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Rhetorical Analysis of Moneyball
As we have seen in Killingsworth’s Appeals in Modern Rhetoric, rhetorical analyses involve asking a number of questions, including: What is a writer’s purpose in writing? What is the author’s intended audience? In seeking to move that audience, how does an author make his or her ideas persuasive, informative, motivational, thought-provoking, or interesting? To what shared values does the author appeal? Killingsworth also showed us that to produce effective rhetorical analysis, you have to show yourself to be a critical reader—another term is close reader. Your goal is to go beyond the obvious. You want your readers to learn something from your paper.
For your third paper, you will write a rhetorical analysis of Michael Lewis’s Moneyball. The primary question your paper will address: What is the Appeal of Lewis’s book? As a New York Times National Bestseller and a book increasingly finding its way onto college syllabi—most notably in the graduate coursework of MBA programs—the appeal of Moneyball clearly reaches beyond baseball fans.
Using Killingsworth’s Appeals in Modern Rhetoric as a reference point, your essay should identify the primary values to which Lewis appeals in his best-selling book. Emphasize ways in which Lewis appeals to at least two of the following values:
• Authority
• Evidence
• Time
• The Body
• Gender
• Narrative
In analyzing the appeal of Moneyball, your essay will identify at least 2 important values that do not appear on this list. Your paper should feature a thesis that announces your reading of the book, and should use textual evidence and strong critical thinking to develop that thesis.
Your paper should
• Be no less than 5 pages in length.
• Incorporate direct quotations and references from Appeals in Modern Rhetoric and Moneyball.
• Incorporate 2 credible sources drawn from the internet. These sources should illustrate something about the popular appeal and/or rhetorical impact of Lewis’s book. It would be a good idea if the sources represented different perspectives on the book—you will not have much difficulty finding articles that deliver high praise, strong criticism, or a mixed position on Lewis’s book.
• Follow MLA style for heading, pagination, internal documentation, and works cited.
Your paper should avoid
• arguing for or against Lewis’s book
• relying on extensive summary
• offering a weak or very general thesis (for example, This is a good book because the author is a good writer.)
