Monday, February 15, 2010
Reflecting on your rhetorical analysis essay
Now that you’ve completed your rhetorical analysis essay, I would like to reflect on what you learned from writing it. That is, what was the most significant thing you learned about rhetoric by analyzing another writer’s persuasive strategies? More specifically, what did you do in your essay to demonstrate this knowledge? (Discuss a specific example.) Last, if you had to identify rhetorical strategy or term that you would like to learn more about or that still confuses you, what would it be?
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After writing my rhetorical analysis of David Harsanyi, I have gained new knowledge about writing styles, approaches and techniques. By taking the concepts from the book on the rhetorical situation and applying them to a writer I had familiarized myself with made for better understanding of each term. Certain concepts that were obvious but not defined before the reading and writing applied to this paper were kairos and specific aspects of logos such as the main/minor premise as well as ethos such as situated ethos. As I wrote this paper I realized I must use all the same techniques but in different ways than Harsanyi to convince my audience I knew what I was talking about. Bringing everything together in my own writing I believe came from my strengthened abilities as a reader.
ReplyDeleteThe most important thing i learned about rhetoric by analyzing another writer's persuasive strategy is how much more alive the piece of writing is and how strong and believable of an argument that it makes. Looking at the article as more than just words written by the writing but more in a rhetorical sense makes the article so much better and more interesting to read as a reader. I demonstrated my knowledge of rhetoric by providing examples of them in my rhetorical analysis paper. For example, to explain pathos, i pointed out the phrases of the author that made the reader feel guilty about a certain situation and make them feel like a bad person if they look the other way on an important issue. The rhetorical strategy that I would like to learn more about is commonplaces because it is still a little confusing to me. I would also like to learn more about pathos because it seems like a very strong strategy for authors to use to make their arguments stronger.
ReplyDeleteOk, so I didn't have a lot of confidence writing this. I've done the reading, read the terms, I just don't see "Rhetorical Analysis" as my favorite type of writing. It was hard to write three pages, let alone four, about a one page editorial. Maybe I chose the wrong prompt to pursue.
ReplyDeleteI learned a lot about building the argument with common places and allowing the reader to constantly relate the argument to things in their lives. I emphasized a lot about the common places in my paper.
I think I could learn a lot more about pathos. A lot of my writing draws upon working up emotions for the reader, and gaining full use of Pathos will undoubtedly strengthen my writing.
The most important thing that i learned about rhetoric by analyzing another writers persuasive strategies is that sometimes it is effective to not directly use one of the rhetorical tools. In the essay I read, the author didn't clearly use logic, or appeal to emmotions or any of that clearly. He kind of left it up to interpret what he was trying to say, liike you had to figure out what kind of appeal he was using, but he did use them. I thought that this was a differnt and effective way to go about it. I think to demonstrate this in my paper i explained how i had to read between the lines a little to figure out what the author was trying to say. I'm still a little confused on that extrinsic thing.
ReplyDeleteAfter writing this essay where I was required to analyze the rhetorical techniques, I learned how important it is to incorporate these skills into your writing. The art of rhetoric allows a reader to become more involved in the topic, and helps the writer figure out different ways to work on their persuasive skills. Common topics is a rhetorical strategy that I would still like to learn more about. I demonstrated my knowledge of these rhetorical terms in the paper by picking out specific instances of when they were used and how it added to the effectiveness of the author.
ReplyDeleteAnalyzing the persuasive strategies of another writer was very useful in understanding the terms of rhetoric. It’s one thing to read about the terms, but having to apply them to a piece of writing makes it significantly easier to understand what they mean. In my essay, I first analyzed what the pathos, ethos, logos, kairos, and common topics were, and then looked at how they each relate to one another. For example, I analyzed the ethos of the author and that made it easy to identify the audience to whom he is writing. For the most part I understood most all of the rhetorical strategies and terms; however, if I had to pick one to go over again, it would be logos. I’m not sure if my article used logos or if I jut had a difficult time identifying them.
ReplyDeleteWhile writing my rhetorical analysis essay, I never knew how much trouble I would have trying to put these terms into word. To define someone's argument was difficult but I was able to used pathos to identify someone's ethos and making it credible to her. What I probably learn most about writing this piece was that I was able to get a better understanding the ethos and how to find it in someone's article. For example, Tina Griego interviews her audience so she can seem her credible in about the news piece rather than placing her judgment on the topic.
ReplyDeleteI know Cohen's writing skill of rhtorical more specificly through the detailed analyzation of his article, which is that he used different hints instead of a huge amount of datas to show his authority and credibility.
ReplyDeleteI offered the examples of what he did in his article to show his skill. What confused me is that i still don't know how many ways totally can build the rhetorical and how to use different rhetorical ways in the different situations?
The most significant thing that I learned from analyzing another writer's persuasive strategies is that writers can use numerous ways to be persuasive in a single piece. In my essay I was able to cite several different areas of persuasion that were used in the same piece. The one rhetorical term that I would like to get a better understanding of is pathos because I could not find a lot of examples of that in my research for my essay.
ReplyDeleteI learned that there are countless of ways addressing a situation rhetorically, so that writing a chapter on rhetoric and picking out four terms was really difficult in terms of trying to cover everything. By looking at different writer’s works it allowed me to see how in every argument, different rhetorical situation put into use according to their needs. So the big idea of rhetoric was choosing the right one to compliment the argument, to enhance it. In my essay I took four rhetoric terms: kairos—to show the big picture, enargeia—emotional appeal, enthymemes—the reasoning side, and invented ethos—the product of the argument. I felt that these four terms were the basics of covering a rhetorical situation, starting with a general idea, to specific ways of analyzing, and finally the overall experience. Last, I think I’m getting common places and enthymeme mixed up, the differences and similarity between them.
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ReplyDeleteThis assignment allowed me to reflect on the complexities of rhetoric and of writing. In the article that I chose, the author - rather than write blandly and explicitly say that Sarah Palin is scheming to get rich off of the party she attempts to speak to - constructed a relationship between Sarah Palin and John Edwards, but more importantly, two individuals closely tied in with the two.
ReplyDeleteWhat's more, I learned the applications of commonplace. The author drew upon key ideas of his anticipated audience in developing the credibility of his argument. For example, it wouldn't have been enough for him to flat-out say that Sarah Palin is in it for the six-figure speaking engagements. Instead, he challenges the sincerity of her beliefs (or, rather, her statements) by appealing to her most astute followers. By using examples of notoriously conservative pundits and commentators who challenge her position - or the strength of her convictions - such as Glenn Beck, he is able to establish goodwill with the readers, rather than slamming her job as a governor or vice presidential candidate, or her ear-biting Alaskan accent like many of his colleagues.
I would like to learn more generally about the terms. I chose not to name-drop the terms (and that may translate to a lower grade on the assignment), but rather apply the concepts behind them. I would like to learn the separate terms and how they relate to the concepts I've discovered.
From this assignment I learned that in every piece of writing an author will use multiple rhetorical techniques but there will often emphasize one more than the others. My essay demonstraited the author's ability to weave the technique of pathos throughtout the piece to target the reader's emotions. I also learned about myself as a reader. I learned that when an author appeals to my emotions, I am more likely to be convinced than if they simply apeal to logos by giving me facts. It is important to emphasize different techniques depending on your audience. This assignment helped me to identitfy other's techniques as well as critique them.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite part of this essay was reading all of one writer’s columns and analyzing the writer. By the end of this assignment, I felt like I could already know what Krugman was going to write about and what his opinion would be just by the tittles of his pieces. I also liked reading the New York Times or Denver Post daily because I enjoy keeping up with current events. The paper itself I had trouble with: once I had all my quotes and ideas outlined, everything moved slowly. I ended up having a lot of trouble explaining/elaborating upon my analyses. I understand exactly how his use of different appeals affects his ethos as a writer, but I had a difficult time articulating this. I think I understand the different appeals quite well, but if I had to pick one that I understood the least it would be extrinsic proofs.
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