Natalie Draper

UWRT 1104-029
MG Essay Reflection
Reflection
The audience I chose to target in my genre piece, two journals, are college women in
their late teens to early twenties. I chose this audience because I can relate to them the most.
Along with putting my personal experiences into the message I want to convey. My purpose is to
show the best and worst way to handle jealously in a relationship, and the outcome of each way.
Depending on which way jealousy is handled, it can either have a positive or negative outcome.
The purpose of the journals is to teach women the right way to handle jealous.
One of the main sources I used was from the article Healthy and Unhealthy Jealousy
written by Dr. Gary and Barb Rosberg. In the article, it details the effects of healthy and
unhealthy jealousy. For healthy jealous, some positive effects are shows your commitment to
the relationship, protects your marriage by safeguarding the relationship against evil attacks,
deepens your openness with each other and makes you accountable through honest
communication and helps you confront major threats to your marriage and head them off before
they become major problems. For unhealthy, some effects are You doubt your spouses honesty
and wrongfully accuse him or her-pushing your spouse away, you feel worthless and
unimportant, you become frustrated and overwhelmed and have the desire to control. I relied
heavily on this source when writing my journals because they said the side effects straight out.
Which in turn made it easy to work with and create a story out of.
Another source I used was from the article What drives Jealousy? written by Lisa
Firestone Ph.D. In this article, a sentence written by firestone really stood out to me. The
problem with jealousy is that it masks other feelings and attitudes that are even more hurtful to
us and those closest to us. Its intensity is often shielding deep-seated feelings of possessiveness,
insecurity or shame. This quote was important in my writing process because it helped me

Natalie Draper
UWRT 1104-029
MG Essay Reflection
develop a story and create more detail in my story. Lastly, I used results from an experiment
conducted by Laveen Khanchandani and Thomas W. Durham called Jealousy during Dating
among Female College Students" to also shape my story. Some of the result I kept referring to
when writing is jealousy was lower for women in a steady dating relationship than for women
not in a steady relationship. Women who were more satisfied with their dating partner reported
lower levels of jealousy than women who reported less satisfaction with their dating
relationship. Using the results helped shape a personality for both of my characters.
I choose to write two journal entries because it is more relatable for my audience. Each
journal is written from the girlfriends perspective, who is jealous. This was done this way to
help the reader and my audience relate more to the character, and understand what she is saying.
Then, it can be applied to her own life. It does not matter which order the journals are read in,
because they tell two different stories. In the end, the reader should have a clear understanding of
which journal is a healthy and unhealthy response to jealousy. I feel now is a perfect time for my
audience to read these journals. One reason is that college is the prime time for starting and
creating lifelong relationships. If my audience has an idea of what healthy and unhealthy
jealousy is, they can apply this to their real relationships. If the journals were presented before
this time, they would be too young and immature to truly grasp the purpose. If they were
presented after, it would be too late to truly apply the purpose during that time period of their
life. These journals would exist online, and my audience can gain access to them if they are
searching for the right thing.
One of the modes of communication I relied on heavily is by far linguistic. The delivery
of tone in the text, the organization of the text and the development of each character is what my
journal is about. You have to read each journal understand the purpose and the outcome of each

Natalie Draper
UWRT 1104-029
MG Essay Reflection
form of jealousy. If not, you are not grasping each journals intent. Another mode of
communication I used was visual. I did this by arrange my words to make it look like it would be
a journal entry. To create this affect, I made each line staggered, to create an informal feel to the
journals. Since my journal is targeted towards females, I used pathos more than logos or ethos.
Each journal entry describes emotion as the root. The first step they come to is dealing with their
emotions, and which is the best move to make. Thats where logos and ethos comes in. Each
character uses their own form of logic, or logos, either if it is right or wrong. Then it sculpts them
as their person and defines them ethically, ethos.
In the end, I feel that my journals would be a successful way to teach my target audience
the forms of healthy and unhealthy jealousy. There is an outcome to each story, one positive and
one negative. My audience can clearly distinguish which one is right and which one is wrong.
The journals are straightforward. They are a clear representation of the signs and outcomes of
each form of jealousy. My target audience can take away more than one lesson from each and
apply it to them. The journals successfully teach my audience which way to handle jealousy.

Sources:

Rosberg, Dr. Gary and Barb. "Focus On the Family." Healthy and Unhealthy

Jealousy. Focus on Family, 3 Apr. 2011. Web.

Firestone Ph.D., Lisa. "What Drives Jealousy?" Psychology Today. PsychToday, 26

Sept. 2011. Web.

Khanchandani, Laveena, and Thomas W. Durham. "Jealousy during Dating among
Female College Students." College Student Journal. Project Innovation (Alabama),
01 Dec. 2009. Web.