Literacy,Discourse,and Linguistics : Introduction By James paul Gee
Find a news article that reports a problem that interests you (use the library databases ProQuest or EBSCOHost Academic Search Premiere, and Google's okay, too). Make sure the issue relates to business in some way (you can be creative in connecting it to business).
SCENARIO: As the CEO of a company (fictional or real; your choice), you find this article and realize this problem might affect your organization. You can write as the company who stands to lose from this problem, or as a company who will benefit from this problem (your choice). If it's a problem, write a memo analyzing this article to inform your employees and assuage concerns. If it's an opportunity for your company, you can discuss how you will capitalize on it. Please focus on your audience.
FIRST PARAGRAPH: Introduce the problem and state the author's full name (the first time you mention it), the title of the article, and who published the article. You will follow this information with what the reader can expect from this memo, which will have three sections (each section gets a heading that tells the reader what that section will discuss):
Summary
Analysis
Recommendations for the Future or Moving Forward
The Summary section provides an overview of the article and the problem. What is this article's main purpose, and how does it support this purpose with major points? Please answer the WHO, WHAT, WHERE, and WHEN. Refrain from including your opinion when writing a summary. You can write multiple paragraphs if necessary.
The Analysis discusses how this article represents this problem and how it affects your company and employees. Use the Carroll's terms for rhetorical analysis:
How is this a rhetorical situation?
Context? Why is this important/influential?
Exigence? How is this a problem?
Audience? How might this article influence the intended audience, and how does this affect your company and employees?
Constraints? How might the constraints benefit or affect your company and employees?
Rhetorical appeals
Ethos-how does the writer establish credibility? Who published the article? How does this help or hinder the credibility? How does this affect your company/employees?
Logos-how does the writer work to influence readers? Why? How does this affect your company/employees?
Pathos-how does the writer appeal to the emotions of the audience?
Use why and how questions, too, to enhance your analysis.
Why is the article/author addressing this problem in this publication?
How does the author address the problem?
How does the author try to influence/persuade the reader/audience?
Why does this author try to influence/persuade the audience this way?
How will this problem affect your company, organization, or institution?
How does this article connect to other problems in the news or related to business?
Please come up with your own Why and How questions to expand your analysis.
The Recommendations for the Future (or Moving Forward) offers solutions to the problem or suggestions on how your company/organization will approach this problem. It also considers how this problem might take time to address, so how will you proceed into the future?
Please provide specific ideas, examples, steps, plans, and/or strategies to pursue success. Repetition from your summary and/or analysis is okay.
Please use APA or MLA citation practices when referring to your selected article (both in-text citations and Reference or Work Cited at the end).