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.