Ms. Swinson's English 101

I have used strategies I have learned in this class in other classes, including my creative writing honors 110 class. I have used peer reviewing, outlines, and even the writing center for my piece. I have also used the infographic lesson to create a better resume. I have always struggled with resumes because I never really knew what to say while being so concise yet informational. Because we had to make short texts in the infographic yet still have it contain statistics and information, I was able to gain more experience and apply what I learned to building my resume. 

I have been and will continue to use my writing process for my final portfolio in my Creative Writing class where I need a total of four pieces, two of them being 4-7 pages. I have been using mainly the revisions process with these because it is important for me to turn in polished and final work for this assignment. I have been using my process in a lot of the assignments that I have had for creative writing because it is a writing class and there have been a lot of writing assignments. For example, right now, I am editing and revising one of my 4-7 page non fiction pieces and using what I have learned about revisions and editing has been very useful especially because of the length of the piece. I have also used it for many of the poems and fiction pieces that I have done in that class because it allows me to get a very rough draft down so I can at least get my ideas down and then for me to go back and revise and edit where necessary. 

It is important to evaluate sources because it establishes the credibility of what you are reading. When you are applying what have read to something else such as a paper or a project it is important that what you are using is credible in order to make the project or paper credible. I have learned that it is almost impossible to find something that has no bias at all. When reading an article I will wonder what kind of biases it includes because I am in the environment group I assume most of what I will read will be pro-science. You have to take everything you read on the web with a grain of salt because it is almost certain whoever wrote it has some sort of opinion and bias when they wrote it. 

Potential Counterarguments: That in some places like the desert, they might not be close to any body of water so would it take longer for them to have access to these resources and is that fair to them just because of where they live. 

The image affects my understanding a little bit; it is well known that plastic straws are not good for the environment and especially sea turtles. But it is still a powerful message that should be shared and taken seriously.

I think the author used ethos and pathos more than logos. Her credibility coupled with the emotion that are felt about the BLM movement got her point across about the press. I believe her tactic was successful.

Ethos: Credibility of the governments past tries of having access to locations.

Rhetoric is the art of effective writing or persuasive writing while using techniques. Ethos, logos and pathos make the text appealing to the audience. Rhetoric has more of a negative connotation to me because it deals with school. Also because it is persuasion that could lead people to be misinformed or manipulated. A rhetorical analysis would be useful to know how the author of a text would be misleading people or if it is credible and reliable information. It helps readers discover how true the information they just read is. They may change readers’ opinions, open their eyes to new ideas, or keep an important argument going.

Rhetorical analysis is a way to analyze the text and understanding the real deeper meaning. In analyzing yo have to define the genre in how the advertisement or text, is trying to send out its message. Writer also use pathos, logos, and ethos to further deeper their meaning. I learned about rhetorical analysis in ap language class and answering rhetorical questions for ap u.s history. Like most things in English, rhetorical analysis has a bad connotation because it requires you to think deeply.

My pre-writing process was to brainstorm events that happened while I was in high school. I knew I was going to go in a chronological order of events through the letter. As I wrote, I revised. I moved paragraphs around to fit the timeline as I went. The most useful part of my writing process was to brainstorm before actually writing. This way, I knew what events I could use for my letter and decide which ones wouldn’t make the cut. I would like to improve my writing process by spacing out the work load. It sucked and was overwhelming to have to start and finish in one day. I need a planner and would like to improve on spacing out when I write for project 2.

A good way to stay on track with the ideas that interest you most while brainstorming is to write down subcategories of your strongest points instead of just writing down any idea that comes to mind in a “scattershot” style.

I’d say rhetoric in our current world probably has a negative connotation. When I think of rhetoric the first thing that comes to mind is people talking about harmful rhetorics. In our modern society people are often unhappy with what other have to say and therefore label their rhetoric as “harmful”. But rhetoric can have positive or negative connotation it all just depends on the context. That is what rhetorical analysis helps us with. Rhetorical analysis helps us clearly define what it is exactly the author is trying to say in the text.

My writing process definitely was a lot more intricate for this paper then compared to my previous high school papers. Going to the writing center definitely helped me brainstorm and come up with more ideas for how I wanted this paper to turn out. I kept going back and forth on whether or not to include certain paragraphs or not and if I liked the wording. In my revision process I took a lot more time cutting out really wordy sentences and unnecessary bridges. I would say my brainstorming was definitely the most useful as it helped me put together the framework of my paper. As we move into project two I hope to better be able to edit and revise my work.

Before I wrote my first draft, I made an outline for myself of everything I wanted to talk about. It helped me remember the timeline of my years in high school. This helped me with the order of my paragraphs and points. I then sat down and wrote my first draft. I didn’t pay that much attention on anything except for getting all of my words on paper. I wrote my first draft and then read it multiple times over to make my revisions. I didn’t end up changing a ton besides some sentence structure and adding a couple more thoughts. I’ve never written this way before and I really liked it. I felt more organized and starting the first draft wasn’t as daunting as it usually is. It was easier to be motivated to start writing when I knew it didn’t have to be perfect. For the next project, I’m hoping to stop by the writing center to have someone else read over my paper. 

(via lamenade)