Explain what kind of audience does the author address
A. Claims
(1) What is the author’s main claim (thesis)? Is it clearly stated fairly early in the essay?Does the thesis reflect the purpose of the essay?
(2) What are his subsidiary claims (minor points) or the claims that he uses to support his main claim? Are they clear and valid? Are they related to the main claim?
B. Evidence
(1) What kind of evidence does the author use? (e.g., facts, statistics, examples, personal experience, expert testimony, analogy, etc.)
(2) Is the evidence sufficient, specific, relevant, and convincing?
C. Audience
(1) What kind of audience does the author address? Is it general, specific, academic, etc.?What are his assumptions of the audience?
(2) Does he effectively address the audience? Does he close the gaps between you, as audience, and himself, as writer?
D. Tone
(1) What is the author’s tone or voice? How does he seem to feel about the topic? Is itacademic, persuasive, informal, sarcastic, informative, optimistic, etc.?
(2) How do you know? What context clues, word choice, or emphasis reveals this tone to you? How does it contribute to the argument?
E. Organization
(1) How is the text organized? Does the author use attention getters/hooks, headings, subheadings, counterargument, rebuttal, graphs, questions, conclusions, etc.?
(2) Is the organization effective? Is it logical, chronological, confusing, creative, etc.?
F. Do they present an opposing point of view?
