This paper presents 25 example titles for rhetorical analysis essays, drawn from a wide range of subjects including literature, politics, media, religion, gender, and popular culture. Accompanied by brief introductory and concluding guidance, the collection illustrates how effective rhetorical analysis titles should be direct, clear, and specific — communicating the paper's subject and rhetorical focus upfront. The examples demonstrate how a well-crafted title can signal the rhetorical concepts under examination, the primary texts or contexts being analyzed, and the analytical angle the writer intends to take.
Rhetorical analysis essay titles should provide the reader with a full sense of the subject that will be explored in the paper. The title does not have to reveal everything, but it should at least communicate what the essay will be about. Titles that are ambiguous, vague, or intentionally mysterious should be avoided. The best approach to writing a title for this kind of paper is to be direct. The examples below illustrate this principle across a range of subjects and rhetorical approaches. For a broader overview of the field, see the Wikipedia article on rhetorical criticism.
The following titles cover literature, politics, media, religion, gender, and popular culture, demonstrating the wide range of topics that rhetorical analysis can address.
1. Shermer's Assumptions: How the Skeptic Fails to Make a Case by Neglecting to Evaluate His Own Presuppositions
2. How Fulton Sheen Combined Ethos, Pathos, and Bathos in His Work to Win Converts
3. The Rhetoric of the Left: How the Use of Politically Correct Discourse Discourages Debate
4. The Rhetoric of the Right: How the Appeal to American Exceptionalism Inhibits Constructive Self-Analysis
5. Melville's Letters to Hawthorne: The Rhetoric of Friendship and Faith
6. The Poor Use of Analogy in Judith Jarvis Thomson's Defense of Abortion
7. Rhetorical Abuses in the Documents of the Second Vatican Council
8. Aristotle on Rhetoric and What Lessons the Ancient Philosopher Could Teach Us Today
9. Workplace Rhetoric and the Rules for Engagement: A Case Study in How to Avoid Ruffling Feathers
10. "What You Do": The Rhetoric of Living and Partly Living in the Films of the Coen Brothers
11. The Rhetoric of Violence in Hip Hop and Cinema: Deconstructing Signs of Voyeuristic Masculinity
12. The Tragic Rhetoric of Shakespeare in Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet, and King Lear
13. The Vivid Use of Memes and Acronyms in Texting and Social Media Rhetoric
14. Commercialization of the Image and the Word: Sly Uses of Rhetoric in Marketing and Advertisement
15. Creating an Enemy in Modern Political Discourse: The Rhetoric of Government under Stalin's Soviet Union, Chairman Mao's China, and the Third Reich's Germany
16. The Symbols of Toxic Masculinity: How PC Perspectives Have Created New Gender Norms for the Upcoming Generation
17. "I Can't Breathe!": The Rhetorical Principles of Cultural Propaganda and Examples from Modern Society
18. "Too Big to Fail": The Justification of Bank Bailouts through the Rhetoric of Dependence
19. How the Court Used the Rhetoric of Racism in the Plessy v. Ferguson Decision to Uphold a "Separate But Equal" Clause
20. The Missionary Rhetoric of Religious Organizations in Africa and India: The Good News of Redemption vs. the Crusade-Minded Appeal of Social Justice
21. Losing the Plot: How TV Shows with Endless Story Arcs Reveal the Need for Solid Planning in the Writing and Development Stages
22. "Carthage Must Be Destroyed": The Rhetoric of Cato and the Drumbeats of War
23. The Myth of the Great War: How American Media Used Nationalistic Rhetoric to Promote and Justify a Century of Expansionism
24. Why It's All Fake News: Rhetorical Analysis of News Media in the 21st Century
25. The Rhetorical Red Herring of Fact-Checking and Blue Checks in Social Media
Several of these titles employ a colon-separated structure, a common academic convention that places the subject before the colon and the analytical focus after it. This is particularly evident in titles such as #5, #9, and #22. For context on the history and theory of rhetoric, Aristotle's foundational concepts of ethos, pathos, and logos remain central to most rhetorical analysis frameworks. Titles #2 and #8 draw directly on this classical tradition. Titles addressing political discourse — such as #3, #4, #15, and #24 — reflect the relevance of political rhetoric as a subject for academic analysis. Meanwhile, titles such as #13 and #25 engage with newer digital communication phenomena, illustrating how social media has become a legitimate site of rhetorical study.
Rhetorical analysis essay titles are most effective when they communicate the essence of the paper's topic to the reader. At the very least, they should express the parameters of the essay's subject. If the essay is about a work of literature, the title should give a sense of what specific issues in rhetoric the paper will focus on. The title is the best place to clarify upfront what the essay will examine, so the reader is not left in the dark. The more explicit the title, the better it will be. The author should take care to be direct, clear, unambiguous, and precise when crafting a title for a rhetorical analysis paper.
You’re 97% through this paper. Sign up to read the full paper.
Sign Up Now — Instant Access Already a member? Log inAlways verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.