Reflection

As a whole, this ePortfolio was a unique project since I have never done anything

even remotely similar to this sort of project. This project challenged me as a writer

especially with the rhetorical analysis, a type of paper that had never been well

introduced to me in high school. In my opinion the lack of restrictions made the project

harder ad it was hard to judge what I should aim for in terms of how the essays should

be structured. I do believe that once I overcame the struggle to actually begin the

essays I found myself starting to utilize certain elements from my other essays to

continue the flow of the essay that I was working on at the time. This ePortfolio was truly

an interesting way to discover my own writing style of sorts.

My ePortfolio has the overall theme of adventure. However, not in the sense of

taking an adventure but rather the elements that make an adventure that it is. Five of

my essays make up the five elements of adventure which are: High Endeavor,

Uncertain Outcome, Total Commitment, Tolerance for Adversity, and Great

Companionship. In addition to those five essays, I have also included two more; Growth

and Chance which themselves are not part of what make up adventure. While they may

not directly be affiliated with adventure, Growth and Chance both play a factor in it and

those essays also have an their own individual underlying theme that pertains to a main

factor of adventure.

I learned a few new techniques in class especially in breaking down areas of my

essays and colour coding the generic terms in essays this was especially prevalent in

my Chance essay where almost every other line contained a to be verb and the word
chance .
In class I learned what a toulmin and aristotelian analysis were and was also able to

identify them inside the piece that I chose for my rhetorical analysis. In the section The

Faces of Rave Culture is where Duca asked a rhetorical question and utilized the same

piece of evidence to support both facets of her argument then immediately tore down

her opposing side pointing out that he opposition to that point and her stance were

actually the same side. I was also able to utilise an aristotelian analysis in order to show

how the author Duca intentionally picked out the most emotionally charged stories to

highlight in her piece and excluded the other stories told in the documentary in order to

create a pathos appeal to her audience.

In class we also discussed the way to decipher the reasoning behind the articles

in which we filled out the chart with information that we had gleaned from the article as

shown in my rhetorical analysis draft.

Something I found myself repeating the main topic way too much and I started to use

the glossing technique which I was taught by a fellow classmate as I was absent the
day it was demonstrated in class. I found that reorganizing my thoughts helped my brain

decipher where the unnecessary terms were this was also very prevalent in my Chance

essay as that was the first essay I had written.

Upon completion of this project and finishing Everythings an Argument , I do

believe that everything can indeed be an argument. While it may be possible to argue

anything and everything, I feel as though the more prevalent matter is when is it

necessary to make an argument versus when is it not worth the energy and time to

argue as not everything must have a definitive right or wrong answer due to the fact that

most things in this world are not distinctly black and white and that decisions lie upon a

spectrum not necessarily one side or the other. Mutually exclusive solutions are very

rare in their occurrence for example ask any given person their stance on the death

penalty and provide a circumstance and majority of the time you will not get a definitive

answer from them. I believe that the act of arguing further creates a division between

people which is especially prevalent in politics in which candidates you argumentative

tactics to pick apart their opponents argument whether ethically or not. While in some

cases it may be necessary to argue however, I most definitely do not believe everything

needs to be an argument.

Through taking this class I feel as though I am now better equipped as a writer in

not only using my own style, but also in my ability to critically analyze pieces and make

informed commentary on their use of argumentative tactics. I feel as I have a better

grasp of how to create an airtight argument as well as understand how and why an

author chooses their syntax and diction in order to convey messages to the consumer.

From the amount of knowledge gained on analysis and the art of argument through this
class I feel it has strengthened my confidence a writer. This class also allowed me to

start to find my voice as a writer in developing my own style.Overall, I feel more secure

as a writer after taking this course.