Thinking Rhetorically…

A rhetorical analysis is action that focuses on how and why the author writes something rather than what the author writes. Similar to what Ramage says about “kairos”, a rhetorical analysis “concerns a whole range of questions connected to the timing, fitness, appropriateness, and proportions of a message”(91). Instead of looking at one side of an argument, rhetorical analysis looks at all perspectives to gain the most knowledge from the text.  By looking at all perspectives of a text you are able to understand the reason why an author wrote something and the factors that lead to it. For example looking at a memoir of a German soldier during World War, the text may talk about a man’s life. However, analyzing why it was said reflects more knowledge to the reader. The memoir, after analyzing it, tells us more about German society as a world during the era. So by using rhetorical analysis the reader gains a deeper understanding of why an author writes something.