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RHETORICAL ANALYSIS
SAMPLE ESSAY
Harriet Clark
Ms. Rebecca Winter
CWC 101
13 Feb. 2015
Not Quite a Clean Sweep: Rhetorical Strategies in
Grose’s “Cleaning: The Final Feminist Frontier”
A woman’s work is never done: many American women grow up with this
saying and feel it to be true. One such woman, author Jessica Grose, wrote “Cleaning:
The Final Feminist Frontier,” published in 2013 in the New Republic, and she argues that
while the men in our lives recently started taking on more of the childcare and cooking,
cleaning still falls unfairly on women. Grose begins building her credibility with
personal facts and reputable sources, citing convincing facts and statistics, and
successfully employing emotional appeals; however, toward the end of the article, her
attempts to appeal to readers’ emotions weaken her credibility and ultimately, her
argument.
In her article, Grose first sets the stage by describing a specific scenario of house-
cleaning with her husband after being shut in during Hurricane Sandy, and then she
outlines the uneven distribution of cleaning work in her marriage and draws a comparison
to the larger feminist issue of who does the cleaning in a relationship. Grose continues
by discussing some of the reasons that men do not contribute to cleaning: the praise for a
clean house goes to the woman; advertising and media praise men’s cooking and
childcare, but not cleaning; and lastly, it is just not fun. Possible solutions to the problem,
Grose suggests, include making a chart of who does which chores, dividing up tasks
based on skill and ability, accepting a dirtier home, and making cleaning more fun with
gadgets.
Throughout her piece, Grose uses many strong sources that strengthen her
credibility and appeal to ethos, as well as build her argument. These sources include,
“sociologists Judith Treas and Tsui-o Tai,” “a 2008 study from the University of New
Hampshire,” and “P&G North America Fabric Care Brand Manager, Matthew Krehbiel”
(qtd. in Grose). Citing these sources boosts Grose’s credibility by showing that she has
Hook
Context
Article author’s
claim or purpose
Thesis
Summary of the
article’s main
points in the
second paragraph
(could also be in
the introduction)
Third paragraph
begins with a
transition and
topic sentence that
reflects the first
topic in the thesis
Quotes illustrate
how the author
uses appeals to
ethos