Rhetorical Analysis: The Microsoft Annual Report 2019
Link: https://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar19/index.html
This report from Microsoft Company is addressed to the organization’s shareholders, partners, and customers. It entails the overall operations and performance of Microsoft corporation for the fiscal year 2019. On this basis, this paper discusses the report’s authors’ use of rhetoric with close emphasis paid on the rhetorical strategies used and the effectiveness of the strategies.
The rhetorical strategies used by the authors, in this case, to present their message to the audience are various. First, there is the page layout strategy. The report excellently uses space of the report’s pages whereby no space is left unattended since information is evenly spread throughout the pages. Another point worth noting is that the various objects on the report, which include texts, financial news, and images, are situated so that it is easy to read and visualize them (Microsoft, 2019). White Space is also utilized throughout the report to separate the numerous text paragraphs and make the report look less crowded.
Text is the next rhetorical strategy. The report is designed so that the average words per page are estimated to be around three hundred. Besides, the texts are relatively easy to read thanks to the font size, which is big enough for visibility purposes (Microsoft, 2019). However, the language used in the text is quite complicated. It is related to the corporate world of business, meaning that individuals familiar with this world would have an easy time reading it. At the same time, the vice versa is also true. The whole report being about how Microsoft Corporation progressed in the financial year 2018-19, the connotations behind the words being implied by the authors was that the financial year was a success for the company whereby the firm had generated more revenue than the previous years. It is also a fact that the text had an underlying political meaning whereby the issues on tax and jobs Act was mentioned, which put the corporation in a position of uncertainty on various concerns with the specific quote being “On December 22, 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (“TCJA”) was enacted into law, which significantly changed existing U.S. tax law and included numerous provisions that affect our business” (Microsoft, 2019). With that aside, the author also used a style whereby the sentences throughout the report were very long while the paragraphs were relatively short.
The final rhetorical strategy used was the visuals. Although this strategy was not used throughout the report, it bore some significance in terms of rhetoric. The images included in the report were that of two individuals engaged in a teleconference on the report’s cover page, followed by the picture of Satya Nadella, the Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft Corporation. The author selected the first image on the cover page to illustrate what Microsoft corporation was all about: enhancing existing technologies with the sole objective of modernization. The CEO’s second image was selected to demonstrate the authority behind the organization, making the particular statement of the one responsible for ensuring that everything is in place and running smoothly within Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft, 2019). The final image was that of the CEO’s signature to confirm the report’s validity and credibility. This being the case, the report’s pictures make it to a certain extent relatively more straightforward for individuals to understand the report.
These three strategies put in place have different effectiveness levels. First, the rhetorical strategies that can be seen as working well are the page layout and text strategies. These strategies work well because the report quickly catches the eye of the individual going through it. Its layout enables the reader to view the information posted without any difficulties. The text fonts and styles allow the reader to swiftly catch the key points presented in the report for synthesis. But perhaps what is worth noting is that these two strategies make the report stand out. This can easily be distinguished as a professional report that is of utmost importance.
The figures to indicate the financial performance of Microsoft Corporation in the report are drafted in a vertical format to clearly depict the figures, thus avoiding any form of misinterpretation whatsoever. The text is also used to back up the figures presented. A good example being the text “in millions” (Microsoft, 2019), to indicate that the statistics being displayed are in millions. However, what seems unnecessary or ineffective in this case is the rhetorical strategy of visuals. This is because of all the three visuals used; the only one deemed useful is the CEO’s signature, which ensures the report’s validity and credibility. The remaining two are ineffective and do not directly pass any connotations of the reports.