• Who is your audience? Write your essay for a reader who is an educated adult who is not as familiar with the text you are analyzing as you are.
• What is your purpose? To  summarize a public service announcement (PSA) and analyze how the PSA  aims to achieve its purpose with the target audience through an appeal  to either ethos, logos, or pathos.
• Which PSA will you analyze? You will analyze one of the following PSAs; you choose which: 
  • Gun Safety: End Family Fire
  • Ending Hunger: Teacher 
  • Caregiver Assistance: Your Hero Needs You

FORMAT

• How long should Essay 3 be? Essay  2 will be a minimum of four (4) paragraphs: an introductory paragraph, a  summary paragraph, a thoroughly developed rhetorical analysis paragraph  that follows the MEAL plan, and a concluding paragraph. Generally, an  effective MEAL plan paragraph for a rhetorical analysis will be 400-500  words long. The introductory paragraph can be accomplished in 100-150  words, maybe more. The summary paragraph can be accomplished in 150-250  words, considering the length of the letter. And the concluding  paragraph can be accomplished in around 100 words. This will make your  essay length about 750-1000 words, but you may write more.
• How should you format your essay? Use MLA format.
  

CONTENT

• What is required in the introductory paragraph?
   
  • Your opening paragraph should orient your readers to the who, what, where, when, and why of your text:
     
    • The PSA’s title
    • The PSA’s maker (see the organizations’ logos (as in logo, not logos) at the of the PSA)
      
    • The context surrounding the PSA: what problem has prompted the need for the PSA? 
      • You are welcome to find this information by going to the PSA’s campaign page on Ad Council.org; for instance, you can find the Caregiver Assistance page here. You will notice that the campaign page has stats to help you deliver the context. However, you must cite the page as your source, so use attributive tags as you do for summary writing.
  • Your opening paragraph should close with a thesis statement that is appropriate for a rhetorical analysis essay: 
    • Your thesis should reveal your  insight into one way the PSA attempts to achieve its purpose through a  specific aspect of one of the rhetorical appeals.
    • For example: The Gill  Foundation’s “Meet Jami & Krista” PSA aims to evoke sympathy in  viewers in order to raise awareness about how LGBT couples are  discriminated against.  
    • This thesis works as a  rhetorical analysis thesis because 1) it identifies the PSA’s purpose  and 2) it identifies one way the PSA uses a rhetorical appeal (pathos: sympathy) to achieve that purpose.