1. How long does it take Magee to set up, or explain the origins of, her specific research question and methods of addressing it? What major “moves” does her essay make in order to get there (what different lines of thought does she pursue one after the next)?

It took Magee about 4-5 paragraphs until she got into talking specifically about her research question.  What she did in order to get to the point where she could address her questions was, show a study that gives a good explanation of the differences in gender writing. After that she used that information and based her argument on the explanation she gave at the beginning of the paper.

 

What ideas does this give you for how to organize your own rhetorical analysis? You may pull from all our course readings up to this point.

I like the way she went about presenting her ideas in this article and will probably use a similar structure in my paper.

 

  1. A reader analyzing a text can only match moves the text is making to existing categories (for example, as Post finds instances in Obama’s speech of “elevation” or “typology”) if they already know that those categories exist. What did Post need to already know to do this analysis, and what are some ways she might have learned that knowledge?

Post needed to know a few things before she could analysis this article. First she needed to understand the facts behind the Obama speech. Second, She needed to under stand Obamas goals for his speech. Third, she needed to then research and gain a good understanding of repetition, elevation, scared and heroic association and Moses/Joshua typology. She could have learned these things through multiple sources. By either going to online and seating at a computer for hours researching the topic and terms. Another way would be using primary sources such as the document or someone who was in the audience listening to that speech and see what kind of information that would give you to help add to your analysis.