Rhetorical Analysis 

Alicia Roberts in her project proposal, “Mental Health Awareness and Stigma” 
(2019), proposes a solution for mental illness treatment and mental health stigma. 
Roberts’ purpose is to supply a simple and easy solution that allows those who face 
mental illnesses to feel accepted and cared for in society. She adopts a sophisticated 
and professional tone in order to gain trust and credibility in her audience of teenagers, 
adults, and all people who are influenced by mental illness.  
Roberts opens her proposal by addressing the issue of mental health using 
powerful statistics and imagery to encourage the reader to agree with what she 
proposes. She appeals to the logical and educated side of her audience by using 
statistics of those including, “One in five people will suffer with a mental illness in their 
lifetime” (1) and appeals to the audience’s sense of empathy and kindness in this 
statement of imagery: “The members of our society see mental illness as the man in the 
mental asylum ot the drug addict on the corner; however, mental illnesses are usually 
only seen by the beholder” (1). She emphasizes the importance of mental health in order 
to persuade her audience into feeling as strongly about mental health as she is. The 
author’s logical and visual representation of mental health allows the reader to slowly 
take in all the information later in the proposal.  
The author shifts to her overview of the effect of mental health by using personal 
anecdotes, charts, and diagrams to influence her audience. She gains the trust of her 
audience by supplying a personal example of mental illness in her own life and how it 
affects her life choices: “Many members of my family are alcoholics, a form of substance 
abuse. This causes me to be at a higher risk of becoming an alcoholic than someone 
who has no family members that are alcoholics” (2). Roberts then uses charts and 
diagrams to establish a sense of sophistication; charts and diagrams included are those 
that show brain scans of different mental illnesses and one showing the development of 
the brain over five years of someone who has schizophrenia. She supplies a personal 
anecdote in order to allow the reader to know that she has personal experience with 
mental illness and supplies charts and diagrams so the readers know that she is 
professional in her research.  
Roberts moves to her solution and appeals to our emotions and supplies historical 
and scientific facts and examples. She appeals to our feelings of disgust and sadness 
when she describes the inhumane treatment those mentally ill faced throughout the 16-19 
century: “Throughout the 16th century, those with mental illness were treated like 
animals. They were sent to asylums and put into terrible conditions. They were chained 
to walls, gyrated, subjected to blood-letting, and strapped to tranquilizer chairs” (4). She 
then provides an example of a solution for mental illness in the 1800s that allows us to 
see that change is possible: “[Dorothea Dix} assisted in the establishment of over 30 
mental hospitals that have proper living conditions and medical practices. This led to 
movement fighting for mental health awareness and improved the well-being of those 
affected by mental illness”(4). As her final piece of evidence, she supplies scientific steps 
that can be taken to improve mental illness treatment found in an article by the National 
Institute of Mental Health: “[A] step of precaution are genome scans and genetic testing. 
The more people participate, the more accurate the results will be. What these tests do, 
is they predict your probability of a mental illness thought a DNA sample” (4). The 
author’s use of appealing to our saddened emotions and then supplying accurate 
statistics and examples, encourages the reader to empathise with mental illness 
treatment and join her cause.  
The author concludes her proposal by providing a final heartstring-tugging 
example and a call to action that provides a strong, final statement enough for any 
audience. She tugs our heart strings with a powerful statement: “The cost of living with a 
mental illness is not a concern of money. It’s a concern for quality of life. Mental illness 
confines people to their homes and minds, and it leaves them feeling weak and unable to 
get better” (5). This statement causes the reader to sympathize with mental illness and 
to take action. Roberts’ final statement is an inspiring call to action: “It is unimaginable 
what good could come from this [solution] for acceptance of other minorities like LGBT 
and what our new-and-improved would look like, but it sure looks great” (5).