This document provides guidelines for students to complete a rhetorical analysis assignment on a peer-written product review. Students are instructed to choose an unpublished peer review, analyze it using rhetorical techniques like tone, audience and persuasive appeals, and discuss how effectively it informs or persuades the audience. The analysis can be written or in video/audio format. Sample reviews and resources on rhetorical analysis are provided. The document also includes an example peer-written product review of the Apple iPad Pro tablet to demonstrate the type of reviews being analyzed.

1. Rhetorical Analysis Guidelines
For your rhetorical analysis, I am asking that you pick a review
one of your peers wrote. Do try to “call dibs” as they are being
posted so that people are not all rhetorically analyzing the same
review. (Claim the review you want to work with when it is
posted. That way people can choose ones that have not yet been
claimed. I am okay with two people working on the same review
since we have an uneven number of students in this class, but
please no more than two “dibs” on one post!)
A rhetorical analysis is going to look at the rhetorical situation
and parse the ways the author uses writing strategies and
techniques to impart a message or persuade an audience. We
have to consider, tone, audience, diction, style, and other
elements, like ethos, pathos, and logos among the miscellany, to
understand how the text effectively or ineffectively “does” what
it intended to do.
In this case, a review is meant to inform an audience and/or
persuade the audience into consuming or not consuming that
product.
This rhetorical analysis project asks that you examine the
review you’ve claimed to tease out the techniques used in
achieving its goal. It is NOT to discuss whether you agree or
disagree with the review, what you would have chosen to talk
about instead, or your own thoughts and ideas about the item
being reviewed. Instead, you are to focus specifically on the
writing techniques that prompt the audience of the review to be
engaged, persuaded, and give in to the purpose of the review (to
consume or not to consume the product). What is working v.
what is not working? How is it appealing to specific
demographics? Where are logical fallacies? Does the tone work
for the audience? Is the diction on par? These are not the only
things to consider, but they may be some.
Please watch the video on rhetorical analyses if you are an
audio/visual learner or do further research on rhetorical

2. analyses through this link
(http://www.mscc.edu/WritingResources/Guidelines%20for%20
Rhetorical%20Analysis.pdf do note that the “paragraphing”
will have to be extended for a longer paper!), and then you may
create a youtube video, podcast, blog, prezi, or a written paper
(discussion post) rhetorically analyzing the review you’ve
chosen.
Please be kind if you are writing a negative rhetorical analysis
because these are your peers. Do not sugarcoat, because we all
need to know how to improve for later writing situations, but
also be mindful of your tone, word choice, and delivery of your
criticism.
Rhetorical analyses should be three to five pages in length, or if
a video or podcast, 5-7 minutes. Blogs and prezis should create
a dynamic and engaging presentation that captures three to five
pages or 5-7 minutes of information----meaning that they must
be packed full of good information and (as a possibility) use
screen caps with handwritten notes as visual aids or further
helpful teaching tools to help your audience see what’s going on
in the original text.
As you are looking at the review, you may wish to use the
Critical Reading Worksheet to guide you in thinking about the
text. You may examine this sample paper to see how others have
written Rhetorical Analyses in the past:
http://www.stlcc.edu/Student_Resources/Academic_Resources/
Writing_Resources/Writing_Handouts/Rhetorical-Analysis-
Sample-Essay.pdf
Apple iPad Pro
Technology enables us to access a world full of information at
the click of a button. Almost no other place has the ability to
take advantage of this more than education. When I decided to
re-enroll in college I knew that I wanted to utilize technology to
better enable myself to learn. So when I decided to buy a new
computer or tablet I knew I needed something to meet the

3. various situations I would encounter during my coursework.
That lead me to the purchase the iPad Pro. It had a wide variety
of features and my previous experiences with Apple products
told me that I would easily adapt to its use.
Apple initially released the iPad Pro in 2015 and released an
updated version last year. It has a 12.9 inch screen (it is also
available with a 10.5 inch screen) that makes it seem much more
like a laptop computer than a tablet. Matt Swider of the
technical review website TechRadar describes the screen as “the
Big Gulp of iPad screens – it sometimes seems ridiculously
large, but you’re happy to indulge anyway.” It is wonderfully
color rich and never seems to get pixelated. The iPad is
lightweight at 1.5 pounds even though it has a battery that
seems to last weeks on standby at home when I mostly only use
it for school work. This makes for great mobility if I need to
use the iPad on the road. An added benefit to the mobility is
that a cellular data connection is an option. The iPad I
purchased has that option so I never have to worry about
whether I have a WiFi connection to be productive. I previously
utilized an iPad Mini for road trips and simple tasks when I
didn’t want to use my laptop. I have found that the iPad Pro is
superior in every category except for mobility, but that is
entirely based on the size difference between the two (the iPad
Pro is a full five inches larger than the Mini.) The iPad Pro
allows the user to multitask by allowing applications to be
placed side by side. I’ve found this very useful when taking
notes, which is also made easier by the Apple Pencil which
we’ll discuss shortly. The iPad Pro is also much faster making it
easier to switch between applications with almost no noticeable
lag. There are several storage options: 64GB, 256GB, and
512GB. I opted for the middle range option as that affords me
plenty of space to download movies when I have to travel.
While I don’t find myself taking a lot of pictures and videos
with my iPad it does have a very capable camera that can take
12 megapixel photographs and record video at 4K quality.
Equally impressive are the four speakers. You would expect that

4. the speakers would sound like the speakers on your smart phone
but they are not. The sound is crisp and clear and sounds better
than most computer speakers I’ve ever used. They also get
sufficiently loud that I’d be comfortable using the iPad in a
noisy environment. The iPad Pro also comes with all of the
features that iPhone users have come to know well. TouchID is
standard allowing the use of fingerprints to unlock the iPad,
utilize stored passwords and make purchases with Apple Pay.
FaceTime is easy with a front facing camera. However, there are
a couple of drawbacks to this version of the iPad Pro. Many
people who are Apple detractors would argue that Apple limits
the ability of it’s user to expand and customize their experience
on the iPad. There are no slots for additional flash storage so
you are limited to the storage chosen at the time you purchase
your iPad Pro. There are three external ports on the iPad. A
headphone jack, a smart connector for a keyboard and the
lighting port that iPhone users are most familiar with. To utilize
any wired peripherals, besides the keyboard and headphones,
you have to chose from (and typically pay a steep price for) a
myriad of lightning port dongles that are available. Two of my
most favorite features for the iPad Pro are the Apple Pencil and
Apple Smart Keyboard accessories.
With the release of the original iPad Pro Apple also released the
Apple Pencil. The Apple Pencil may seem like a simple stylus
but it is so much more than that. It is pressure sensitive which is
amazing when you draw using the “pencil” setting. The pressure
sensitivity allows the user to shade by rolling the pencil along
its side similarly to using a real pencil. The shading also gets
darker or lighter depending the amount of pressure applied with
the stylus. Although I am not an artist I am sure that anyone
with some artistic ability could use the Apple Pencil to create a
beautiful work of art. I’ve also found some other non-artistic
ways to utilize the Apple Pencil. While taking a math course
online, I have found it much easier to plot points on graphs
using the precision of the Apple Pencil and it is also useful to
take handwritten notes. There are many third party applications

5. for the iPad that enable the user to take notes directly on texts
in many formats. One of the most common being Adobe PDFs
that I have seen many courses utilize for online textbooks,
presentations, and additional course materials. The apps enable
users to write directly on the documents so you can highlight
and add additional information in the same way you would
highlight a hard copy book textbook. Another interesting feature
is the ability to charge the pencil using the lightning port. The
pencil can be charged from a completely expended battery to
completely full in 10-15 minutes and it lasts weeks on a single
charge. While the Apple Pencil is an extra cost on top of the
iPad Pro it is a worthy investment for anyone serious about
using the iPad Pro for productivity.
Anyone who dislikes to use the on-screen keyboard on their
tablet should definitely try the Apple Smart Keyboard. The
keyboard doubles as a cover for the screen and a stand for the
iPad. Athough I wouldn’t trust it to provide serious drop
protection because it is pretty thin in areas and is expensive
itself. One of its greatest features is that it does not require a
battery. The keyboard is powered via the smart connector port
on the side of the iPad. That is a wonderful feature when
compared to my previous experiences with battery powered
bluetooth keyboards. I have found a couple of limitations with
the Smart Keyboard. Some websites and applications on the
iPad do not support all of the buttons on the keyboard. Most
commonly I have found that the arrow keys don’t work on some
websites making it difficult to navigate through text when
typing on a website. Other than some keys not working in
specific situations I have found that the Smart Keyboard is just
as easy to use as a laptop or desktop computer keyboard.
So far my time with the iPad Pro has been amazing. I’ve found a
few minor things that prevent me from saying my experience
has been perfect but anyone who has used Apple products in the
past would have no issue getting used the features of this iPad.
The iPad Pro’s entry level price point may be a premium to
someone in the market for a cheap tablet and many consumers

6. may be against Apple’s proprietary development processes.
Even so, I would recommend that anyone in the market for a
new tablet heavily consider the iPad Pro.
Works Cited
Swider, Matt. “iPad Pro 12.9 (2017) review”. TechRadar, Jun 7,
2018. www.techradar.com/reviews/ipad-pro-2-129.
“Pro – Technical Specifications – Apple”. Apple.
www.apple.com/ipad-pro/specs/.