Campbell 1

Branna Campbell

Professor Matey

English 101.32

30 April, 2019

From 0 to 100: My College Writing Growth

Writing is not easy. It’s like clay. The time it takes for the writing process to begin is the

gathering of the ingredients. The formatting and preparation with the rough draft is the molding

process, and lastly, the final draft is the baked, painted ed and glossed stage of a clay creation.

With ever step comes time or a process which I had to learn when it comes to my writing. In my

opinion, I am far from considering myself a writer. I’ve spent years following the formulaic

writing from middle school to high school which was the only type of writing I knew of. Now

that I am in an environment that expects more than following the typical guidelines, but to

further my writing by taking formatting, word choice, and style into consideration to captivate an

audience has enlightened me on the purpose of writing. I now believe that a true writer

understands and applies the idea of writing being bigger than informing, entertaining or

persuading, but to captivate a specific audience attention. It’s about the words used and how a

story is told that is most important. Over this course, the most dominant improvement I have

made with my writing is my use of rhetoric. However, there are areas that need more refinement

such as transitioning between paragraphs in essays, and developing stronger commentary or

analysis.

Rhetoric The concept of rhetoric is has been a new concept that I have learned to apply Formatted: Indent: Left: 0", First line: 0.5"

has been applied in my writing this year.

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Although I have just begun understanding what it is in this course, So far, I believe that my

grasp and application of the concept understanding of rhetoric is substantial very high

considering that it was the use of rhetoric has had to have been applied to all three major

assignments in this class but most prominent in assignment 2 the Twitter posts and rhetorical

analysis essay. Great examples of my use of rhetoric would include assignment 1, the digital

narrative, and assignment 2, with the twitter and rhetorical analysis essay. In both major

assignments, it was imperative that our script was tailored in a way that would capture certain

audience attention. In the digital narrative, my audience was YouTube viewers. Knowing this I

tried my best with grabbing my audience attention with an interesting opener which said, “The

opportunity to work with students with Autism Spectrum Disorder was much of a blessing as it

was a challenge.” By opening my narrative with this statement, people may wonder why working

with students with Autism was such a challenge and want to continue to listen to my story. As

far as my tweets in assignment 2, The focus on how rhetors use rhetorical appeals to coincide

with its viewers beliefs is a skill that I have picked up on a mastered due to this assignment. An

instance that best shows this improvement through one of my retweet’s is my analyzation of a

tweet made by The Huffington Post which states, “To be a liberal news outlet, The Huffington

Post did a great job in only presenting facts and including responses from both Sandmann and

Phillips in previous interviews....” Not only do I believe that my word choice in this tweet shows

my ability to rhetorically analyze text, but I then received feedback from professor Matey stating,

“ Really nice job with analysis in your retweets,” (Matey), which also proves my strength in

comprehending and applying rhetorical when analyzing content. With regards to my rhetorical

analysis essay, I had to take a larger step into verifying my understanding of rhetoric. The most

successful application of appeals in my third paragraph happens after the block quote;
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Also in the documents, a transcript of a recorded phone conversation shows

William E. McGlashan Jr., a senior executive at a global private equity firm,

talking with Singer about preparing a “sports profile” for Mr. McGlashan’s son.

“I’ll pick a sport, and we’ll do a picture of him,” Singer tells his client. “I’ve

already done that a million times.” (Mordock and Vondracek)

I then state;

This quote in particular shows that the rhetors purposely intended on making their

audience believe that they are plausible by presenting information from a primary source

and successfully reveals their knowledge by doing so. However, this quote also makes

the audience question if the rhetors of the article included that statement to make the

audience turn against the suspects of the crime which then could potentially make the

audience believe that the rhetors of this article are including their own biases which in

turn diminishes the rhetors credibility. In addition, the rhetors used the word “phony”

twice in reference to a charity the lead suspect in the case created. Despite the fact that

the charity is a false one, the use of the word “phony” can be perceived as biased and

sway the audience in the direction of the rhetor. Doing this can decrease the rhetors

reliability.

My commentary successfully explains how the quote works for the article and how it affects the

audience directly. By explaining the rhetors use of different statements and words such as

“phony” in the article, I directly pointed the rhetors intentions and how it affects their appeals

positively and negatively. As feedback, professor Matey states, “ Overall, I can tell by the end of

your essay that you understand rhetoric, and in most places you effectively analyze how the

rhetoric works for a reader....” (Matey). Although the essay is related to the tweets assignment, I
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made sure that my voice and tone was more formal and aligned with my audience versus tweets

that are more so on the informal side. because this was a different medium that the first

assignment as well as a different audience. Although I had to demonstrate the same concept of

captivating my audience in this assignment as well, the idea of convey a message within 140

characters gave me a new challenge. The best tweet that proves my strength in rhetoric is the, “

“Brenna” “Brianna” “Bronna” Me:” tweet with the Snoop Dogg meme saying “WHO???” in the

gif. I believe that this best proves my understanding of rhetoric because twitter is understood to

be a platform where many people post meme’s such as the one I used and can be understood by

many people of the general public. Also, the fact that I paired this meme with my caption helps

my audience understand my struggle with my name being spelled and pronounced wrong by

many people. In other words this tweet can be seen as relatable and that I understand who my

audience is. On the contrary, my rhetorical analysis essay was written for the opposing audience.

In my introduction I included a thesis statement which states, “Although each news outlet offers

a different way to preset their perspective, all rhetors intend on using the same mechanisms to

increase their credibility and sway their audience to the same agenda presented in each article.”

This statement alone proves that I understand the different types of target audiences as well as

am knowledgable in addressing them in a way that is affective in the platform that is being used.

Overall, I believe a pattern I have in my writing would be my lack of transitions and analysis or

commentary needed. In my rhetorical analysis essay the intros to each new paragraph can be

very sudden and harsh. For example, “Parallel to the CNN and ABC News articles,...” seems to

quick into the point versus being eased into the new paragraph. In addition, my essay also

experienced inconsistency with stating or explaining my data of facts pulled from sources. In

paragraph 3 of my essay I state that authors Hutchinson, Katersky and Levine include the full
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documentation of the criminal reports in their article and only explain, “The rhetors purposefully

added the suspects personal information to appear more knowledgeable about who is involved in

the case.” This explanation, could have been further developed with more reasons as to my the

rhetors decided to include this information.

While the use of rhetoric is well understood, my transitions from one argument to the next as

well as my commentary for data or evidence collected needs to be under construction. In the peer

editing process of this essay, I received feedback expressing, “I would say your body paragraphs

flow well, but transitioning between body’s was choppy.” (peer reviewer). When reading over

my rough draft a second time, I agree that my paragraphs were structured in such a blatant way

that my words seemed to slap me in the face rather than being framed in a way that wouldn’t be

most effective. If I had set the foundation of all my paragraphs with a more welcoming

introduction rather than throwing it in the face of the reader, it would make a more significant

effect in which I feel I have improved on in this essay. As far as my commentary, I received

feedback from professor Matey on my week 7 post which analyzed Oprah Winfrey’s Golden

Globe speech. She explains in her feedback, “ ...Your commentary/analysis needs work in terms

of focusing in on the impact on the audience, how it’s working, and why it would persuade.”

(Matey). In the post, I make bold claims as to how Winfrey uses the appeal pathos in her speech,

but failed to develop on how her use of pathos works for her speech and how it’s affective

towards her audience. If I had of focused on the affects of her words on the audience and

viewers, the purpose of analyzing her speech would have been complete.

All in all, I believe that all improvements and concepts that need work are all

apart of what makes me digitally literate. In the beginning of this course, I was unaware of the
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idea of being digitally literate. After evaluating the use of many mediums and medias that I have

used sense high school to now, I believe that I have always been digitally literate, but I didn’t

know what to call it.I believe that my digital literacy has improved because of all of the

platforms I have worked with this semeste r. In have said in previous reflections, that I mention

that don’t think that my digital literacy has not improved, yet but with this final reflection I

believe that I have. Being I think that being exposed to various all these platforms has really

shown me howthat many people use these them platforms to allurecultivate their audience in

many a ways. that persuades viewers as well as inform, and to have also participated in the

persuasion or informing with the infographic assignment as well as constructing my own tweets

that analize or reuse a tweet has helped me to further understand what it means to be digitally

literate. While on the topic of digital literacy, Engaging in the different assignments that involved

numerous platforms for this course has allowed me to not only evaluate text within each project,

but also explore different ways in which communication and text occurs or is presented and also

learn how to interpret information from these different platforms. With that being said, I believe

that it is very important to being digitally literate is very important when it comes to our current

because we live in a society whichthat offers these different ways of thinking and presenting

information, , so to understanding and being able to interpret the information is just as important.

Being digitally illiterate will cause many people to be at hinderance to many things that society

has now made a need. In this day in age, there is no patience with communication so people have

to decide to adjust and catch this new wave of receiving and presenting information or

communication or be left behind at shore.

The concept of rhetoric has been a new concept that has been applied in my writing this

year. So far, I believe that my understanding of rhetoric is very high considering that the use of
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rhetoric has had to have been applied to all three major assignments in this class. Great examples

of my use of rhetoric would include assignment 1, the digital narrative, and assignment 2, with

the twitter and rhetorical analysis essay. In both major assignments, it was imperative that our

script was tailored in a way that would capture certain audience attention. In the digital narrative,

my audience was YouTube viewers. Knowing this I tried my best with grabbing my audience

attention with an interesting opener which said, “The opportunity to work with students with

Autism Spectrum Disorder was much of a blessing as it was a challenge.” By opening my

narrative with this statement, people may wonder why working with students with Autism was

such a challenge and want to continue to listen to my story. As far as my tweets in assignment 2,

because this was a different medium that the first assignment as well as a different audience.

Although I had to demonstrate the same concept of captivating my audience in this assignment

as well, the idea of convey a message within 140 characters gave me a new challenge. The best

tweet that proves my strength in rhetoric is the, “ “Brenna” “Brianna” “Bronna” Me:” tweet with

the Snoop Dogg meme saying “WHO???” in the gif. I believe that this best proves my

understanding of rhetoric because twitter is understood to be a platform where many people post

meme’s such as the one I used and can be understood by many people of the general public.

Also, the fact that I paired this meme with my caption helps my audience understand my struggle

with my name being spelled and pronounced wrong by many people. In other words this tweet

can be seen as relatable and that I understand who my audience is. On the contrary, my rhetorical

analysis essay was written for the opposing audience. In my introduction I included a thesis

statement which states, “Although each news outlet offers a different way to preset their

perspective, all rhetors intend on using the same mechanisms to increase their credibility and

sway their audience to the same agenda presented in each article.” This statement alone proves
 Campbell 8

that I understand the different types of target audiences as well as am knowledgable in

addressing them in a way that is affective in the platform that is being used.

Overall, I believe a pattern I have in my writing would be my lack of transitions and analysis or

commentary needed. In my rhetorical analysis essay the intros to each new paragraph can be

very sudden and harsh. For example, “Parallel to the CNN and ABC News articles,...” seems to

quick into the point versus being eased into the new paragraph. In addition, my essay also

experienced inconsistency with stating or explaining my data of facts pulled from sources. In

paragraph 3 of my essay I state that authors Hutchinson, Katersky and Levine include the full

documentation of the criminal reports in their article and only explain, “The rhetors purposefully

added the suspects personal information to appear more knowledgeable about who is involved in

the case.” This explanation, could have been further developed with more reasons as to my the

rhetors decided to include this information.

My role as a writer in terms of this course would be to persuade. I have found myself throughout

this course having to make bold statements and back them up with facts from cited sources many

times throughout this semester, so I would say that persuasion is my main purpose in writing in

this course. As far as outside this course, I feel as though my writing stands on the more

informative side because of my major which is Biochemistry. There have and will be many

occasions where I have to present information that other scholars, students, or professors would

look at that pertain to whatever subject of science it involves such a lab reports or formal reports.

Overall, I do not consider myself a writer. I believe that a true writer has a bigger purpose than to

inform their audience but to captivate and trap their audience with their words. My most

cultivating work has only been in this class and most likely will only continue in college writing
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courses. However, I will say that my definition of a writer has definitely changed within the

years I have had to write essays especially ever sense I was enrolled into college. I use to believe

that writing was about answering the questions provided by the instructor in paragraph form and

following the guidelines, but I realize now that writing is much more than that. It’s about your

words and how you tell a story that is most important. I never knew that deliverance mattered so

much until college. Looking back. I believe that there are a few papers that could have been

better written as well included a more affective writing style or needs more work and revision.