Mr.

Gregory McClure
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA 92697
Dear Mr. McClure,
I write to you today to reflect on the overall process and product of my Rhetorical
Analysis Essay. This paper has been the main focus of this course, for the past five weeks.
Initially, I underestimated the difficulty of this paper because I did not account for the amount of
attention to detail this paper required. To be quite frank, I thought that my prior knowledge and
experience would suffice; I expected this to be a quick write. However, my stipulations were
incredibly incorrect.
In the beginning of my drafting process, I focused on the idea of manipulation. My claim
was that Mathesons success was due to his ability to manipulate expectations. One of my main
points was that Matheson transformed the mythical vampire into a work of science. However,
after many hours of drafting, trying to relate this to the purpose of the novel, and attending office
hours, I decided to revise my claim. My new claim focuses more on the text, the audience, and
the author, which is something that is always stressed by you. I strongly believe that office hours
and conferences with you made this essay possible for me. Without corresponding with you, I
believe that my essay would not have been up to your standards and I would have failed this
class. When I first emailed you about my thesis, you told me that my paper was incomplete and
struggling overall. This upset and confused me, but it motivated me to find a way to resolve the
incompleteness and stop struggling. I did not understand why or how my thesis was incomplete.
It wasnt until the discussion we had in class about theses and office hours that I was confident in
my thesis.
Something that I struggled with through the entire essay was the idea that Neville does
not exist. He does not feel anything. He is a bunch of words on paper. I understand this idea and
do not disagree with it, but I had an extremely difficult time writing this paper without using
Neville feels, since that had been accepted, up until this point. I knew what I wanted to say, but
I did not know how to word it without using Neville. My solution to this was reminding myself
that Matheson is Neville. Matheson created Neville to reflect his ideas; thus, this entire novel,
including Nevilleand Ruthis a collection Matheson and his thoughts. Another thing that was
new to me was that we are allowed to use I, you, and contractions. I was always taught that
these are huge red flags. In fact, an entire letter grade would be deducted if these were found in
your essay, in my AP English Language and Composition course.
Personally, I think this essay is everything I envisioned and more. Before this class, I
dreaded revisions because I did not know how to improve my work. However, I have revised this
essay countless times. Each time I received feedback, I would immediately revise. Truly, I feel
that office hours were extremely essential in the process of my paper. Peer reviews were also
helpful, but I feel that they are not the best source for feedback since other students may be
struggling with this assignment as well and may not have the time to give proper and genuine
feedback. Overall, I feel very content with my essay. I feel that I was able to embed quotes most
successfully. Rather than dropping the quotes in, I found a way to weave them in and create a
sense of flow. I also think that the arranging of topic sentences activity was very helpful because
I used the knowledge I learned from that activity to develop my topic sentences and the overall

Mr. Gregory McClure

University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA 92697
structure of my essay. Several times, I omit my body paragraphs and just read my topic sentences
over and over again until I felt that they collaborated well.
If I were to rewrite this essay, I feel that I definitely couldve improved the overall
process by implementing the things we discussed in class. If I could go back, I would take notes
during all our presentations and discussions. I would also bring a separate notebook to take notes
during office hours because its almost impossible to remember every detail discussed in such a
short amount of time. In addition, I would spend more time on the essay and close reading of the
novel. I would eliminate procrastination and come up with a clear plan, instead of just mindlessly
drafting.
I believe that my greatest improvement as a result of this essay was realizing that the
character does not exist beyond the pages. I will never forget the day you said, Neville does not
exist. He is just words on paper. That was eye opening for me because I had never been told that
before, yet it made so much sense to me. Those words are engraved in my memory and that
knowledge will definitely be used in future essays, especially on the RIP and in Writing 39C. I
will also use the author, text, and audience triangle in the future. It is such a simple idea, yet it is
so essential in the process of rhetorical analysis. In fact, if I had focused on this idea earlier, my
drafting process would have been cut short. In my first draft, almost all of my analysis included
the words Neville feels. After my revisions, I omit anything remotely similar to Neville
feels. Instead, I used phrases like Matheson portrays. Although it was both difficult and
different from what Ive learned in the past, I felt extremely accomplished every time I was able
to reword my sentences to address only author, text, and audience.
I believe that the selections in my portfolio showcase my growth within this course. From
my first analysis of Hurt to the Rhetorical Analysis Essay, I feel that I have learned and
progressed so much as a writer. Specifically, my analysis is better developed and my topic
sentences are stronger and allude to the point Ill be making. One of my proudest pieces is the
RIP My Own Monstrosity assignment. In this assignment, my monster is an abandoned child
who preys on the knowledge of others. When I was younger, my parents were always busy
working and I always felt that I was on my own. This was the foundation for my story and it is
the most thought I have put into any piece of work. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I
enjoyed writing it.
Sincerely,
Tammy Tran