Crowley R_C2001

Fall 2016
ZERO DRAFT WORKSHEET FOR COMPARATIVE RHETORICAL ANALYSIS
ASSIGNMENT
Part One: Use the questions below to help you generate ideas for which texts to use
in your Comparative Rhetorical Analysis. Spend some time gathering the relevant
information and then use it as the basis for brainstorming possibilities of scholarly
and non-scholarly texts with interesting connections. Proceed to the next page
once you have settled on the texts you want to analyze.
Investigating the Discourse Community Examine the scholarly texts you included
in your annotated bibliography and, using the internet and other available
resources, search for significant patterns, commonalities, and anomalies in
the following areas:
Authors: Who are the authors? What are their disciplines or fields of specialization?
For how long have they been working on the specific research problem you
identified for your bibliography? What training and credentials do they have? What
other publications have they produced? With whom do they collaborate on
research? What genres of writing do they work with?
Knowledges: What are the main objects of study in the research? What materials
or data do the researchers collect and/or analyze? What theories and methods do
they rely on? What specialized vocabulary or lexis do they use? What do they
consider to be important contributions to knowledge in their field? What
developments or changes in the field are mentioned by the authors?
Sources: What scholarly sources are cited in the texts? When and where were they
published? Are any non-scholarly genres of writing included as sources? Which
sources or authors are cited in the texts more than once? Which sources do the
authors rely upon most heavily? Are there any sources that the authors disagree
with or dismiss?
Institutions: Which universities and departments do the authors work in? Which
organizations do they belong to? What conferences do they attend? Which
organizations sponsor their research? What journals did the scholarly research
appear in? Where are these journals based? Who are the editors and members of
the editorial boards?
Connecting the Research to Other Contexts Consider your findings from above
and, using the internet and other resources, look for meaningful correspondences in
the following categories:
Public Figures: Who are major players in your field? What kinds of roles do they
have outside of academia? What are some of the non-scholarly or unconventional
contexts in which they work?
Knowledge Transfer: How is research in your field applied in practical or
professional contexts? What major ideas or theories in your field have circulated
into general knowledge? Who participates in translating this scholarly research
into other discourses? How are the political, cultural, economic, or social
consequences of research in your field interpreted in wider contexts?

Crowley R_C2001
Fall 2016
Non-Scholarly Genres: How do journalists, politicians, activists, school teachers,
and others explain disciplinary research in your field to the general public or to
specific discourse communities? What genres do they employ? How are scholarly
sources incorporated into non-scholarly writing?
Non-Scholarly Institutions: In what ways do researchers in your field engage with
the public, businesses, governments, NGOs, advocacy groups, training programs,
etc.? Which institutions or professions rely on the research in your field to
accomplish their own work?
Part Two: Write an informal response to each of the prompts below corresponding to
elements of Keith Grant-Daviess constituents of rhetorical situations (WAW 347-64).
Keep in mind that there may be overlapping and compounding of elements within
and between each category. Your responses should cover both texts to be included
in your comparative analysis.
EXIGENCE: What is the occasion that invites each discourse? Are the authors
(rhetors) responding to any recent developments or changes? What stated or
unstated factors are motivating the writing? What underlying causes, larger
purposes, or values are at stake in the texts? What do the texts try to achieve?

RHETORS: What are the most significant details about the authors (rhetors) in
relation to each texts exigence? How do the rhetors shape their own ethos within
the discourse? How do they anticipate being received by the audience? How do they
establish integrity in their writing?

AUDIENCE: Who comprises the intended audience of each text? How does each
discourse define, inscribe, or invoke its own audience? In what ways does it act
upon, or seek to affect the audience?

Crowley R_C2001
Fall 2016

CONSTRAINTS: What are the means of persuasion in each text? What do they
suggest about the relationship between rhetor and audience? How do contextual
factors and genre conventions affect the construction of the claims in the texts?
What role do ethos, pathos, and logos play in each discourse?