Final Criticism Paper
Rhetoric
and Social Change
Spring 2002
Dr. Adrienne E. Christiansen
Your final paper will be a "full-blown" interpretive critique of your rhetorical act(s) in which you have rewritten, revised, reconsidered, reconceptualized, and synthesized the work you did in the first four papers. The final paper SHOULD NOT simply be a repetition of the earlier four papers "stuck together" with the help of a word processor. Instead, it should be an organic whole that stands on its own as a piece of criticism and persuasive discourse. You are likely to draw heavily from the best writing you did for papers two, three and four. The materials you generated in paper one (descriptive analysis) may assist you by providing textual evidence for claims you are developing in the final paper. Do not hesitate to delete "half-baked" ideas or poorly established arguments from your previous papers. The keys to a good grade on the final project are compelling arguments, insightful analyses and interpretations of your act(s), a clear/lucid writing style, and a care with details that suggests your paper is a piece of genuine scholarship.
Your paper should aim to "increase the capacity of readers to appreciate your rhetorical discourse . . . To make informed and deliberate judgments based on persuasive appeals . . . and to add to our understanding of how humans use symbols to influence each other." (p. 109--Campbell and Burkholder) The ideal analysis is one that goes beyond the observations of the casual reader (or listener or viewer) to enable those who read your criticism to understand how the act works, what audience it seeks, what appeals it makes, what assumptions it makes, etc. When we read your critique, it should raise new questions, provoke new or unusual interpretations, and cause us to weigh the grounds for evaluation more carefully. A good analysis attempts to show how an act works to achieve its end for the audience it selects.
Your final paper will be written in essay form. It will have a cover page with a title, an introduction, a central idea or thesis that is clearly stated, developed, explained, argued, and supported with textual and nontextual evidence. You will make smooth transitions between main ideas and main sections of your paper. You will write a conclusion that summarizes and attach a bibliography of materials you cite in the paper.
Many students often ask how they ought to organize their papers. Although I cannot provide a "formula," I suggest you look carefully at the critical essays we have read this term. Pick one or two criticisms that you thought were particularly interesting or compelling, then simply outline their entire paper. What categories do they include in their analyses? Although the order in which they write will vary, the authors are likely to have an introduction, thesis, outline, an argument indicating the significance (either historical or rhetorical) for the act(s), a literature review of important and relevant works, a brief explanation of the theoretical concepts they utilize, a description of their method, a brief historical background of the rhetorical situation, a description of the rhetorical act(s), an analysis in which they apply the critical method to the act(s), a discussion section in which they lay out their judgment/evaluation, a conclusion section in which they summarize their main arguments, an endnotes page and a bibliography.
The published criticisms that we have read this year conform to "standard" lengths of journal articles in the field of Speech Communication—30 pages of typed, double-spaced prose, plus endnotes and bibliography. You are not required to write a 30 page paper, but I do ask that 30 pages of prose be your upper limit.
You must type double-space on one side of the paper. Proofread carefully and correct errors in reasoning, typing, punctuation, spelling, syntax. Leave one-inch margins on all four sides of the paper so that I may comment on your ideas. You are required to consult the MLA Style Manual for appropriate formatting of your paper, including footnotes/endnotes and bibliography. Using non-standard MLA style is not acceptable. Errors in typing, punctuation, spelling, syntax and grammar will compromise your grade on the paper.
In keeping with the emphasis on rhetorical invention in this course, you may write an addition to your paper comparable to the short essays that preceded each criticism in the book Critical Questions. If you choose to write such an addition, please explain your critical process, the reasons why you selected the rhetorical act you analyzed, your phenomenological experiences in writing the paper over the course over the term, how your thinking about the project changed, etc. The addition will NOT be graded and it should be kept separate from the formal analysis.
Nota bene: BACK UP all your computer files. As you write your paper, save repeatedly to two floppy disks and/or your network account. Set the word processor "options" or "preferences" or "settings" on any word processor on any computer you work on to automatically back up once a minute so that even if the computer freezes or shuts down, your work has been saved. If you don’t know how to do this, stop by my office for a 60 second demonstration of this invaluable tool. Computers do crash. Viruses do infect disks. Files can become mangled. But none of this will matter if you follow my simple direction: BACK UP ALL YOUR WORK. Constantly.
Papers are due in my mailbox in 301 Humanities no later than X. Be responsible—start your paper with sufficient lead time so that you can meet the final deadline.
I am very happy to talk with you about your arguments, your critical approach, or other substantive issues concerning your final project. But due to limitations on time, I will not read drafts of your final paper. Please ask your colleagues, mystery partners, or members of your thematic groups to assist you in final editing and proofreading. Good luck rhetoricians!!!
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