Sydney Oyler

1. Rhetorical Knowledge:

Rhetorical knowledge is when the writer has the ability to analyze and act on how the

audiences will respond, the purposes, and contexts in creating and comprehending texts. This

first example is from a section in my thesis paper. I believe this is a good example because in the

beginning of this paragraph I provide the reader with the definition of what the superior temporal

gyrus is and I go on to explain how it connections with the information I provided. After I give

the facts, I give my opinion on the topic which connects the information back to the readers. The

readers have real opinions as well so by providing my opinion, I responded to the audience. The

whole real purpose of this section is so that it allows my readers to connect with by writing so

they dont get bored with what they are reading.

 Sydney Oyler

This next example is from my inquiry proposal. I added this as an example because in

this certain excerpt I gave the reader some background information about my topic. Some of it

was fact based and some of it was opinion based. By incorporating both aspects into this section

I was able to connect with my readers more than if I just presented facts. This also shows the

purpose aspect of rhetorical knowledge because its towards the beginning of my proposal. The

specific placement of this section introduces the purpose of my proposal and later my thesis to

the readers. It ties the whole section together.

 Sydney Oyler

2. Critical Reading:

This excerpt was from a homework assignment we were assigned to complete back early

in the semester on January 17th. In this reading it was an article about how a writing class should

go. I depicted the writing as the author wanted the readers to know that there should be more to a

writing class than just lessons on how to write. The author was trying to reach out to the public

and tell them that yes there should be skill work but there should also be lessons on becoming

better leaders. By reading this passage, I was able to decipher the implied impression that she

wanted students to get more from writing classes than what is provided now.
 Sydney Oyler

This is an example from a homework we were also assigned early into the semester on

January 19th. It was a passage in our course pack titled Memorial of the 5 Paragraph Essay:

Kevin Snodgrass. The passage talked about how the author was taught at a very young age to

write an essay using the five paragraph essay format. The way he wrote the passage though was

kind of confusing because he personified the five paragraph format and explained it to the reader

as if it were his friend. I had to critically read this passage to even understand the meaning in the

slightest because if I hadnt analyzed the passage, I never wouldve understood that the author

was trying to get the reader to understand that the five paragraph form is engraved in our brains.

Yes, it works in the beginning but as we grow older, we learn that there are other ways to write.
 Sydney Oyler

3. Knowledge of Conventions:

In class, we learned how important it was for us to know how to construct a well written

sentence. By doing so, we learned that run-on sentences were never good to include in your

writing. The example I have above is from my inquiry proposal showing how I used a semi-

colon. Semi-colons are used to breakup two complete thoughts that could be separate but make

more sense together.

Another example of my knowledge of conventions was when I was able to correction

demonstrate in text citations. The highlighted portion about is a question from my third annotated

bibliography. In MLA format, you must state the authors last name and the page number in

which you found the information on if it is available. In this case though, I had stated that the
 Sydney Oyler

author had said this quote in his book so there was no need for me to state his name in the

citation.

This last example of my knowledge of conventions is a small part of my works cited from

my final thesis project. The sole purpose of this example is to demonstrate that I was able to

learn how to correctly order my citations and how to get all the correct information to cite my

sources. A big part of this class was learning how to search for your sources to get enough

information to have a lot of content in the assignments. We were also assigned the task to make

sure all of our sources were creditable. In our annotated bibliographies we had to present the

background information of the sources to have proof of creditability.

 Sydney Oyler

4. Composing Processes:

This particular example is from the first draft of my thesis paper. During out conferences,

our peers added comments on what they thought we should add or approve upon on our papers.

The suggestion given here was that I should add more of my own voice by incorporating some of

the They Say, I Say templates. After this suggestion was given, in my second draft I went back

and added more of my own voice by agreeing with what the facts said. I do think this helped me

improve my paper because it allowed the reader to hear from me more than my original draft.
 Sydney Oyler

This next example is also from the first draft of my thesis paper. Since this was only my

first draft, I hadnt added all of my information to the paper yet and that was very noticeable,

especially to my professor. She commented on a specific section of my paper saying that she

would like to hear more about that topic. When writing my second draft, I took her suggestion

seriously and went back to my annotated bibliographies and analyzed my information. Once I

did that, I was able to add plenty of more information into the sections that were lacking. Once I

added the new information, I had a nice meaty paragraph that had a good balance of facts and

opinion.
 Sydney Oyler

This screenshot is a picture of my conclusion for my thesis paper. During the first stages

of editing, I had asked my peers to give me some ideas on how to sum up all the information I

had in my paper. Once they gave me a few points I was able to write this. When the second

round of peer editing came, they helped edit all the grammatical problems out and I had this final

finished product.

5. Critical Reflection:
 Sydney Oyler

The above reflections are from my final thesis that was the last big assignment we had to

complete this semester. In the first reflection, it was written before any of my peers had read my

first draft of the paper. I was mainly concerned about my citations, if the whole paper flowed

well together, and if I concluded the whole assignment well. I pointed those specific things out in

my first reflection because I really wanted my peers to look for those certain mistakes as they

were reading my paper. The second reflection came after I received feedback from the first draft

and after I made the correct changes as well as adding more information. When they edited the

second time, they were just as helpful as the first time if not more. This time of editing mainly

focused on the small grammatical errors. I believe reflecting on a paper that was as large as this

one was extremely helpful because it allowed me to see what I fixed in each step of the revising

process.
 Sydney Oyler

This reflection was from the inquire proposal assignment. This proposal was supposed to

be the introduction to our final thesis paper so we wrote it before we even started the other paper.

I reflected on how I found this paper difficult to complete because I wasnt that clear on the

instructions. It was the fact that we had to pick our own topic and how we had to make it broad

enough for us to later write at least seven to eight pages on the topic. I did state the fact that once

I finally picked my topic, I started my research and it helped that I actually enjoyed what I was

writing about, so it took me no time at all to write three pages.