Keyword Project: Rhetorical Rationale

1. Rhetorical Objective
What individual content areas did you cover, how, and why? Defend your coverage of each content area.
Were there any content areas you added and/or excluded (from those listed within the project prompt), and if
so, why? Defend the thinking behind your selection process.
How did you ensure that your content was conveyed appropriately and effectively considering your rhetorical
situation and audience (here you might think in terms of style)? Defend the way you couched your
information for your audience.
How did you ensure that your content was both well researched and informative considering your audience
and rhetorical situation? Defend the credibility of your content and the extent to which its informative.
How did you work to cultivate a credible ethos for yourself as the author of this text? Defend your appeals to
ethos. Defend the extent to which your text satisfies your rhetorical objective: to provide an thorough
understanding of your keyword that is informed by the work of those in the field of rhetoric and
composition and that is tailored to the audience of novice EWM students.

2. Audience Awareness
What type of voice did you adopt and why? How was this choice rhetorically appropriate considering your
rhetorical objective and audience?
o Put another way, how did you tailor your prose style in a way that aligns with your rhetorical
objective and is suitable for your audience? Defend your stylistic choices in light of your audience.
What other ways, if any, did you identify and address your audience? Defend the way you attended to your
audience.
How did you demonstrate the purpose and value of your text; that is, how did go about convincing your
audience that this text is valuable and worth reading given their position as first-year EWM students?
Defend the extent to which you made this text meaningful and purposeful for your audience.
Were the examples you used relevant for your audience (and did you make sure to unpack and explicate your
examples thoroughly)? Defend the appropriateness and effectiveness of your examples as well as your
treatment of your examples.

3. Genre Design/Layout
What genre did you work in, and why was this an appropriate choice considering your rhetorical objective and
audience? Were there other genres you were considering, and if so, why did you ultimately select the one
you did? Defend the selection and appropriateness of your genre.
What type of overarching design did you use and how did you ensure your design was appropriate and
effective for both your genre and audience (think about the four basic design principles: alignment,
proximity, contrast, repetition)? How did you use layout to evoke the particular genre you were working
within? Defend the soundness of your design and your layout in relation to genre.
How did you attend to typography, and how was your use of typography rhetorically appropriate? Defend
your use of typography.
How did you utilize white space effectively? Defend your use of white space.
What type of identity did you adopt while composing in this genre and how, if at all, was it different from the
one(s) you assume while composing in other genres?

4. Arrangement/Organization
What overarching organizational scheme did you use (i.e., how did you arrange the different content areas of
the text to create a cohesive whole), and why was this arrangement logical, appropriate, and effective
considering your rhetorical objective, audience, and genre? Defend your organization.
How did you arrange individual elements (e.g., titles, subtitles, written text, images, etc.)within different

Keyword Project: Rhetorical Rationale

content areas (or within different frames) to foster an ideal reading experience (think again about the four
basic design principles: alignment, proximity, contrast, repetition)?
Defend your arrangement of different content elements.
Did you forecast your organizational scheme for your audience? If so, why and how? If not, why? Defend the
extent to which you did or didnt preview this text for your audience.

5. Citation
Did you cite your sources properly; that is, both in the text (using parentheses or endnotes) and in a separate
Works Cited (or equivalent) area?
Did you make sure to cite all of the sources you used that werent yours, including images?
What, if anything, was difficult and/or confusing about the citation process?

6. Reflection
Sometimes, instructors forget to ask this: what did you learn from doing this project (about your keyword;
about composing; about rhetoric in general; about using a particular text-technology and/or genre; etc.)?
If you had more time or could re-do this project, what might you revise, change, and/or do differently?
In what way was this project similar to a traditional academic essay that would have asked you to explain the
keyword? In what ways was it different? Which do you prefer composing? Why?

7. Etc.
Did you run into any complications/limitations/problems with this project that you want me to know about?
Is there anything else you would like to tell me/explain to me about your project?