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Devin Reinhardt
Professor Dutta
UWRT 1104
6 October 2015
Rhetorical Analysis
Have you sat down for hours and hours, staring at a blank piece of paper? Time
flies by and youve yet to write anything down on your paper. Finally a storm of ideas
runs through your mind, but you have no clue how to put those ideas on paper. If you
have experienced these problems, dont get discouraged, every writer goes through this. I
still remember those long nights of erasing down to the nub, and crumbling up paper after
paper. Long, stressful, and sleepless nights are nothing new for collegiate writers, like
myself. Writing becomes stressful because its composed of revising, editing, and
planning. For my college class I was assigned to do a rhetorical analysis on my most
memorable piece of writing. A rhetorical analysis is an analysis of your own work. The
components of a rhetorical analysis are: rhetoric, audience, exigence, purpose, discourse,
constraints, affordances, and rhetorical situation. I immediately began to recollect all the
pieces of writing that I composed in my past. I came to the conclusion that they contained
all the components of a rhetorical analysis. My resume and cover letter for Belk
Gymnasium at UNCC was the first piece of writing that came to my mind. A resume and
cover letter are two professional pieces of writing. Composing these two pieces of writing
took a good amount of outlining, revising, and editing. This is why I chose to do this as
my most memorable piece of writing.
One of the most important components to writing is having a firm understating of
your audience. When youve indicated your audience then you can began to build your
paper. Your audience can help dictate your theme and tone. A writers tone and theme are

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provided by the rhetor otherwise known as the speaker or writer. In this instance I am the
rhetor. As one can speculate the tone and theme for my cover letter and resume was
directed towards the Gymnasium. My tone in both my cover letter and resume was
informative yet persuasive at the same time. Here is an example of both informing and
persuasion:
I am very athletic. I have been involved in a fitness regiment for the majority
of my life. I enjoy staying fit and exercising to stay healthy. I have excellent
interpersonal skills and work will with others. I am a quick learner with
proficient organizational, communications and problem resolution skills. I work
hard to be an effective and efficient employee.
This is a piece of writing from my resume. As you can see here I am trying to persuade
the gymnasium that I am there ideal candidate for the job. Heres a piece from my cover
letter:
My educational background has prepared me for the role of fitness assistant. In
particular, my study of physical fitness/health science has given me a sold
background so that I can perform spotting techniques in the wright room, lifting
heavy weights, and customer service. I am also certified in first aid and CPR. I am
eager to contribute my enthusiasm and up to-date skills to the Belk
Gymnasium.
This is an example of my informative yet persuasive tone. The theme is also illustrated
with these two examples, and the theme here is convincing the Gymnasium that I was the
perfect candidate. Tone simply is the attitude Im portraying to the reader, and theme is
the message I want the reader to come out with. Since this is a professional document my

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tone was expressed as firm, skilled, and efficient. My theme here was simply just to
present myself as the most qualified candidate.
Knowing the exigence and the purpose of your paper is also a very essential
component in writing. The exigence also known as the why or the need made me ask
myself numerous questions. What made me write this paper? What made me get up in the
morning and type up a resume and cover letter? What do I want the audience to get out of
the piece of writing? I came to the conclusion that I wrote the resume because I needed a
job, and the purpose was to convince the Gym I was the person for the job. The cover
letter did the same job as the resume by touching basis on why I am the person for the
job. Here are some examples from my resume that describes my work experience,
education, and accomplishments to show that I am the ideal candidate.
Sales Consultant, Orange Leaf; Hickory, North Carolina 2014-2015
Greeted customers as they arrived at the Yogurt shop. Provided the customers
with yogurt samples. I took payment and exchange for items sold. I was also
responsible for monitoring the Mini Golf Course.
Bus Boy, Food Runner, Prep Meals, Texas Road House; Hickory, North
Carolina 2013-2014
Cleaned off tables after customers were finished eating.
Prepared food to be put on a tray and delivered to the
customers. Carried food trays to the dining tables for customers.
EDUCATION
Fred T. Foard HS

2011-2015

Newton

North Carolina

ACCOMPLISHMENTS
I was awarded employee of the month at my previous job. I have been awarded
job promotions after being on the job for a short length of time.
Providing this information differentiates myself from other candidates. This was a very
crucial part of my resume, because this is where you convince your attended audience

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that you are worth hiring. As you can imagine this part of the resume took the longest. I
had to revise and edit my paper multiple times to get it exactly the way I wanted. Listing
my experience and attributes for the job piggybacks on exigence and purpose, how? As I
stated before the exigence is the need. The need here is to get the job I am applying for.
In order to get the job, I needed to provide information that would set me apart from
everyone else. The Purpose is to prove that I am the one for the job.
Unexpectedly the most productive part about writing is overcoming your
constraints. Constraints are problems you face while working on your paper. These
problems can be restrictions, limitations, lack of technology, etc. The constraints I
encountered while writing my resume and cover letter was keeping it to a one-page limit.
This was a constraint, because now you are restricted to how much information you are
allowed to put in your resume or cover letter. This caused me to over think, eliminate
some traits, and qualifications, that would have been worthy for my resume or cover
letter. This could also be seen as affordance. An affordance feeds off of a constraint.
Difference is affordance is a constraint that helps you. Having to eliminate a lot of useful
qualifications helped me in the long run, because it made me decide on what was more
important to put on my documents.
My resume and cover letter began by knowing my situation, and by knowing the
audience. Before writing I sat down to brainstorm, and asked myself; who am I writing
to? Why am I writing? What will be the purpose of composing this resume or cover
letter? What will help me write this paper? Answering these questions helped me form a
solid resume and cover letter. There isnt a formula for writing and I learned this the hard
way. Just remember, when writing to find a formula that works for you to execute this

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formula. Be confident in your work and dont stress, theres no such thing as a perfect
paper. Go into the paper with a positive attitude, use the techniques you already know,
and try to remember your rhetorical situation. Ask yourself the appropriate questions and
go from there!