Rhetorical Analysis Rough Draft #2

Summary of “Inventing the University”

      Dr. David Bartholomae’s article talks about how as teachers, writers, or anyone who gives out information to the readers, should speak in the language that is familiar to that reader. One of Bartholomae’s points is that teachers should speak and teach the students in a way that they can understand. This can also tie into how a one should write a paper that gives information. An idea that sticks out within the passage is that as a writer you must know your audience. If the person who reads the paper is a scientist, the writing should include the language that is used by scientists. This idea can go for any topic. Bartholomae talks about an essay called, “Clay Model.” He talks about how this essay doesn’t achieve the idea of knowing your audience or remotely communicating in the reader’s language. Bartholomae continuously brings up the idea of knowing your audience by stating that if one can understand who their writing for and be able to manipulate them, they will be able to reach a level of privilege and imagination. All these ideas and techniques can be used to become an effective writer, but only if the teachers can guide the students (Bartholomae). Bartholomae’s article is a guide for professors who struggle with guiding and teaching students how to write for their audience. Bartholomae guides professors and the professors guide the students. When that happens, a common language is spoken. 

Purpose and Audience

The overall purpose for this article is to inform the professors that they must teach their students to write in the language the understands. You must be able to write as if you are the expert. The overall purpose of the article gets clearer as you read the article. The article did affect my thinking when I write my papers. I never really gave much thought to writing as if you were an expert in a subject. The actual purpose of the article wasn’t really hidden, but instead kept on building as you read. The intended audience is any professor that reads this article. I am not a part of this audience since I’m not a professor. Bartholomae assumes the professors would believe that they too need to guide their students. This point of view is from Bartholomae.

Content Analysis

The problem that Dr. David Bartholomae addresses in the article is that students struggle with learning how to write in the language that a reader will understand. Bartholomae structures the content by giving out example of written pieces of work from students. Bartholomae’s thesis is that professors need to guide students to write as if their the expert. Some of the key moments in the text include one when Bartholomae gives an example of the essay “Clay Model.” This is an important section because this shows the intended audience that as writers we should act as if we are experts. Honestly nothing really bothered me while reading this article other than that I couldn’t understand what Bartholomae was talking about at first. As I continued to read the article, I was able to understand it better.

Organization, Language, Structure

The language that Bartholomae uses within his article is a Tongue and Cheek type of language, slightly sarcastic tones when describing works such as the “Clay Model” and other essays from certain subjects. While the slightly sarcastic tone is kind of amusing to me personally, that doesn’t take away from the Toulmin style that his information is structured. This was in my opinion a perfect way for him to talk about his claim and provide his reasoning. This mixture of Tongue and Cheek, logical reasoning and evidence were the amazing ways that Bartholomae was able to write a great explanation for his claim.

Evidence

The evidence that Dr. David Bartholomae relies on is ethos. He uses analytical reasoning to explain his thesis/claim. Bartholomae uses past experiences as well to help explain his reasoning. The evidence that was the most effective was when he talked about the essay called the “Clay Model.” He talks about it from his own experience and this helps give the reader a sense that Bartholomae is the character of nature or also known as the person of authority for the topic. Overall, I thought that the quality of the author’s evidence was good. I was expecting it to be good since Bartholomae has had experience in this field.

Overall Analysis

Bartholomae does amazing job discussing his claim about how professors should better equip their students for writing. He also does a great job in including all the subjects that require writing papers, so that the audience of professors is of all mixed academic subjects. Bartholomae often talks about how students should write as if they are the expert, that if they were to go to their respective fields, they would be able to have an audience that understands them. This makes an interesting point that if professors are supposed to help guide students to their fields of study, they should better equip them with writing techniques.

Conclusion

”Inventing the University” was a splendid piece of work from Bartholomae that gives amazing insight on not just how professors can improve on their teaching, but also how students can improve on their writing. As I read this article, I constantly kept thinking to myself if I was writing as an expert. Now, I know that as a writer no matter what I write, I can now confidently write for any subject knowing these skills.