What occasion gives rise to the need or opportunity for persuasion?What is the historical occasion that would give rise to the composition of this text?Who is the author/speaker? How does he or she establish ethos (personal credibility)? Does he/she come across as knowledgeable? fair? Does the speaker’s reputation convey a certain authority?What is his/her intention in speaking? To attack or defend?To exhort or dissuade from certain action?To praise or blame? To teach, to delight, or to persuade?Who makes up the audience? Who is the intended audience? What values does the audience hold that the author or speaker appeals to? Who have been or might be secondary audiences? Of this is a work of fiction, what is the nature of the audience within the fiction?What is the content of the message? Can you summarize the main idea? What are the principal lines of reasoning or kinds of arguments used? How does the author or speaker appeal to reason? to emotion?What is the form in which it is conveyed?
What is the structure of the communication; how is it arranged? What oral or literary genre is it following? What are figures of speech (schemes and tropes) used? What kind of style and tone is used and for what purpose?How do form and