A look back at Leff and McGee: Close textual analysis and the link between theory and rhetorical artifact

The essay explores a new method of close textual analysis—one that neither applies common theoretical frameworks to a rhetorical artifact nor abandons theory entirely. It compares and contrasts the ideas of Michael Leff and Michael McGee and supports a method that merges the two camps. The essay argues that a solely deductive approach to rhetorical criticism, which merely imposes theory on a textual object, is not a practical approach for extracting valuable insights from a text. Conversely, Leff’s essentially atheoretical approach to the close reading of texts is overly systematic and somewhat monotonous. The essay supports the idea that textual analysis should examine the implicit microfeatures of discourse and therefore uses the Unabomber Manifesto as an abbreviated case study for illustrating a process of close reading that utilizes theory in a more inductive manner.