Reflection on Project 2

In this blog post I will reflect on Project 2 by answering the provided questions from Writing Public Lives page 520.

jeff_golden, "Trippy Spoon." 5/19/2015 via Flickr. Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic

•  What was specifically revised from one draft to another?

The major changes between my first draft and the drafts that followed were within my introduction and conclusion. After discussing introductions in class, I altered my intro to include a grabber and to explicitly forecast the purpose of my writing, which shows my audience why they should want to continue reading my essay. My conclusion was also changed dramatically. After my first draft, I realized I needed to stop summarizing and repeating earlier stated ideas and actually give my concluding paragraph a purpose. I did this by briefly restating my thesis and then focusing the rest of the paragraph on answering the "so what" of my paper.

• Point to global changes: how did you reconsider your thesis or organization?

The main problem that the first draft of my thesis was that it didn't contain an argument. I definitely portrayed how I intended to deconstruct my chosen text and what strategies my author used, however I never stated my opinion of whether or not the strategies used within the text benefitted the author's overall argument.

• What led you to these changes? A reconsideration of audience? A shift in purpose?

This change to my thesis was crucial to successfully performing an rhetorical analysis as a whole, because an argument in one's thesis, not supporting or refuting the author's opinion but the way that his or her argument is constructed, is an extremely necessary part of creating a rhetorical analysis. The overall purpose of a rhetorical analysis is to make an arguments about the text as a whole, rather than just summarizing the strategies that the author employs.

• How did the changes affect your credibility as an author?

After making this change to my thesis my credibility as an author was definitely improved. The addition of my opinion about the effectiveness of the author's argument, whether my readers agree or not, shows that I am willing to assert my thoughts, even though people may disagree. When an author does not assert an opinion in his or her thesis and appears to stay on the fence about the effectiveness of the text's argument, it makes it seem like that writer lacks confidence in their thoughts and views, which would therefore make readers skeptical of whether or not that essay can be trusted. 

• How will the changes better address the audience of venue?

In addition to properly fulfilling the purpose of writing a rhetorical analysis, I also made this change out of consideration for my audience. My readers, fellow business students, need to be aware of how a correct thesis is composed for a rhetorical analysis, so that they can be able to successfully create their own thesis and argumentative analysis in the future. 

• Point to local changes: how did you reconsider sentence structure and style?

In my many drafts I reconsidered my sentence structure in regards to the complexity of my sentences. I made a conscious effort to simplify my sentence structure. I also tried to achieve an assertive, but still believable style in my writing.

• How will these changes assist your audience in understanding your purpose?

These changes will assist my audience my audience a lot in understanding my purpose. Having simpler sentences and a powerful but not too aggressive tone will show my audience that in a rhetorical analysis an author must be direct about his or her opinions, but must also not seem biased or overly opinionated about the stance that the original text took on the issue. Improving these aspects of my writing helped to clear up any ambiguity that my readers would have initially sensed in the purpose of my essay.

• Did you have to reconsider the conventions of the particular genre in which you are writing?

I have never really performed a rhetorical analysis of this kind before. Thus, rather than reconsidering the conventions of this genre while writing my own essay, I just had to remind myself of the correct ways to go about creating a rhetorical analysis that were clearly stated during class and in the readings that I had to do for the many deadlines within this project.

• How does the process of reflection help you reconsider your identity as a writer?

This reflection process has definitely made me reconsider the way that I identify myself as a writer. At the beginning of the semester, I considered myself to be a writer who focused primarily on planning and not so much on revision. However, I now realize that the revision process is just as important to the success of a piece of writing that I produce, than the planning portion of my approach to writing. I used to underestimate the importance of revision, because I was never really forced to look over and re-work my essays as I am required to do now. But I am now able to see that although performing good revision can be tough and time consuming, it is indeed a worthwhile task in the long run.

Reflection:

I could really relate a lot to the "Reflection on Project 2" posts by Addie and Sam. We all felt that including a true argument in our theses and clearly stating whether or not out authors effectively used rhetorical strategies within their writing was crucial, in order to properly fulfill the needs of a rhetorical analysis. Sam specifically mentioned how this project/ reflection made him realize that he can identify himself as a writer who is willing to throw out large portions of his writing. This part of his reflection really appealed to me because it reminded me of how hesitant and annoyed I was by the idea of totally getting rid of my intro and conclusion, earlier in this module. However, I now see that re-doing these paragraphs, despite my initial resistance, was really effective in the long run.