Revising General Conference Analysis

I'd like my students to return to the rhetorical analysis that each did of a General Conference speaker in order to formalize these analyses slightly: adding brief biographical background, standardizing format, and making some rhetorical adjustments.

Add Biographical Background

• Find and read biographical information about the speaker. Add to your analysis something from the speaker's general background or from his/her recent history that sheds light on the speaker's topics or rhetorical approach. You can find biographies of general authorities on LDS.org.  You might also, however, look up recent history of the speaker using their social media or via the LDS Church News archive. Don't make this a long addition to your analysis. Consider these examples:
  --"It's no surprise that Elder Packer would emphasize the scriptures, since he has been involved in developing the LDS editions of the scriptures and served for years in the church educational system teaching youth to study the scriptures..."
  --"Elder Oaks' sensitivity to other cultures may in part come from the fact that from 2002-04 he served as Area President in the Philippines."
  --"Because Elder Nelson remarried in 2006, it comes as no surprise that in 2008 he would speak so enthusiastically about marriage in General Conference."

Standardize

• Title (of post)
  The title should include the name of the person or persons whose speeches you analyzed, but not only that name. Give some sense of the analysis you are giving or some central trait of that speaker. Good example from Miranda: "Elder Neil A. Andersen Speaks to the Youth in their Language" or Ryan: "The Impassioned Pleas of Jeffrey R. Holland." DO NOT refer simply to a common topic or theme across the speeches. "Elder Neil A. Andersen on Following the Prophet" would not be a good title. "Contrastive Delivery Methods by Elder Neil A. Andersen" would be better.
• Title (of speaker)
  Out of respect for these speakers and their positions, please refer to them by their title in both the title and body of your post. Refer to them initially with their full name, and later by their title and last name. Never refer to them simply by their last name. Right: "Elder Quentin L. Cook's approach includes....Furthermore, Elder Cook communicates..."
• Speech Titles and Links
  Within the first paragraph of your post, please refer to the complete, official title of each speech you are analyzing, put the title of each talk in quotations, and make a hyperlink from that title to where this can be found on LDS.org. Name the conferences from which each speech comes (not "last conference" but "April 2014" or "Oct 2014"). Now that the actual titles are up on LDS.org for the October 2014 conference, please refer specifically to these. When linking, do not paste in the URL; select the title of the speech, click on "Link" and paste the URL there. In other words, it should look like this: In two of Elder Boyd K. Packer's speeches, "The Witness" (April 2014 and "The Reason for Our Hope" (Oct 2014)...
• Embed Video(s)
  Please embed the video of the October 2014 speech you analyzed, and the other speech if it is possible to do so. To do this, first find the speech on YouTube (not LDS.org). For all October 2014 conference talks, use this link to pull up the YouTube playlist. Scroll to the talk you analyzed, click on this, and then click on "share" below the playing video. Be sure to uncheck "share with playlist..." before copying the YouTube link for that video. Then, back in Blogger use the clapboard symbol and select "From YouTube" and paste in the link. Position the video toward the beginning of your post.

Rhetorical Adjustments:
I want my students to think "outside of the class" and to make their analyses comprehensible to those who do not share the common experiences of fellow class members or even of fellow church members. To do this, it will require:

• Depersonalizing. What are the general rhetorical traits you can identify that would be broadly effective, not just to you in your circumstances?
• Providing context for the occasion or the speaker.
• Adjusting audience (not assuming fellow Mormons, fellow BYU students, or fellow classmates)