Rhetorical Analysis Of Straub And Murray

In this rhetorical analysis, I will be analyzing and comparing two essays, Richard Straub’s Responding— Really Responding— to Other Students’ Writing and Donald M. Murray’s Writing Before Writing, by exploring how effective the authors of the two works. I am analyzing and comparing use purpose, audience, persona, and context to convey what they are arguing through their usage of rhetorical appeals. To convey their ideas to their intended audience, both authors, Straub and Murray, appealed to ethos— credibility, pathos— emotion, and logos— logic and/ reasoning throughout their essays. Straub, “[a] specialist on reading, evaluating, and responding to student writing,” (Straub, 162) advocate for students, who are “correcting” other students’ writing, to not correct it as if they were the teacher or the editor but to respond to it by questioning or suggesting possible ideas that can help the writer improve his/ her writing. Murray, on the other hand, accentuates the importance of having teachers or instructors teach their students the process of prewriting before students start writing the first draft. In Straub’s essay, he argues that students should not be correcting or making changes to other students’ writing …show more content…
Although each author's essay were directed towards different audience, Straub to students and Murray to teachers and/ instructors, they both emphasis the importance of students receiving beneficial advice to better improve their writing. Both authors’ concern for the development of students academic skills are effectively shown through their usage of the rhetorical appeals ethos, pathos, and logos as they remind each of their intended audience on how to better support their colleagues/ friends (Straub’s audience) and their students (Murray’s audience) as they proceed through the writing