Marissa Hernandez

Professor Zawilski
September, 21, 2017
RC 2001
Rhetorical Analysis Reflection

My first draft was the stage where I attempted to define what rhetoric was and get all my
ideas down on paper. When writing my first draft I was still very confused about rhetorical
situations. In previous writing classes I learned how logos, pathos, and ethos appeals to
audiences, so I was not worried about that aspect of the paper. However, I was not confident
on my overall understanding of rhetorical situations, especially regarding exigence and kairos.
Therefore, for my first draft I summarized the context of the paper when attempting to analyze
it. The first peer review stage informed me of my excessive summarization and need for
examination of the appeals the authors used in their articles.
To develop a better understanding of rhetorical situations, I had a one-on-one meeting with
my professor to discuss the assignment in depth. This stage of the process was the most helpful
because it calmed my nerves and I finally understood the meaning of exigence, kairos, and
constraints. Again I was informed that I needed to analyze more and provide supporting
evidence with my analysis.
My second draft is when I decided what to primarily focus on when writing my paper. I
chose to focus on the author's use of logos, pathos, ethos, exigence, kairos, visuals, structure,
tone, and metaphorical language. Now looking at the long list of appeals, I am considering to
possibly minimize the list. I could go more into depth on the effects appeals have on the
audience if I focus on fewer. When developing my second draft I reread the two articles again
to better improve my understanding. I marked where I saw specific appeals being presented
such as pathos, logos, and ethos. Additionally, I highlighted statistics, in-text citations, quotes,
and references that I wanted to use as supporting evidence. During my second draft I also
established the structure of my paper. I began by making bullet points for each appeal and then
wrote two separate paragraphs pertaining to the articles. The way I organized it really helped
me develop my paper because the organization made it very clear.
The second peer review, in my opinion was not very helpful. The comments I received were
very hard to read and a majority of my peers said the same thing, that everything in my paper
was underdeveloped. I agreed with their opinions, but I feel like the comments were very vague
and rushed. I think the process would more effective if three people read and commented on
the piece rather than six in a short period of time, in order to receive quality feedback.
For my third draft, I reread the articles for the third time to validate that I had the proper
supportive evidence and began to expand every paragraph with context from the two articles. I
also started to structure my paper in APA style and conducted research on cited sources in the
academic article to confirm credibility. I reread and edited at this stage several times. However,
sad to say, looking bad I still made several errors.
If I could go back right now and make revisions, I would correct all my grammatical errors,
restructure my sentences so they flowed better, edit out the words I kept repeating, and
definitely take my paper to the writing center. I think I need another person to reread my final
papers in the future. During this project I read my writing over and over again, and I believe I
mentally corrected my errors when reading, but didnt write it down on my paper.
I expect to be told to revise the structure of my sentences, grammar, wording of phrases,
and to analyze the material more. Overall, I feel like I need to better the content of my paper
for the portfolio. I should conduct more research about the authors and the sources they
included within their articles to emphasize the credibility of the article. Additionally, I need to
include more in-text citations to strengthen the argument of my paper.