Rhetorical Analysis of Project 3

This post analyzes the rhetorical situation of project 3 by closely examining its author, audience, purpose, and context.

Author

Personally, I do not like to be associated with politics because I like to find solutions to problems. There are some social issues, however, that I feel strongly about and follow in the news. These include women's rights, LGBTQ rights, and the war on drugs. For the purposes of this project, I will be looking solely at the possibility of decriminalizing drugs as a solution to the present day war on drugs.

I think I may be biased by the prevalence of drugs in college life in general and the subsequent desensitization I have experienced to drugs because of their commonality. On the other hand, because my immediate family is extremely religious and value education highly, their opinions of drugs have been hammered into my head for years. Hopefully the fact that I can see both sides will aid me in writing my essay rather than hinder the process.

Audience

I am writing this essay for my classmates and for Sean Bottai, but I am aiming this paper at the people who vote. In general, because I am examining the solution to a problem, there will likely be a "call to action" aimed at the audience with regards to political involvement (i.e voting) in the issue.

Again, because drugs are so prevalent in college, I think that my audience may have the belief that decriminalization is a good idea. However, I am aware that there will be readers who disagree, and who could potentially have biases of bad experiences with drugs either first hand or from family members or friends and therefore would not want them to be legal. Additionally, it does sound sort of crazy to make drugs legal, so that may be an initial turn off to parents, teachers, or friends and families of addicts.

I think people of my generation tend to want drugs to be legal for one reason or another. Even people who don't necessarily want drugs to be decriminalized probably recognize that there are benefits, so I am going to use that to connect with my audience.

Even my friends outside of class (whom I will likely have peer edit my essay) fall into my target audience because it will potentially persuade them to vote, sign a petition, or become otherwise involved in this issue. To convince them to agree with me, I would provide them with statistics about crime rates, jail expenditures and space, substance abuse, and overdoses.

Purpose

I am hoping that my essay will impose a sense of civic duty to get politically involved in one way or another in the issue of drug decriminalization. I hope that the audience considers both sides of the issue, and maybe researches other proposed solutions to the war on drugs. They should believe that drug decriminalization isn't completely insane and that it is a viable option.

I think that because this is a large modern political issue, there are so many people talking about it and providing so many different opinions that there are not many things left uncovered. The only thing that can't be considered when making a decision regarding whether or not to decriminalize drugs is the effectiveness and the outcome of the solution.

Context

I will be writing a standard college essay for project 3. Generally, the audience expects a more formal tone in an essay, and the conventions of a standard college essay should be followed. I have an extensive history with standard college essays, and I thoroughly enjoy writing them, comparatively. Because of this, I feel pretty confident about the outcome of the essay. However, I know that essays require a larger time commitment than a podcast or QRG, so I will have to account for that.

The two most important conventions of an essay, in my opinion, are the title and the conclusion. The title is important because it is how the reader can identify, locate, and cite the work and it gives the audience a short main idea of the text. The conclusion is important because it summarizes the work and gives readers a call to action and a final thought that they are left to ponder.

In recent years, there have been a number of countries that have decriminalized drugs. Statistics, news reports and experiences from these places will prove useful in proving my point in this essay. Mashable, New York Times, Huffington Post, and Washington Post are talking about this issue.