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Alexis Adkins
Professor Watson
English 1001
January 30, 2019
Rhetorical Analysis Commented [yw1]: A catchier title is needed here. What
is your analysis about?

Have you ever thought about what you eat in depth? Have you ever thought, where does

this come from? What do we do as people to get this food? Is what I’m eating hurting the earth?

Does it affect the earth in bad or positive ways? Does what you eat on a daily basis affect your

health in a bad way? Well in the article, “Animal Agriculture is choking the earth”, by James Commented [yw2]: You have quite a few questions here
in your opener! 😊
Cameron Who is a filmmaker and a deep-sea explorer, and Suzy Amis Cameron, who is a

founder of Muse School and Plant Power Task Force, talk about what is happening with the earth

and produced foods and agriculture. Due to facts and research they write an article about what

actually goes on, which is that overproduction and overconsumption of food such as meat is a

big contribution to things such as greenhouse gasses and global warming and deforestation and

water pollution. Commented [yw3]: Good work in presenting some

commentary on this article! However, I don’t see your
connection with the rhetorical audience appeals here in
James and Suzy’s intended audience is pretty much everyone who decides to read and your thesis statement.

talk about the harmful side effects of raising livestock and the food we put into our bodies. They

try to teach us about how harmful to our environment raising livestock and growing crops is.

Such as in the article when they talk about deforestation and raising livestock, “Also uses about Commented [yw4]: Remove extra wording.

70% of agricultural land, and is one of the leading causes of deforestation, biodiversity loss, and

water pollution” (Cameron and Cameron 1). They also try to teach about the big problem of the

food that most people do put into their bodies is making us sick, such as too much meat and

dairy, “Raising livestock for meat, eggs and milk generates 14.5% of global greenhouse gas
Commented [yw5]: Good point here and well supported
with your quote! Yes, we consume more of these products
emissions” (Cameron and Cameron 1). The authors also have a secondary audience of people than we do of produce.
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who eat a lot of meat and dairy. Even though meat and dairy do give us some strength and

protein and things to keep our bodies healthy having too much could not be good, they prove this

with evidence from other reliable sources that eating too much dairy from sources like the Yale

University Research Center.

James and Suzy’s purpose for writing the article was to inform anyone who reads the

article about how and what the side effects of raising livestock puts on our environment and what

food the livestock does help us produce affects us and our health such as dairy products in a bad

way. The authors try to inform us about the bad side effects of agriculture and raising livestock.

They try to defend the earth in a way by educating the audience about the harmful things that we

do to the earth. James and Suzy also had another audience who is most likely farmers and people

who run the process of crops and livestock because they talk about how, “We need to get climate

leaders on board about the impact of food… If the US reduced meat consumption by 50%, it’s

the equivalent of taking 26 million cars off the road” (Cameron and Cameron 1). Commented [yw6]: Good points here on the focus
audiences of this article!

The structure of this article is a pretty short yet very informative article. The structure

aids both of the author’s intentions because it is short is straight to the point and gives

information without lounging around. With it being a pretty serious topic, the structure of the

article does the authors justice with providing their points. Also the authors use a very strong

straight to the point tone in the article. Just like with the structure the tone is very straight to the

point as well. Commented [yw7]: How would you describe these

“straight to the point” ideas here? Objective? Concise?

The article is very effective in meeting the needs and expectations of its audience by

changing or opening up the reader's or audience's minds. I ended up being persuaded by the

author’s article and things that they had to say and inform me about. Sense I was a part of the

audience that James and Suzy were trying to talk to it affected me. I found the appeals to
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emotions inspiring because to be an author and get straight to the point and be a little harsh with

facts about the things that people do. I trust what the authors are saying because one the Commented [yw8]: Good work in including the reference
to the audience appeals! However, it would good to
introduce these sooner rather than later.
background of what the authors do for their jobs and how they relate to the subject they talk

about. They also use other reliable articles to help support their points in their article. The article

is also from an Edu website which means is a pretty reliable source. Overall the article ends up

achieving James and Suzy’s purpose to bring awareness to the effects of livestock on our earth.
Commented [yw9]: You seem to bring closure somewhat
to this analysis in your conclusion, but I see a lot of
information here that could be fleshed out into another
couple of paragraphs, information such as your reference to
your audience appeals.
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Work Cited

Cameron, James, and Suzy Amis Cameron. "Animal agriculture is choking the Earth and making

us sick. We must act now." Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, Gale, 2019.

Opposing Viewpoints in Context,

http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/XVAROM852539391/OVIC?u=ucinc_main&sid=O

VIC&xid=1a1655c2. Accessed 16 Jan. 2019. Originally published as "Animal agriculture

is choking the Earth and making us sick. We must act now," Guardian, 4 Dec. 2017.

You bring out some very good points about the article; you also have some decent cited quotes that you use

for support; I made comments on these. I did not see hardly any connection to the rhetorical audience

appeals until I reached your concluding paragraph; your points need to be more developed and they need

to connect with the rhetorical audience appeals of logos, ethos, and pathos. Also, you need more quotes

from the article to support these points. You are a page short of your page length requirement, so you have

plenty of room to add these items. I made comments throughout; please let me know if you have questions

about these. Overall, the analysis looks interesting!

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Rubric

When grading your essay, I’ll be looking for the following as well as the standards of good writing set by the
English Department (on your syllabus):

Content/Ideas: __10__/15

 Well-chosen article
 Developed coverage of points from prewriting sheet (esp. logos, pathos, ethos)
 Clear thesis is well supported by evidence from the text
 Good understanding of the text and effective analysis
 Efficient use of direct quotes to prove thesis
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Organization: __15___/15

 Clearly states a thesis in the introduction and supports it with evidence from the text
 Introduction gets reader’s attention and makes him/her want to keep reading
 Persuades readers to agree with thesis
 Conclusion ties up loose ends and closes effectively
 Events flow together logically with good time transitions and cueing devices

Style: __10__/10

 Correctly formatted and cited quotes from the text

 Evidence of careful revision

Mechanics: __10___/10

 Interesting and correct word choice and sentence variety

 Correct punctuation, usage, MLA format, grammar, and spelling

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