Rhetorical Analysis Reflection

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Authors say things but what are they really trying to say? Evelyn, by Carol guess, is an essay based on a deaf elderly woman who meets one of her neighbors. Her neighbor is the only person who she interacts with, she is a loner. At the end of the story, Evelyn develops a common health problem in elderly people, dementia. Salvage, by Beth Ann Finnelly, is an essay about Beth’s father-in-law.

The first section of your syllabus entitled “What We’re Doing in This Course, and Why” intrigued me. Specifically, due to its mention of the concept of rhetorical thinking being used to figure out what to say and how to say it. To me, this section encompasses all disciplines who tend to use different words to describe how you present an argument both in a correct and incorrect manner (framing, bias, logical fallacies ect.). I’m interested to see how different disciplines utilize this skill from simply being as bland and logical as possible such as in a scientific paper, or to making an effort to persuade an audience in a speech such as in a debate.

Looking back at my past papers, I decided to do revise my Textual Rhetorical Analysis. I came to this decision when I noticed how weak my introductory paragraph was. I then noticed that there were other areas that I could improve on within my Textual Rhetorical Analysis. The first thing I changed was my title. Although my title gave a nice introduction to what my essay was going to be about, I thought it needed to be more intriguing.

The piece of writing I am using for my rhetorical analysis is Mother Tongue by the famous author Amy Tan. Amy Tan is the author of such books as The Joy Luck Club. Mother Tongue was originally published in 1990 by the Sandra Dijsktra Literary Agency. Then was reprinted in Everything is an Argument with readings, by Lunsford, Ruszkiewicz, and Walters. The text book was published by Bedford/ St. Martin’s in 2013.

For my rhetoric analysis of "On the Plate" by Toby Morris, I learned to thoroughly summarize his main points of his comic strip and was able to identify the purpose of his text. By doing this I was able to inform and allow my readers to think critically about the topic of privileges. While analyzing my paper I made sure to include many rhetorical devices that the author used to help strengthen my analysis paper. When looking for the rhetorical devices, I wrote a journal that helped me brainstorm ideas on how the author wanted his audience to react. Some of the devices he used was how he structured his comic strip to help his readers view it clearly and can still understand it easily.

The rhetorical analysis uses strategies for readers to point out the author’s main statements or arguments, that are written in their article or book, which can be more helpful for a better understanding. In Goode’s article, “More in College Seek Help For Psychological Problems,” she used a mixture of process analysis, cause and effect, logos, and ethos, which resulted in a outstanding article in the field of mental health. By using these strategies, Goode had accomplished of spreading the awareness of depression, stress, and high levels of anxiety among university students, and stopped the stigma of mental health, which produces a higher rate of graduates. The implication of my analysis was to recognize the message of Goode’s article and observe the use of strategies that were given in the rhetorical analysis. I gained the experience of writing a professional document, since I know the strategies of knowing if an article or text is a reliable source, which can be very useful in my other classes.

Politicians call for missile defense projects. Many defense projects have failed and cost not only the government but taxpayers over 50 billion dollars. Lee Fang, a writer for The Intercept, shows how ineffective these programs have been in the past. The persuasiveness of Lee's argument in his article “Politicians Use North Korea H-Bomb Fears to Pitch Wasteful Missile Defense Projects” is based on a logical approach using facts, (logos), an emotion approach trying to rally us up (pathos), and on his credibility and the creditability of his sources (ethos). Lee's appeal to our logical (logos) side is based on facts.

When registering for this class, a wave of worry ran through me, because I had minimal skill when it came to writing, particularly in the field of formal writing. The high school I attended was academically poor, we never wrote formal papers, just informal book and movie responses. Therefore I was apprehensive about this class. This course was quite intricate, but I attend skills that will aid me for the rest of my academic career. Rhetorical knowledge, critical inquiry, process, and conventions are all concepts I have acquired.

The in class proofreading sessions have really helped me understand just what areas of my paper that I either need to look at again or where I am lacking in support. Overall, these were a few of the things that I struggled with while writing my visual rhetorical

Writing a rhetorical analysis on a specific text is something that I have never had to do before in prior classes, so when I found out that I had to write an entire paper on a rhetorical analysis on a text of my choosing I was a little worried. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to give lengthy and accurate descriptions at a college level. Once I read in the textbook what a rhetorical analysis exactly was, my worry was overcome with ease to say the least. I decided to do my analysis on a speech written by one the most inspiring people in my life Gloria Steinem. Gloria Steinem is an American feminist and social political activist who wrote an article in the New York TImes “ After Black Power, Women’s Liberation” which brought her fame as

The piece of writing which I felt was unsuccessful for me was the Rhetorical Analysis of an article relating to a topic from our course book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. This piece of writing was difficult for me to organize my ideas around. The article that I decided to use for my rhetorical analysis highlighted mass incarceration among African American and the effect of civil liberties being are taken away from these individuals. I had a lot of repetition because many of the examples I used demonstrated more than one type of appeal. I found myself repeating what the purpose of the example was and how it demonstrated proper use of ethos, pathos, and logos.

This article is talking about human trafficking in Cambodia and Myanmar centered in south East Asia off the boarder of Thailand. It broadens the horizon for human trafficking in the aspects that it is not only sex trafficking that is occurring, but also labor trafficking and trafficking of human beings for body parts. I plan to use this article in my essay to broaden the horizon of human trafficking and to link human trafficking back to slavery. Quoting from the author he/she states “Captives from Myanmar and Cambodia are sold to captains on Thai fishing boats to work for months or even years on the boats with little or no payment, with long working days up to 20 hours a day under grave conditions.” The author of this article uses diction such

For example, I intended to discuss both negative and positive possible interpretations of the Brecht quote, and indicated as much, until that intention was entirely ignored in favor of finishing the essay. Although that is simply an issue of time, it is important to know what is prudent to include in a paper and what is not, especially in a timed setting. Also due to the timed setting was the problem of messy and inefficient sentence structure, which is something I attempt to keep high standards for. The inability to think out word choice before writing led to repetition and awkward word

I feared criticism because I was not at home with myself. Now that I am at home with myself and my new environment, I am able to give better feedback to my peers. When reading others work I no longer fear hurting their feelings, but I help them by suggesting changes that I would make to my own work. Moving to Athens has been a huge step in my life, an introduction to the rest of my life. Ironically, when editing my papers the first thing I revise is my introduction.

Major assignments -Work Projects- taught me how to write essays and include employed academic documentation (MLA). In this course, I’ve completed various reading assignments, did independent analytical thinking about what I’ve read, participate in discussions on what I’ve read, write about what I’ve read, and carry out research, this emphasis on reading was to show the importance of critical reading, and how it is going to benefit my studies. Understanding this academic essay structure, the use of rhetorical strategies in essay writing, writing a summary, formulating a thesis, and writing essays using rhetorical strategies. All these skills were the fruit of researching and