively and negatively, when we manipulate images to achieve a certain effect?

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10.8.1: Annotated Sample Visual Argument Analysis

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Saramanda Swigart
City College of San Francisco

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Listen to an audio version of this page (10 min, 27 sec):

Format note: This version is accessible to screen reader users. Refer to these tips for reading our annotated sample arguments with a screen reader . For a more traditional visual format, see the PDF version of "An Image Is Worth a Thousand Calls to Arms."

Prof. Swigart

An Image Is Worth a Thousand Calls to Arms

It may be tempting to think of arguments as being, well, wordy: lengthy essays or speeches designed to make a point and defend it. However, arguments can be entirely or primarily visual. (Note: The author introduces visual arguments as an everyday phenomenon that the reader may often encounter without consciously recognizing as arguments. Virtually every man-made image is meant to communicate something, and even things so simple and everyday as magazine advertisements or internet banner ads—things we see so often that we often no longer consciously notice—convey the implied argument that we should buy a product, subscribe to a service, or otherwise do what the advertisement wants us to do. The same is nonetheless true of military recruitment posters and ads, which generally share the same common argument: the viewer should join the Armed Forces. (Note: This statement narrows the broad topic of visual arguments down to a particular example: military recruitment posters and ads.

The entry of the United States into World War I led to a massive recruitment drive for military service as a nation without a large standing army was drawn into an ongoing conflict and forced to rapidly mobilize the population. (Note: This paragraph provides historical context for the posters under discussion, focusing the lens on WWI recruitment in the United States. Although a draft was issued, making military service for draftees compulsory, there was understandably a vested national interest in recruiting as many volunteers for the armed services as possible. These two recruitment posters below (Figs. 1 and 2), originally printed during World War I and for the United States Army and Navy respectively, use different techniques to appeal to potential recruits' sensibilities and desires. (Note: This is the essay's real thesis, citing the Army and Navy posters as using different techniques to appeal to readers. Comparing these techniques is the focus of the essay's body paragraphs.

A caucasian man with white hair and beard points at the viewer. He wears a red bowtie, a blue jacket, and a white top hat with a blue band featuring white stars. Below, we see the words "I WANT YOU FOR THE U.S. ARMY" and under them, in smaller letters, "Nearest recruiting center." The image is on a white background, framed by a red and blue border.

The “I Want YOU for U.S. Army” poster, featuring James Montgomery Flagg's iconic illustration of Uncle Sam, is an image so instantly recognizable that it has become part of the American cultural vocabulary (Fig. 1). (Note: The beginning of this body paragraph introduces the name and source for Figure 1. Uncle Sam, with his red, white, and blue wardrobe and star-spangled hat, draws on the iconography of the American flag to represent something of the American national spirit. (Note: The author describes the poster's imagery and typography, what the poster denotes. Although depicted as an older man, with longish white beard and hair and bushy white eyebrows, he is depicted as active and authoritative, staring and pointing with one finger at the viewer. Even without the text, it is clear from Uncle Sam's posture and gesture that we, the viewer, are the one being addressed. The text makes the poster's appeal explicit: “I Want YOU for U.S. Army,” with the “YOU” highlighted in red text for added emphasis. (Note: The author here shifts into an analysis of what that imagery may mean, or what feelings or ideas it may arouse (what the poster connotes). The appeal here is primarily one to trust: this character of the national spirit, drawn as an older and paternalistic figure, calls on the viewer directly to go to the “Nearest Recruiting Station.” Given that the average Army recruit is bound to be a younger man, this appeal from an older, paternal figure endows the appeal to enlist with an almost filial sense of obligation: if obeying one's father is what a good son does, obeying Uncle Sam is what a good citizen does. Uncle Sam's unsmiling expression signals to the recruit that this appeal to join is a matter of grave importance and urgency, and clearly no laughing matter.

A man in blue uniform with a white sailor's cap sits astride a torpedo with his hand raised, holding a short red stick. The torpedo is half in water with spray rising from both sides. The caption reads "Join the Navy: the service for fighting men."

The naval recruitment poster, featuring Richard Fayerweather Babcock's illustration of a sailor riding a torpedo, employs an entirely different aesthetic and makes a radically different appeal to its audience. (Note: The author introduces the name and source of Figure 2, while also emphasizing its contrast with Figure 1. If the Army recruitment poster invokes a sense of solemn duty, the Navy recruitment poster invokes a sense of adventure. (Note: Here a different pattern is employed: instead of talking about the imagery or type first, the author first describes the feelings aroused by the poster, contrasting these with Figure 1. Rather than a figure addressing the viewer, we see a sailor riding a torpedo in the manner of a rodeo cowboy riding a bull--even with reins (somewhat inexplicably) in hand. (Note: This passage describes Figure 2's imagery and typography, its content, similar to how the last paragraph described the imagery of Figure 1… The torpedo, rather than submerged in the water, kicks up spray by the sailor's feet as it skims the water's surface. The sailor's right hand wields a length of rope to act as a crop, showing that he is not a passive passenger on his unlikely steed but in control, whipping it forward, onward. Without context, this image might be confusing as it employs not only an unrealistic depiction of the life of the average sailor but also one that seems as reckless and suicidal as well, riding a bomb. However, the poster's text clarifies its appeal and makes it explicit: “Join the Navy, the Service for Fighting Men.” (Note: Here the argument shifts again into an analysis of the emotional appeal being made there. The characterization of the Navy as the “Service for Fighting Men,” combined with the rodeo cowboy imagery, the inherent and obvious danger of riding an (arguably phallic) torpedo qualify the poster's call to wild adventure with a macho, masculine sensibility. Again, given that the average recruit is a young man, these subtle and not-so-subtle appeals to the viewer's masculinity qualify as appeals to the viewer's emotions and self-image. If the Uncle Sam poster gravely calls on dutiful citizens to join the Army, the Navy poster calls on adventurous “Fighting Men.” While this poster may have been effective at reaching the audience of its time, it must be noted that audience of a modern Naval recruitment poster has changed. (Note: Unlike the previous paragraph, there is an additional analysis provided of how the appeal of Figure 2's argument has perhaps not aged as well as that of Figure 1. With the abolition of gender restrictions in the Armed Forces and the re-orientation of recruitment efforts, it's likely that a poster calling on “Fighting Men” to enlist would prove less appealing to a broader audience. Also, the cultural connotation of riding a bomb has itself changed, and would today perhaps be sooner associated with Dr. Strangelove and catastrophic self-destruction than a call to adventure.

Analysis of visual arguments can be rewarding and surprising. (Note: The essay returns to the broader subject of visual arguments and how visual elements can enhance, strengthen, or complicate the argument beyond what can be achieved through words alone. Images can subtly convey a rich and dense amount of information, saying a lot without necessarily saying anything at all. In these examples, most of the message is carried in image alone. Text slogans like “I Want You for U.S. Army” and “Join the Navy” would hardly capture a sense of grave patriotic duty or wild, dangerous adventure without such evocative illustrations to appeal to patriotism and a collective national identity or a wild adventure on the high seas. The effectiveness and appeal of these posters are enough to show how effective a non-verbal argument can be.

Works Cited

(Note: Works Cited page uses MLA documentation style appropriate for an English class.

Babcock, Richard Fayerweather, Artist. Join the Navy, the service for fighting men / Babcock . Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/2002699393/

Flagg, James Montgomery, Artist. I want you for U.S. Army: nearest recruiting station / James Montgomery Flagg . Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/96507165/

Attribution

This sample essay and annotations are by Saramanda Swigart, edited by Anna Mills. Licensed CC BY-NC 4.0 .

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Essay on Suffering

Essay On Rhetorical Analysis Of An Image

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Suffering , War , Social Issues , Women , Audience , Children , Violence , Family

Words: 1100

Published: 03/30/2020

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As the adage goes, that a picture is worth a thousand words, and so does the image. The image presents and depicts many themes that range from poverty and torture among woman and children as a result of natural or manmade disasters such as war and violence. The image makes it easy to explain and analyze how war, poverty and suffering are related and dependent on each other especially to the most vulnerable in the community that include women and children (Rwomire 14). The image is of a young woman with her kid of Asian origin cooking in an open place using firewood. Behind them is a structure similar to a tent that is mostly observed among the refugees or displaced persons especially during a crisis such as wars and disasters. This image attempts to influence its audience to know the negative impacts and torture that women and children undergo during the crisis about the domestic impacts of wars and violence by analyzing the elements in the image visual and non- visual to tell the story. The tent that shelters the woman and the kid in the picture tells of a story that depicts them as the most affected in the society as a result of war. The house in the form of a tent that shelters them does not meet even the minimum standards that are agreed upon internationally that can be considered as habitable. Nikolić-Ristanović (2000) in his piece Women, Violence and War: Wartime Victimization of Refugees in the Balkans emphasized that spending the night under such a shelter and worsening in the case so as to do so with a young child makes the situation worse (32). It is hard to imagine the cold and the dangers that they expose themselves to as a result of staying in such shelters. This only increases the suffering that women and children go through as a result of war and violence among other disasters and crisis. From the image, using firewood to prepare meals is another indicator that shows the suffering that they endured and emerged successfully. It creates the picture, in human minds, of poverty and torture among women and children that result them to resort to alternative means to survive such as creating makeshift shark for their poor families. The purpose of such an image is to tell the story as it is that is poverty and suffering those women and children have to undergo through in times of crisis both natural and human-made. The image, therefore, communicates to the world and helps us understands better how the three issues relating to poverty, war and violence, as well as suffering that women and children undergo as the most vulnerable as pointed in Carpenter (2007) article titled Born of War: Protecting Children of Sexual Violence Survivors in Conflict Zones (24). The audiences of the image cuts across the whole world, especially corporations and communal organizations, which are concerned or are able to intervene and help alleviate the continuous suffering that women and children have to undergo resulting from such a crisis. From the image and the message that it presents, of suffering and struggle among the two mentioned groups, it can be used to convince people to intervene and contribute in whatever mean and forms possible to help those appear to be victims and more vulnerable. The conditions presented from the image that tells us of lack of clean water, electricity, good infrastructure and security among others presents a condition that can results to more problems and challenges such as disease outbreak. The image presents a somber and sad tone because it is the innocent ones that become victims and suffer for crimes and that they have not committed at all. The child in the picture, it can be said, has no clue and idea why they are living that life and cannot even tell what war and violence are or what leads to it. Other children and kids in different parts of the worlds have their best times and moments by attending schools and having fun unlike the one in the image, therefore, presenting sad tone (Cook 8). The conditions, which the woman and the kid are going through, fail to meet even the basic standards that have been set out that humanity can survive and live in it. The effect that the image brings out is strong to its audience and viewers at large. It presents a clear picture of what transpires in the event that such disasters and crisis happens. It allows viewers to think twice and have a different opinion about war and violence due to women and children being the most vulnerable. Such images it is said have been used to propel arguments against war and violence, and in some instances it has managed to convince people to resolve to alternative measures to address conflicts such as dialogue and negotiation (Gardner & Kobtzeff 17). It has, therefore, impacted and affected the society at large positively by resulting to a better alternative of doing things other than war add violence. In terms of rhetorical appeals, from the set up of the picture that draws, many themes and messages that range from poverty and suffering, which affect mostly women and kids as the most vulnerable. The image manages to convince its audience and viewers due to the set up presented such as use of firewood for cooking, staying in makeshift tents and putting innocent children under conditions that are not good for their developments and growth simply resulting from war and violence. In conclusion, the image has displayed a perfect picture in the minds of viewers and audience because all the themes and issues that arise from war are captured. The most vulnerable groups are also well presented that it tells the story even deeper because they are in the course of action in doing something, that is cooking, and this tells more about the methods add means used. The story of women and children as the most affected by war and violence is depicted from their struggle in the image, and, therefore, presenting the story even deeper making it touch people and understand the situation better.

Works Cited

Carpenter, R C. Born of War: Protecting Children of Sexual Violence Survivors in Conflict Zones. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 2007. Print. Cook, Bernard A. Women and War: A Historical Encyclopedia from Antiquity to the Present. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 2006. Print. Gardner, Hall, and Oleg Kobtzeff. The Ashgate Research Companion to War: Origins and Prevention. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012. Print. Nikolić-Ristanović, Vesna. Women, Violence and War: Wartime Victimization of Refugees in the Balkans. Budapest: CEU Press, 2000. Print. Rwomire, Apollo. African Women and Children: Crisis and Response. Westport, Conn. [u.a.: Praeger, 2001. Print.

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The Method Behind Trump’s Mistruths

A close examination of every public word from the former president during a crucial week of his campaign.

By Angelo Fichera

Since the beginning of his political career, Donald J. Trump has misled, mischaracterized, dissembled, exaggerated and, at times, flatly lied. His flawed statements about the border, the economy, the coronavirus pandemic and the 2020 election have formed the bedrock of his 2024 campaign.

Though his penchant for bending the truth, sometimes to the breaking point, has been well documented , a close study of how he does so reveals a kind of technique to his dishonesty: a set of recurring rhetorical moves with which Mr. Trump fuels his popularity among his supporters.

In the week starting with Mr. Trump’s victory speech in Iowa through his win in the New Hampshire primary — the contests that put him on the path to becoming his party’s nominee for the third consecutive time — The New York Times analyzed all of his public statements, including speeches, interviews and social media posts.

His words focused heavily on attacking his political rivals, self-aggrandizing and stoking fear to make his case for 2024. In doing so, Mr. Trump often relied on repeated falsehoods and half-truths. He has yet to deviate from this approach in the general election.

Here’s a look at how he does it.

He grossly distorts his opponents’ records and proposals to make them sound unreasonable.

Trump Presidential Campaign via C-span

Atkinson, N.H., rally, Jan. 16, 2024

While Joe Biden is pushing the largest tax hike in American history – you know, he wants to quadruple your taxes .

President Biden has not proposed quadrupling taxes. In fact, he has consistently vowed not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $400,000.

Sean Hannity interview, Jan. 22, 2024

I mean, what he’s doing with energy with an all-electric mandate, where you won’t be able to buy any other form of car in a very short period of time .

Mr. Biden has not implemented an electric car mandate. The administration has announced rules that would limit tailpipe emissions from cars and light trucks, effectively requiring automakers to sell more electric vehicles and hybrids. It doesn’t ban gas cars.

Truth Social, Jan. 16, 2024

Nikki Haley, who hung in against Mr. Trump until Super Tuesday, did not raise the issue of the gas tax in South Carolina and rebuffed calls to do so as a stand-alone measure. She said in 2015 that she would support raising the gas tax — by 10 cents, over three years — only if lawmakers agreed to reduce the income tax rate to 5 percent, from 7 percent, and made changes to the state’s Department of Transportation.

He exaggerates and twists the facts to make his record sound better than it is.

Newsmax via Youtube

Newsmax interview, Jan. 21, 2024

And think of it, for four years we had no terror problem .

There were in fact terrorist attacks in the United States during the Trump administration. In 2017, to name one, a native of Uzbekistan plowed a pickup truck down a bike path in Manhattan, killing eight people. The Justice Department said the driver, Sayfullo Saipov, carried out the terrorist attack in the name of ISIS.

We had the best economy. We had no inflation .

The economy wasn’t the “best” under Mr. Trump. Even setting aside Covid, the average growth rate was lower under Mr. Trump than under former Presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan. And inflation was low , but it wasn’t nonexistent.

Hannity interview, Jan. 18, 2024

We had gasoline at $1. 87 .

The national average price of a gallon of gasoline dropped to that price during one week amid the Covid lockdown in 2020, when demand was extraordinarily low. But when Mr. Trump left office in January 2021, the national average was $2.42.

He relies on both well-worn and fresh claims of election rigging to suggest he can lose only if his opponents cheat.

RSBN via Youtube

Portsmouth, N.H., rally, Jan. 17, 2024

The radical-left Democrats rigged the presidential election of 2020, and we’re not going to allow them to rig the presidential election of 2024 .

The 2020 election was not rigged. Mr. Trump has uttered hundreds of inaccurate claims to support the false claim that it was — mischaracterizing voting processes, citing baseless cases of supposed fraud and sharing conspiracy theories about voting machines.

As you know, Nikki Haley in particular is counting on the Democrats and liberals to infiltrate your Republican primary .

Registered Democrats were not able to vote in the New Hampshire Republican primary. The contest was open to registered Republicans and independents. Any Democrats who switched parties or re-registered as independents to vote in the Republican primary — and some did — had to do so before an October 2023 deadline, months before the contest.

Laconia, N.H., rally, Jan. 22, 2024

The Republicans went up to vote and none of the machines were working. This was not good. But of course, they said, Well, this was just the way it goes. You know, thousands of people were not allowed to vote. But she, uh, she’s a great person, and she’s going to be a U.S. senator very soon. Kari Lake .

The claim that “thousands” of voters were blocked from casting their ballots in Arizona’s 2022 gubernatorial election — at the expense of Mr. Trump’s preferred candidate, Ms. Lake — is false. There were some glitches in Maricopa County , but voters were largely able to cast their votes.

He has turned his criminal cases into a rallying cry, baselessly asserting that he is being persecuted by his successor.

Fox interview with Bret Baier, Jan. 20, 2024

These are all Biden indictments .

Mr. Trump has not offered any evidence for his contention that Mr. Biden has orchestrated the criminal charges against him. Two of his four cases were brought at the state level. At the federal level, Mr. Trump’s criminal charges — in relation to his effort to remain in power after losing the 2020 election and, separately, over his retention of classified documents after leaving office — are handled by a special counsel and were put before grand juries.

I’ve been indicted more than Alphonse Capone .

Mr. Trump has been indicted four times. Mr. Capone was indicted at least six times, according to A. Brad Schwartz, a historian and biographer of the infamous gangster.

He makes unverifiable claims about what the world would have been like had he secured a second term.

Concord, N.H., rally, Jan. 19, 2024

We wouldn’t have Russia attacking Ukraine. We wouldn’t have inflation. We wouldn’t have the attack on Israel .

There is no evidence that these events wouldn’t or couldn’t have occurred had the 2020 election outcome been different — and it’s impossible to prove. But experts say the context surrounding those events render his claims highly questionable .

China had a crash yesterday in their stock market. You know why? Because I won Iowa .

There is no proof that China’s stock market woes were related to Mr. Trump’s victory in the Iowa caucuses.

He describes the United States as a nation in ruins.

We are a nation that screens its citizens viciously at all ports. But if you are an illegal alien, you’re allowed to flow through our country with no check whatsoever .

Undocumented immigrants caught crossing the border are processed, whether they are returned to other countries or later released into the country awaiting future proceedings.

Manchester, N.H., rally, Jan. 20, 2024

And now we are a nation that wants to make our revered and very powerful Army tanks – the best anywhere in the world – all electric .

There are no plans to make Army tanks all electric.

We are a third-world nation .

This is, of course, false.

We are no longer energy independent or energy dominant as we were just a few short years ago .

Energy production — including oil and gas — has boomed under President Biden. Under both administrations, the United States has been a net exporter of petroleum and natural gas, but it still relies on imports.

I don’t know what it is with Catholics, but the F.B.I. is going after Catholics .

Mr. Trump’s claim is most likely based on an F.B.I. field office memo that warned of the potential for extremism among adherents of a “radical-traditionalist Catholic” ideology. But the memo was withdrawn and repeatedly condemned by the nation’s top law enforcement officials.

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Our Coverage of the 2024 Election

Presidential Race

Days after saying that abortion policies should be left to the states , Donald Trump criticized an Arizona court ruling for upholding an 1864 law that banned nearly all abortions and said that he would not sign a national ban if elected .

A closely watched measure of inflation remained stronger than expected in March , dealing a political blow to President Biden , who has been banking on cooling inflation to lift his re-election prospects.

Trump once again criticized Jews who back Democratic candidates , saying that “any Jewish person that votes for a Democrat or votes for Biden should have their head examined.”

Trump’s penchant for bending the truth has been well documented, but a close study of how he does so reveals a kind of technique to his dishonesty .

Primaries in three Mid-Atlantic House districts will test whether the battle cry of “save democracy” will be enough even for Democratic voters who have many other concerns.

In Arizona’s crucial Senate race, Ruben Gallego, who has long embraced his progressive background, is striking a moderate tone .

Allies of Trump are discussing ways to elevate third-party candidates in battleground states to divert votes away from Biden.

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Rhetorical Analysis of an Image
Get custom essay. On the whole, the image drawn by Jim Borgman is excellent example of how visual and verbal messages can convey a deep rhetorical argument that can pose many thought-provoking questions to a person. The cartoonist relies on both visual and verbal elements in order to express his argument.
How to Write a Rhetorical Analysis
A rhetorical analysis is a type of essay that looks at a text in terms of rhetoric. This means it is less concerned with what the author is saying than with how they say it: their goals, techniques, and appeals to the audience. A rhetorical analysis is structured similarly to other essays: an introduction presenting the thesis, a body analyzing ...
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Writing a Visual Rhetorical Analysis Essay with Example . The visual rhetorical analysis essay determines how pictures and images communicate messages and persuade the audience. Usually, visual rhetorical analysis papers are written for advertisements. This is because they use strong images to convince the audience to behave in a certain way.
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This resource covers how to write a rhetorical analysis essay of primarily visual texts with a focus on demonstrating the author's understanding of the rhetorical situation and design principles. Definition and Goals of Visual/Rhetorical Analysis. Definition. A visual document communicates primarily through images or the interaction of image ...
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Name the author of the text and the title of their work followed by the date in parentheses. Use a verb to describe what the author does, e.g. "implies," "asserts," or "claims". Briefly summarize the text in your own words. Mention the persuasive techniques used by the rhetor and its effect.
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Each viewer interprets the image separately (Alfano & O'Brien, 2017). Whatever discipline you study, chances are you'll come into contact with images, illustrations, and designs that require a sophisticated and close reading, so you may draw conclusions about the text's rhetorical significance—its argument—that which the text makes ...
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PDF Essay 4 Rhetorical Analysis of an Image
Essay 4 - Rhetorical Analysis of an IMage. Dr. Ethan t. Jordan. In this essay, you will choose an image to analyze rhetorically, arguing for the two primary rhetorical strategies (ethos, logos, and pathos) used in the text. For instance, if your text relies heavily on ethos and pathos, logos may be emphasized less to make the text persuasive.
Rhetorical Analysis-Image
Whether composing or analyzing an image, consider how each of these elements contributes to the overall effectiveness of the message of the visual text. When analyzing an image, it is imperative not to simply list what is in the image. Example: "There is a sad looking puppy in a cage.". Anyone can make this observation.
Breaking Down an Image
When you're analyzing an image to understand the message it portrays, this is called visual rhetoric. Visual rhetoric is a means of communication that uses images to create meaning or to make an argument. The first thing to consider when breaking down, or analyzing, an image is the rhetorical situation: the audience , context, and purpose.
5.9: Writing a Visual Analysis
Now you are ready to begin writing a visual rhetorical analysis of an argument presented by/within your selected image. Pantuso, Terri, Sarah LeMire, and Kathy Anders, eds. Informed Arguments: A Guide to Writing and Research . 3rd ed. College Station: Texas A&M University, 2022.
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Rhetorical Analysis Purpose. Almost every text makes an argument. Rhetorical analysis is the process of evaluating elements of a text and determining how those elements impact the success or failure of that argument. ... The body of your essay discusses and evaluates the rhetorical strategies (elements of the rhetorical situation and rhetorical ...
Analyzing Visual Images
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3.14 Writing a Visual Analysis
Now you are ready to begin writing a visual rhetorical analysis of your selected image. Arguments Presented By/Within a Visual. In the summer of 2015, the Bureau of Land Management ran an ad campaign with the #mypubliclandsroadtrip tag. ... and developed in a longer essay or research paper. In undergraduate writing, a thesis statement is often ...
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A close analysis of the female body images in the July 2007 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine reveals contradictions between the articles' calls for self-esteem and the advertisements' unrealistic, beauty demands. ... The conclusion of a rhetorical analysis essay may not operate too differently from the conclusion of any other kind of essay ...
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Rhetorical analysis can be tricky because, chances are, you haven't done a lot of rhetorical analysis in the past. To add to this trickiness, you can write a rhetorical analysis of any piece of information, not just an essay. You may be asked to write a rhetorical analysis of an ad, an image, or a commercial.
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However, the poster's text clarifies its appeal and makes it explicit: "Join the Navy, the Service for Fighting Men." (Note: Here the argument shifts again into an analysis of the emotional appeal being made there. The characterization of the Navy as the "Service for Fighting Men," combined with the rodeo cowboy imagery, the inherent ...
Rhetorical Analysis Of An Image Essay
Essay On Rhetorical Analysis Of An Image. Type of paper: Essay. Topic: Suffering, War, Social Issues, Women, Audience, Children, Violence, Family. Pages: 4. Words: 1100. Published: 03/30/2020. As the adage goes, that a picture is worth a thousand words, and so does the image. The image presents and depicts many themes that range from poverty ...
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Rhetorical Analysis Of What To The Slave Is The Fourth Of July. In "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July" Frederick Douglass deconstructs the whole idea of the meaning of the holiday. The holiday was meant to represent the American dream of freedom and independence, but at that time, it was limited to only the white man.
Rhetorical Analysis Of W. E. B. Du Bois Speech
Primary source The core message of W.E.B. Du Bois' speech centers on the advocacy for complete equality and civil liberties for black Americans. He vehemently insists on claiming every right inherent to freeborn Americans, spanning political, civil, and social realms. Du Bois articulates a series of demands, including suffrage, cessation of ...
A Rhetorical Analysis Of Hamlet
A Rhetorical Analysis Of Hamlet. 1033 Words5 Pages. Shakespeare suggests that when an individual has the drive to avenge someone and reconcile with their past, they often take drastic measures without thinking through their actions because they are uncertain what the repercussions will be, and end up in situations that don't have anything to ...
How To Write A Rhetorical Analysis Of In Cold Blood
How To Write A Rhetorical Analysis Of In Cold Blood. Introduction Paragraph Truman Capote's book "In Cold Blood" tells the shocking true story of the Clutter family murders in Holcomb, Kansas. Through his detailed storytelling of the murder, and character portrayals. Capote challenges our understanding of human nature through storytelling.
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Logos is one rhetorical appeal that Zinczenko uses in his essay. He supports his argument with data and statistics, citing a study that says, "the number of cases of type 2 diabetes among children ages twelve to nineteen has increased 10% in just eight years.". This use of logos is effective in persuading the reader of his argument and is ...
Romeo And Juliet Rhetorical Analysis Essay
Romeo And Juliet Rhetorical Analysis Essay. By: Elijah and Zoe. The conclusions reached in the article "Teens' Brains" affirm the actions and thoughts of both Romeo and Juliet. Romeo affirms the conclusion that experts' can talk about how "juveniles on average are more: impulsive, aggressive, emotionally volatile, likely to take risks ...
The Method Behind Trump's Mistruths
April 8, 2024. Since the beginning of his political career, Donald J. Trump has misled, mischaracterized, dissembled, exaggerated and, at times, flatly lied. His flawed statements about the border ...