Introduction:

Thus far in Writing 39B, we have focused on four major points to help us improve our writing
skills which includes rhetoric, genre, revision, and transfer. These topics have been taught through
class discussions, as well as out of class assignments which ranged from doing rhetorical analysis on
music videos, to finding the small differences between mediums. Combined, these two areas honed
my knowledge of the four major points to the point which I am able to clearly define them, as well
identify their application in my rhetorical analysis, and rhetoric in practice project. My RA paper topic
analyzed the effect that medium has on the rhetorical message by comparing the David Foster
Wallaces commencement speech for Kenyon college to that of This is Water book and video. This
paper can be found in the link (here). I produced an infomercial as the creative segment of the RIP
project, and then later analyzed the rhetoric that I constructed within the video. These projects,
although better than my previous works from high school, still had room for improvements but were
still able to illustrate my understanding of the subjects taught within the course. The next sections will
cover each of the points, their application, as well as my own observations of how they could have
been better applied to my work.

Rhetoric:
Fundamentally, rhetoric is the art of persuasion. Persuasion is to mentally, not physically,
move a person from one position to another. Simply put it is convincing someone else and affect
them in a certain way. Rhetoric is broken into five subsections: invention, arrangement, style,
memory, and delivery. For this class we only focused on the first three since the last two only apply to
speeches. All rhetoric begins with the invention, which is thinking about what there is to say about the
topic, also known as brainstorming. This part is vital because it allows the rhetor to see if there is an
argument that can be made and supported with evidence. Arrangement comes next and is the
organization phase of thought to determine if the ideas are viable enough to use as evidence for
arguments, as well as figure out an order to present the information in. Finally is the style, this
changes the language to fit the conventions of wherever the message is being presented and is
closely associated with genre which will be covered in a later section.
The understanding of rhetoric is important because we are never not in a rhetorical situation.
The significance of rhetoric can be as trivial as getting a person to smile at you, or as substantial as
winning a presidential elections. Therefore, merely knowing what rhetoric is and realizing that rhetoric
is present everywhere is not sufficient enough. Rhetorical analysis allows more critical thought to
occur, and exposes when someone is trying to persuade you of something. Analysis begins with
Aristotles triangle which presents ethos, logos, and pathos as the cornerstone of rhetoric, and is put
simply into an english question of Who(ethos)is persuading whom(pathos)of what(logos)and
how(method)?.
The ethos or who is whoever the persuader is. It is whatever role they take on in that moment and
the qualitative review of the ethics, persona, and credibility of said person. Next is pathos or whom
which is the way the message is received in terms of the emotional state or reaction to the message.
Pathos is strongly influenced by the genre which will be covered next. Lastly is logos or what
which is understanding if the argument makes sense or not based off the evidence provided. All of
these pieces put together become the message being conveyed by the rhetor.
We did a very clear analysis of Horaces Odes as well as Pitbulls Give me Everything Tonight
music video, which went word by word, scene by scene to fully analyze the meanings. These analysis
can be viewed here:
 Rhetorical analysis was vital to my RA paper since each section compared the analysis of
each adaptation to each other. I often focused heavily on the ethos aspect of the analysis since my
thesis was Each medium version was created by different parties that extended their own intentions
through their words, thus altering the message. Understanding the who helped isolate the different
intentions and thus lead to a clear contrasts in messages. The use of secondary sources also works
in my favor to bolster the ethos of my message since I lack a substantial amount of credibility as a
student. I also compared context of each of the adaptations which can greatly affect the message of
the speech. Wallace was giving a commencement speech, the book came shortly after his death, and
the video was posted when the company was still small. The invention process of my RIP project was
essentially reverse rhetorical analysis to construct methods to create a more persuasive commercial.
I also gained inspiration from analyzing similar commercials like Snuggie, or EZ moves to figure out I
arranged The arrangement was simple because I followed the general guidelines of other
infomercials to organize kinds of scenes should be added or excluded from my video. The style of it
was informative without being cinematic like other commercials because that is the convention of the
infomercial which will be discussed in depth in the next section Genre. Both my works do well with
evidence (invention) and creating logical connections (logos) but mainly my RA suffered from a lack
of proper arrangement. If I could go back and revise my focus would be to organize my thoughts
better so that the reading feels smooth and the message remains clear throughout the paper. I would
expand more on topics like how a general speech compares to that of a book, and back it with a cited
source. I would also break my thoughts into paragraphs to help the reader transition from evidence to
evidence. My RIP on the other hand was near perfect with each scene having a significant affect on
some part of rhetoric. I arranged my video by creating a storyboard to organize my thoughts and
visualize the information that would be conveyed in the end product, this can be found (here). The
document to find the rhetorical analysis of my video can be found (here). The analysis could have
gone more in-depth on the affect that the music had on the rhetoric but overall it encompassed almost
everything I wanted to say.
Genre:
Professor Tae Sung defines genre as machine which raises and manages audience
expectations while the Anteaters Guide to Writing and Rhetoric defines it as, ...a way to see sets of
relations, in that they help us define different social situations and organize them so that we know
how those situations work; moreover, they help us to understand how we ourselves fit in(16).
Understanding the genre is vital to a rhetor because it allows one to gauge a situation and adjust
accordingly to those preset conventions. These expectations aid the audience in understanding the
message more clearly because they will better understand something they are expecting. One
example from our course is literature that falls within the realm of the carpe diem genre which
normally follows a conventional idea that has a negative view of time and the divine which therefore
leads to a life spent pursuing pleasures. Other good examples of genre is speeches compared to
music video which one obviously has music while the other does not. The addition of lyrical music
would not be the appropriate style as stated in the rhetoric section, but also detract from the normal
conventions of a speech. The ability work within a genre is vital because the deviation from
convention is obvious to the audience which could be devastating to the speaker and the message.
This reaction can be seen when viewing the speeches given by Steve Jobs to that of David Foster
Wallace. Jobs followed the generic conventions of a speech while Wallace broke away from the
conventions, leaving the audience, at least me, slightly uncomfortable since my expectations were not
met. The awareness of genre can be applied to all rhetorical situations, which is every situation, to
figure out what kind of pathos, or audience, you are working with. By knowing the audience also helps
the rhetor understand what kind of ethos and style is best suited to convey a message to the
audience. To best understand the importance of proper style, imagine if a professor wrote a book for
children the same way they did for graduate students, the message would simply not be received by
the youths! Genre is not restricted to style of work, but also to the medium of that the work is
portrayed through. As stated before my paper was on the topic of comparing mediums and their
messages, so surprisingly enough my knowledge of genre was applied to my RA as well. Speeches,
books, and videos all have their own conventions which deem the successful or not, thus placing
them within the realm of genre. For example in my paper I wrote, According to John Coleman of
Harvard Business Review, the average speed for speaking is about 150 words per minute meaning
that a one thousand word speech would take about seven minutes, therefore words need to be
deliberate and concise to hold the attention of the audience or else they would get bored. This
sentenced identified of the conventions of speech which restricts the rhetor from being too wordy and
boring his audience. The difference between the speech and book restrictions can be seen in my
annotated This is Water where I marked all the changes.
 I employed my knowledge of genre further by understanding the audience of my paper which
is the entire academic community. This lead me to write more formally, and clearly so that my ideas
are received the way I intended to. In my paper I could have written about how the conventions of
each medium fundamentally changed the message also regardless of the characters involved.
My understanding of genre also influenced the way I approached producing the Wingman
Infomercial. I understood the genre called for upbeat music, exaggerated details and uses for the
product, happy actors, and within two roughly two minutes. I learned of these conventions by
watching other videos that are labeled under that genre such as snuggie, ez-moves, and oxiclean.
Anything outside of these conventions would leave the audience guessing what they are watching.

Revision:
The third major focus of the class is revision, which is the review and alteration of previous
drafts due to personal or peer feedback. Revision is the finishing touch to a complete work, because it
rids the paper of random information and small mistakes. It allows the writer to take a step back and
review their own work to make sure the words put down are the ones that were intended to begin
with. Peer edits are equally, if not more important because others might see mistakes which the writer
was blind to, as well as provide tips to the improve the flow and clarity of the message. Edits can be
as small as added punctuation to as large as whole paragraphs being rewritten if it missed the point
of the thesis. We had a lot of time to review in class with peers as well as checkpoints as
assignments to revise our own work. For my own work, I started with section 1 without any planning,
and ended up discarding that one completely because it had no clear path. Next I outlined my paper
into two sections. I worked until I was halfway done, but I emailed Professor Sung to verify that I was
headed in the right direction. Unfortunately, he and Brandon, my friend from class, advised me to split
it into three sections instead of two. I canned my first draft completely which can be found (here), and
restarted from scratch once again. Luckily I had Brandon comment on it before I threw it to the side
and used comments from my previous papers to create more solid arguments for the final paper.

If I were to have one more day I would have many more of my peers revise my paper another
time to help the flow of my work, to fix grammar mistakes, as well as allow me to learn. I would revise
over and over again until I was fully satisfied which I sadly couldnt do previously due to other
deadlines coming up.

My RIP had a very different revision stages. I began my project thinking about going the route
of a PSA but ended up choosing the infomercial because I felt there were more examples to
reference and get a clear set of conventions. I also got feedback to get upbeat music rather than
adventurous music from my classmates since they consistently heard upbeat music in all the
reference commercials. The first draft of my analysis paper for the RIP project was also completely
discarded because I did not like the way I structured it.The first draft can be found (here). I originally
went scene by scene analyzing what was in each one but then switched to a format which I discussed
different parts that affected rhetoric in their own sections like music, actors, visuals, etc.
Transfer:
The knowledge I have gained in this class has improved my written clarity, as well as my ability
to think critically. I have learned skills like invention, arrangement, and revision to improve my writing
regardless of the style, which I can apply to my technical reports as an engineer. My favorite part of
this class has been learning about rhetoric, because of its broad application as a critical thinking and
social tool. A common phrase is knowing is half the battle, so therefore fully understanding rhetorical
analysis is half the battle. The only thing left to do is apply it. so therefore all I need to do now is
apply my knowledge. Fortunately for me, we get to do a rhetoric in practice project up next where I
will become the who in the analysis. I will then have to reverse the entire situation and figure out to
whom am I persuading of what and how will I do so. Skills and knowledge will serve me well in
Writing 39C which is the research based writing class. I have learned how to make a compelling
argument, as well as a solid way of thinking to help me write longer papers. I always have to
remember to think in sections and not paragraphs so that my writing stays organized and focused.
Another good take away is the three rules of writing as stated by Professor Tae Sung as Clarity,
clarity, clarity. This advice will carry on into any writing assignment in college and beyond into the
work field. Further into the future this class teaching of rhetoric will become even more useful when I
am applying to jobs and must persuade the employers to hire me into their company. It will also allow
me to perform my civic duties better by allowing me to see past the boring veil of politics and keep
their powers in check. Ultimately I expect my understanding for true meanings to be exposed as well
as truths to be revealed.