Assignment #3 Textual Rhetorical Analysis Paper

Amanda Gridley

Amanda Gridley

English 250

A.R. Mallory

February 26, 2014

Textual Rhetorical Analysis

The purpose of my article is to reflect upon the students in the optical field, and what  methods and materials best help them to learn and study. The information was collected through the survey of enrolled students, and presented in an essay format with visual charts to display the information. With this information, educators are able to decide which teaching method they should use in order to best helps the students to succeed, and which methods to avoid. 

The article titled, Optometry and WebCT: A Student Survey of the Value of Web-based Learning Environments in Optometric Education, was organized and written by Peter Herse and Alvin Lee. The purpose of the article was to express the findings of what optical students prefer to use to both help them learn in the classroom, and study outside of class. With this information the intended audience, the educators of the university, are able to make teaching arrangements that will better help their students. 

In order to convey the results, the authors typed up an essay document composed of multiple parts that make the data easy to follow. The introduction is typed into three small parts titled Purpose, Methods, and Results. These are real brief paragraphs that explain the information as an overall big picture, and sum-up the essay as a whole. This is nice for the intended audience, because it saves time for the educators who are simply looking for quick ideas while planning their teaching methods. Instead of reading the entire essay that follows, they can skim these introduction paragraphs, and get the big picture. The actual essay follows. The essay goes into greater detail than the intro paragraphs, and is intended for the audience who want to take a deeper look into why the results are the way they are. Also included in the body of the essay are multiple tables of the collected data. This is a great visual for the audience, and does a good job of presenting the information in a way that is easy to understand. The audience members can look at the table and relate to the conclusion described in the text. It makes the writing much more supported and entertaining to read. 

With the data collected, and the intended audience in mind, this article does a great job of presenting the information in a way that is easy to follow and understand. The main reason for this is the great organization. The separation of the intro, essay, and data tables, makes the information available in a way that gets the point across while still keeping your attention. The context provides the necessary information without going into long explanations or irrelevant facts. Also the style of the document, being asymmetrical, keeps your eyes moving to the key parts of the article. Overall the delivery of the information was very successful. The important facts were stated in a way that is easy to follow, and the conclusion was well supported for the audience through the essay and data tables. 

Through the careful organization and style of the writing, this article effectively and efficiently fulfills the purpose of communicating the student survey results to the intended audience of the optical educators.