Rhetorical Analysis

Tool	Definition
Audience	The intended readership for a piece of writing. You might consider where the pieces was published, the kind of diction or language used, and some underlying assumptions embedded in the text.
Author	The person who wrote the piece you are reading. You might consider how much the author emphasizes their own position, what their credentials are (implicitly or explicitly stated), and how that influences their work.
Context/Moment	The circumstances that form the setting for a text. The context helps establish the terms by which the text might be fully understood and assessed.
Genre	A category of composition/expression.  In rhetoric, genre provides a means to classify and compare texts based on their formal, substantive, and contextual features. In analysis you would look at the set of generic expectations, conventions, and constraints and how that guides the reader’s interpretation.
Rhetorical Purpose	What the piece aims to do. Often a piece will aim to persuade an audience or change the way they view a subject.