Robert Mahoney Professor Wolcott ENC 1101 (11:30am-12:20pm) 27 August 2012 Carroll, Laura B. "Backpacks vs.

Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis." Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. Vol. 1. N.p.: Parlor, n.d. 45-58. Web. Summary The article begins by giving us an example of rhetorical analysis in our everyday lives. This example is our judgment of people when we first lay eyes on them from looking at their accessories and making conclusions from them. The author then goes on to the Implications of Rhetorical Analysis and gives us other situations in which we need to use Rhetorical Analysis to become a more educated consumer. The author then helps us learn how to analyze the rhetorical situation and gives us two different strategies: Exigence, Audience, Constraints; and the Rhetorical Triangle. Next, after the rhetorical situation the author gets to the main portion, the argument. She brings up another idea from Aristotles three artistic appeals and they are logos, pathos, and ethos. The author breaks down each appeal and gives examples from the three and how/why they are useful. Then once the context is understood, its time to begin the analysis of the rhetoric by thinking about how it fits into that context. The author begins with an example and then offers questions we could start off with to see if the discourse works within the context. Lastly, the article starts to wrap everything up and explain to us why we do this stuff. The author ends with a persuasive example and argument and then follows with discussion questions about the article. Analysis The author wisely opens up with an example that easily puts an image in my mind. Its something that literally every student can relate to, as part of being a student is having a teacher to learn from. I immediately was sucked into the essay as soon as I began reading. The title comes from the example she gives and how students judge their professors by whether they walk in with a briefcase or a backpack and how we analyze from there. I greatly agree with this statement as I do this with every single teacher Ive had to date. Then the author shows us how we use rhetorical analysis in life and then on page 48 she opens up our eyes. She brings up the fact that though we can analyze rhetoric in media in less than seconds, when our teacher gives us an assignment to analyze its nearly impossible. I never really thought about it that way and its interesting how we use the same techniques. On page 52, Carroll eventually gets to Aristotles appeals which are Logos, Pathos, and Ethos. Logos are the logical statements, pathos appeal to emotion, and ethos refer to the credibility of the rhetor. These are used to find the argument, what we really want to understand. These 3 things combined are powerful and will appeal to almost any audience. They work fine separately as well, as seen in the Why ad given by Carroll in the article. I noticed that though the author offers other ways to analyze rhetoric, she clearly favors Aristotles appeals. She goes into great depth from these appeals and lightly touches on the others. After the author explains how to relate the rhetoric to the context, she ends with a very compelling example. I never really understood how I would use this stuff in the real

world and Im usually one of those people who claim one person cant make a universal difference. Once I read the Campbells Soup example I was actually surprised about the difference a few men made and realized how much of a difference that could actually make.