Rhetorical Analysis Of William Williams Article

Williams’s article is written in a subjective viewpoint. His audience for this particular journal entry is towards other educators, as he himself is also a writing professor at a university. Because of the author’s educational background, he can use his own experiences to address issues with teaching methodology in writing. Williams begins his article with a quote from an unidentified individual whom he met at a conference: “I’m not so sure that an academic journal should be focusing so much on identity when what we’re supposed to be doing is teaching academic literacy” (710). With this introduction, Williams is able to address the common stigma he has come across throughout his career as a writing educator. His experiences give him credibility because they are a form of factual information, also known as ethos.

Then, Williams uses literary examples from other authors to solidify his claim that identity is present in all academic writing. The author paraphrases from the book Local literacies: Reading and writing in one community, written by D. Barton and M. Hamilton. Williams states, “[W]hat distinguishes academic writing from other genres, these writers would argue, is not that it is more worthy, closer to the truth, or more analytical but that it reproduces the discourse of a particular social class and institution” (711). This passage suggests that any subject matter a person chooses to write about is based off of the person’s own culture. Even without disclosing personal information, an author of any academic writing piece reveals a small part of themselves (Williams 715). Williams deliberately references a novel written by liable writers to further support his claim; By using other distinguished people’s claims to support his own, he gives the impression that these authors would confirm with his