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From Rhetorical to Critical!

Page history last edited by Jared 12 years, 5 months ago

 and 

 

Workshopping a section of your rhetorical analysis into a critical analysis.  

Why?

When or if you want to analyze a claim thoroughly to to either cast suspicions on it or show it is debatable or dubiousOR to analyze a claim that seems really important and to show your reader how the author develops this claim in important ways.  

How?


Two Avenues Towards Critical Analysis:


Option 1) Deploy the enthymeme...

 

Start by tracking and Mapping Claims made in the book (maybe you already have) 

Take notes on different (and basic) 'claims' that the author is making in the overall argument.  You can always combine the claims you identify later to make more sophisticated claims.  

 

You can use this to map out primary claims and supporting claims.  And you can sometimes find competing or contradictory claims in an argument.  By keeping track you can identify relationships between claims.  

 

So Start by Mapping the argument in something like the following:

 

  • Main Claim:                                                                                          Main Claim:
  • Stated Reasons:                                                                               Stated Reasons:
  • Unstated Assumptions?                                                               Unstated Assumptions?
  • Grounds:                                                                                             Grounds:
  • Rebuttal:                                                                                             Rebuttal:

 

 

  • Claim:                                                                                                    Claim:
  • Stated Reasons:                                                                               Stated Reasons:
  • Unstated Assumptions?                                                               Unstated Assumptions?
  • Grounds:                                                                                             Grounds:
  • Rebuttal:                                                                                             Rebuttal:

 

 

  • Supporting Claim:                                                                     Supporting Claim:  
  • Stated Reasons:                                                                               Stated Reasons:
  • Unstated Assumptions?                                                               Unstated Assumptions?
  • Grounds:                                                                                             Grounds:
  • Rebuttal:                                                                                             Rebuttal:

 

 

  • Competing Claim: (claim raised as a counter argument)                Contradictory Claim: (claim that seems to contradict another claim made)
  • Stated Reasons:                                                                               Stated Reasons:
  • Unstated Assumptions?                                                               Unstated Assumptions?
  • Grounds:                                                                                             Grounds:
  • Rebuttal:                                                                                             Rebuttal:

 

ETC. ETC. ETC. ETC.... 

 

Questions to ask: should any of these simpler claims be combined into more complex claims?  Should some stand on their own as key claims the author is making? What are the relationships between claims?

 

When you find a claim that you want to explore in more detail, use the enthymeme to break down the claim (and surrounding claims) and draw examples from the text to generate a paragraph for a draft. 

 

Keep your eyes open for:

 

Spurious Enthymemes:  

 

The hollow conclusion -- is a final claim that you can prove to be an 'undeveloped' or 'unsupported' enthymeme.  In other words, it is central claim made that was never proven or 'comes from nowhere' without ever walking the reader through a 'process' of reasoning in support.

 

The slippery swap -- unlike the slippery slope, this an error based on the use of similar words for different things.  If you can pinpoint where the author 'stretches' a term inappropriately or tries to use a key term to do something it should probably not.

 

The false synecdoche -- synecdoche means using part of something to represent the whole (or vice versa) or a specific smaller class of thing to refer to larger more general one.  This can go horribly wrong.

 

The essential accident -- related to the cause/effect stasis, this is when someone represents the accidental as essential

 

related: 'the argument from consequence' -- to argue wrongly, or without proof, that because something happened/was caused (i.e. Gary decided to become a hermit and live in the woods) there was a necessary/knowable cause of that consequence (Gary must have been cocky/arrogant) 

 

 


 

Option 2: Fun with Fallacies

 

Although we'll delve into fallacies more as we begin our argument projects, you can of course, analyze these in your rhetorical analysis, particularly if critique is the direction you want to go, or if you find the argument to be dubious somehow.  If so, consider adding to a section noting any fallacies or "spurious enthymemes" in the text:

 

Follow this link to FALLACIES  or this link to fallacies

 

Sample Fallacies:

 

Epiplexis (the evil twin of the rhetorical question)

 

Guilty By Association (the evil twin of the resemblance stasis)

 

Black-or-White Fallacy (the evil twin of cause-consequence stases)

 

 

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