Evaluation Paper

Rhetoric and Social Change
Spring 2002
Dr. Adrienne Christiansen

Good rhetorical criticism does three things: it analyzes, interprets, and evaluates the persuasive use of language. This fourth paper gives you an opportunity to engage in the act of formal judgment. You will lay out the criteria or standards that you believe are most appropriate given the rhetorical act, your analysis and interpretation and then use those criteria to evaluate the discourse.

Remember: to analyze a rhetorical act means to explain how it works by focusing on the relationships between its component parts; to interpret a rhetorical act is to explain how you would like the reader to see or understand it; to evaluate a rhetorical act is to determine its worth or quality by means of clearly stated criteria.

Campbell and Burkholder lay out four typical kinds of judgments that rhetorical critics use in our work (see Chapter 5). These are the effects criterion, truth criterion, ethical criterion and artistic criterion. In this chapter, they also discuss the strengths and limitations of each criterion and how they relate to traditional rationalism, psychosocial criticism, and dramatistic criticism. But even if you have used an interpretive scheme that does not fit one of these broad categories, you are likely to still use one of the four evaluative criterion. If you choose to use some other criterion, be sure to explain and justify your decision.

To evaluate or judge a rhetorical act does not mean that you must be condemnatory. It may well be that you judge your act in quite positive terms, or use some combination of praise and blame. In all cases, however, you need to demonstrate how or why the rhetorical act(s) warrant the judgment you make. Think of this paper as providing reasons and rationales that serve as a kind of invitation to the audience to join you in your assessment. You are not merely judging from on high, but are encouraging the audience to share your evaluation because you have laid out your criteria and reasoning process for them.

As always, type your paper double-spaced with one inch margins. Proof carefully and continue to demonstrate that you know how to do exemplary scholarship. I will be happy to talk with you about this assignment during office hours. The paper is due in my mailbox in 301 Humanities by 5:00 p.m. on April 30th.

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