Running head: Rhetorical Analysis

Rhetorical Analysis
Felipe Daniel Urzua-Alvarado
University of Texas At El Paso

People think that when authors create their pieces they just start to write and magically an
awesome piece comes alive. Actually, there is a lot more behind it than just writing.
Authors have to plan and carefully choose the way they will present the information to the
audience. Every single author uses rhetorical strategies to successfully persuade, inform, or
entertain their audience or the reader. When an author does not use rhetorical strategies
their paper become weak and ineffective. In this paper I will analyze the rhetorical
strategies that three women from the University Of Kentucky State use in a research
paper about food waste in Middle-Schools.
The research paper Food Type, Food Preparation, and Competitive Food Purchases
Impact Lunch Plate Waste by Sixth-Grade Students was written by three authors: Martha
Marlette, Susan Templeton, and Myna Panemangalore. The topic is about food waste. The
authors clearly stated their purpose at the Materials and Methods section, that they will
determine what were the factors that led students to throw away more than half of the food
they get at lunch. This type of text will not give any constraints to the authors when they
are presenting their information. The authors are trying to be persuasive and informative.
This research paper will allow the authors to write freely about their results.

The most important thing we have to look at when it comes to analyze a paper is to look
at their credibility. If the author does not have enough credibility the audience will think
that the information the author is presenting is either fake or false. The authors first
established their credibility by stating that two of them have a Masters Degrees and the
other one has a PhD. Immediately this tells us that they know what theyre doing. They also
provide a revision made from a group at their school by stating in the section Materials
and Methods (line 1-3) that This study was reviewed and approved by the animal and
human welfare committee at Kentucky State University Frankfort (p.1779, 2005). This
clearly puts a strong feeling of credibility in their research.
In this research paper we see a problem that is trying to get solve. The authors were
concerned that students from middle schools are not getting enough nutrients from their
lunch food because they are throwing the plate away. This is the exigence we see, the
authors are trying to know what is causing students to throw their lunch away. At the end
we see the authors giving a solution to the problem that is given to the chefs at school. Due
to this fact we can conclude that their audience is people who make and prepare the food at
schools. Supporting my assumption of who the audience is we see in the Conclusion that
the authors stated Changing preparation methods may reduce plate waste (p.1782,
2005). Also we can see that the authors are targeting the chefs at school because they claim
in the Materials and Methods section that ...plate waste methodology was based on the
method of Carr and Levins (p. 1779, 2005). This reveals that they are trying to find
solutions for chefs at school so there can be less food waste at middles schools. Also in the
Conclusions section, the authors stated that School cafeteria managers will find useful

comparative data in this paper on factors influencing school lunch waste by sixth
graders(p.1781, 2005).
The authors successfully appeal to the rhetorical strategy of logos in this research paper.
They created labels for each type of food with the purpose of manufacturing two tables that
will show us the results. This tables are presented to us in the section of Results. Table
number one showcases the most frequently offered and accepted school lunch menu
choices (p.1780, 2005) and table number two compares the plate waste within food
groups between students who did or did not purchase competitive food items along with
their school lunch (p.1781, 2005). These facts allowed the authors to successfully apply
the rhetorical strategy of logos to their paper.
After considering these elements we can see that the authors are really effective in
achieving their goal to the audience. The authors were trying to figure out the factors that
led students, in middle schools, to waste food. I can conclude that their strongest rhetorical
strategy was establishing their credibility. They had many companies backing them up. This
showed that the audience was able to trust what the authors were bringing up. In the other
hand, their weaker rhetorical strategy was ethos. The authors could have provided more
facts in the events that caused students to buy more competitive food instead of lunch food.
Overall I think they did an excellent job.

References:
Marlette, M., Templeton, S., & Panemangalore, M. (2005). Food Type, Food
Preparation, and Competitive Food Purchases Impact Lunch Plate Waste by
Sixth-Grade Students. American Dietetic Associtation, 105(11), 1779-1782.