Project One


Return to Schedule of Sessions

Return to Home Page

Return to Detroit Advertising Campaigns

 

Access the Rhetorical Toolbox: Course Materials

 


 

Project One: Ad Analysis

 

 

 

Description

Your first two assignments are designed to give you practice in applying the basic tools and terms of rhetoric. Project One introduces many of the key concepts we'll be working through in our course and gives you an opportunity to demonstrate your ability to think and respond to a given rhetorical situation. From a print or other medium (commercial, YouTube clip, website, etc.) choose an advertisement, an advertising campaign, or a recurring trope across several advertisements, that you find rhetorically interesting. Write an analysis of your chosen topic that will help your reader—i.e., your instructor and the class or some other audience that would be interested—see how the ad works to influence its audience, both through its images and its text.

 

Invention

Consider the rhetorical situation of the ad(s). What is being advertised? Who is making the claim? Who is the target audience? Where and when does the ad appear? Think of the ad as an argument. What claim is it making? Consider the reasons which support that claim: reasons about the nature of the ad's product or service, reasons about those responsible for that product or service, and reasons which appeal to the audience's values, beliefs, or desires. How do you think the ad affects its audience and why? What effects do you think it has been designed to produce? Besides the ad's images and its language, consider the layout of the ad, the colors, the print size and the fonts.

 

Composition

In a 4-6 page paper, introduce the ad(s) and your analysis, making a claim about the ad and its effectiveness. Arrange the body of your analysis so that your reader moves through the parts of the ad with you in an orderly way. Help the reader see the ad and its rhetoric as you saw it. Quote particulars to support your argument. Include the ads, links to the ads, or a photocopy of the ad with your final paper.

 

 

 


Evaluation

 

Organization

 

Audience

 

Rhetorical Situation

 

Support

 

Go to Project One Rubric

 

 

Examples

 

The following are A-level executions of Project One submitted by previous students in this class


 

Detroit Ad Campaigns:

 

Detroit Free Presshttp://www.freep.com/

 

"Made in Detroit" - http://www.madeindetroit.com/

 

Coalition for a Better Detroit (ad campaign) - http://www.cfabdetroit.org/made-in-detroit.php

 

Made In Detroit by Paul Clemmens (Google Book) - http://books.google.com/books?id=8-phbVx3RQ0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=made+in+detroit&source=bl&ots=Jiux9ej9V4&sig=r3CKxo_SZXKMtdR3RsmL3mQdTLE&hl=en&ei=Vv_VTKuBAcSkngep6oHQCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEMQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Detroit 1-8-7 -