Rhetorical Analysis Reflection

When I started the assignment, I knew that my groups topic was sports. I am a relatively big sports fan, but I did not think I knew enough info to analyze a specific sports article, so I tried to find an article that was related to sports but was not necessarily all about one specific sports event.

I started by simply googling “sports” and clicking on the news category. After skimming several articles, I decided that it would be interesting to find an article about concussions in sports. When I decided this, I made my search more specific and read through about three articles until I found the one I ended up using: ‘Concussion’ doctor says kids shouldn’t play these sports until they’re 18. The reason I chose the article I did is because I thought it had enough information to make a convincing point, but it did not ramble on wan go off on tangents which I feel medical articles often do.

This article was also desirable because I thought it had clear persuasive strategies that I could comment on. One thing that made the article interesting was the way it was set up. It would state the reporters question and then just give the whole answer the interviewee, Dr. Bennet, stated sort of like Humans of New York style. I liked this tactic because as a reader, I got to see exactly what the source said instead of some watered down version. This was also a negative. Because there was only one source used, there was only one side of the argument represented. The lack of repression from both sides was something I commented on in my rhetorical analysis.

I started the paper by making a somewhat detailed outline. I read the article once straight through to get an idea of it and then read it again, but this time I would stop and points to my outline that I could talk about. I read through it a third time in order to find quotes that would support my points.

When I started my draft, I started by writing my thesis and then building my intro around that. The first thesis I wrote was the same one I kept through the entirety of my writing process. The thing I changed the most was my the content in my body paragraphs and where I placed. My intro was the thing that I changed the least.

September 7, 2017

Homeless Man In D.C. Response

What I Thought

The fact that Eric Sheptock chooses to live a homeless lifestyle in order to be an advocate is equally admirable and ridiculous to me. If it were me, I would try to escape homeless as soon as possible; however, he chooses to stay because he is a role model to many other homeless people.

I can’t truly say If I agree or disagree. Like I said, I think anyone who is homeless should seek any job possible to work their way back up to a steady income. Though I feel this way, I of think it is interesting that Sheptock does choose to be a social media advocate. It certainly shows the power of social media.

I think the set up of the article is fairly easy to read; however, I would have rather read his background story earlier in the article. Other than that, it was easy to read and understand what the author was trying to say.

Analysis

Pathos is used to play with the reader emotions. In the article, Homeless Man In D.C. Uses Facebook, Social Media To Advocate For Others Like Him, the author, Nathan Rott uses pathos to make readers feel sorry for the lack of homeless representation. The article is specifically about Eric Sheptock, a homeless nam and advocate in D.C.

Rott forces people to sympathize Sheptock. Rott says that even if Sheptock was offered a job, he would choose to keep his position as a digital influencer.

“He wouldn’t move out of the downtown D.C. shelter where he has slept for the past two years if it would make him a less effective voice for change,” (Rott).

Sheptock gives up the luxury of a steady income because he believes that his part as a role-model in the homeless community is too important which makes the reader root for him and his cause.

September 6, 2017September 6, 2017

Analysis Pre-Assesment

Before, this assignment I do not think I have done some work with analysis. Most of my experience is with in class discussions verbally analyzing a reading; however, I also did an analysis paper in composition I. It was a process analysis, so we had to take an event–my group chose participating in the school musical–and simply analyze the process. This was somewhat of a fun paper in that class, so I have not one a formal analysis technically.

From what I have read, I learned that there are a plethora of different areas to analyze when reading something. It is easy to read something and initially think it is “good” or “bad,” but it is not until after you go back through and look through all the different components that you can truly depict weather the reading was good or bad.

I think this assignment will be different than the summary because summary did not involve opinion. In the analysis, it’s all about opinion. The summary assignment is relatable to this because in order to complete an accurate analysis, you have to be able to summarize the main points of the reading. Once you get a grasp on what the reading says, you can make an informed analysis.

When planning my analysis, I am going to pick a longer article. After I choose an article, I will obviously read it and get my initial reaction. I plan to make an outline about what topics I want to touch on, based on what the article did and did not do well. Hopefully, I will give myself plenty of time to read the article multiple times and cultivate an accurate analysis.

September 5, 2017

Summary Reflection

The summary was somewhat difficult for me to write. When I write, I typically over write and add too much extra “fluff”; therefore, when I was writing the summary, I had to be more concise. Because I was trying to be more to the point in my writing, I felt that it was too choppy when I read it out loud. After some revisions, I felt that it was not too choppy, but still concise.

When my peers read my summary, they gave me helpful feedback regarding grammar and vocabulary. I tend to overuse commas, and they helped me fix that. They also aided me in changing some weak vocabulary words that may have been too casual for the assignment.

The hardest part of the assignment was making sure I accurately summarized the article without basically reciting exactly what it said. I also struggled with deciding which style to write the summary in. Since I am a journalism major, I will primarily use AP style; however I felt that I did not have enough knowledge on how to write in AP, so I chose MLA instead because I had prior experience with it.

I think in future papers, I need to follow an actual process more. With this summary, I just wrote, read it aloud, and then revised in the same doc. Next time I think it would be better to create a new document for revisions so I can see what I changed. With how user friendly Google Docs is, I think I could be quite organized with my writing process.

In my final product, I felt confident that I accurately describes the events from a baseball game to someone who may have never seen a baseball game before. I think I used an appropriate mixture of quotes and summarization. Obviously, as this assignment was a summary, I did not use as many quotes as I did my own summarization.