Kenneth Cornwell

ENG 102

April 27, 2019

Self-Reflection and Growth

There are a lot of aspects or versions of self-reflection; to analyze or meditate on one’s

own behaviors, actions, flaws, growth, etc. I will only be focusing on one reflection today and

that is my ability to have an oral or written conversation/argument through using tools of

rhetoric. Whether it is recognizing holes/short hands/fallacies being used by the person who I am

having a conversation with or if it is honing my persuasive skills through ethos, pathos, and

logos.

Before beginning English 102, I had the basic building blocks of rhetoric along ethos,

pathos, and logos in the previous semester in English 101. English 102 continued to build upon

them and laid down more “brick and mortar” if you will, with using these three aspects of

communication to persuade people in a classical argument. We practiced this by finding a

subject which gets us worked up or which we are passionate about, then write an argumentative

paper trying to persuade people, on why my view is correct and what action needs to be taken, if

any.

I hate when people do not use their turning signals not only is it rude, but it is required by

law to use them. They help prevent accidents by letting other people know in your lane

and in the other lane they want to go to that they want to come over whether in front of

someone or behind another car. By using your turn signal you people will be more

inclined to let you over then if you were to force your way over without a signal. No

matter what though the person who is in that lane has the legal right way to that lane. Just
 because you put a signal on does not mean you can automatically come over into that

lane. You must wait properly for an actual opening in the lane where you do not force

your vehicle into said lane. (Cornwell journal entry 3, 2019)

So, if you couldn’t tell, I picked the lack of turn signal usage to practice and enhance these skills

mentioned previously.

Throughout the final draft of this classical argument essay, I used a lot of logos by

presenting facts and statistics which could make anyone fascinated with numbers to cringe. One

example, is of how many crashes were possibly caused by not using a turn signal in Arizona.

When you add up these categories of how many crashes Arizona had, it comes out to be

18,852 crashes in 2017 that the cause could be due to not using a turn signal (Arizona

Department of Transportation, 2018). Of the 18,852 crashes 99 of them where fatal

crashes, where one or more people died. The injury in crashes of the 18,852 there was

3,826 injury crashes. This means that 20.82% of the 18,852 crashes either resulted in

death or injury.

Statistics is one form of logos which would win over anyone who is persuaded by numbers and

logical reasoning. At this point, in the discussion, most people should be thinking “Ya okay,

there might be a problem here”. Another aspect of logos I used to persuade my audience was the

“black and white” writing of the laws of Arizona pertaining to the required use of turn signals

and how to properly use them.

As for Pathos, my whole introduction plays on emotions. I learned that a powerful tool of

persuasion is a story, preferably true, or scenario to begin your argument. It pulls your audience

in and makes them invested to hear the rest of what you have to say. You play upon their

humanity and their concern for life and their loved ones. I’m not going to copy and past the
whole page and half, but I will give you the second to last paragraph of the introduction as an

example.

I run over to the other car to check on the driver of the other vehicle. They were not

wearing their seatbelt, so they were flung forward into the windshield which did not

break from the force of their head hitting it. I could tell even in my dazed state that they

were not responsive. They were dead.

Any time death is involved, or a horrific accident happens it tugs on them good ol’ heart strings.

Throughout the essay, I continue to talk about serious injuries and deaths caused by people who

do not use a turn signal.

Though I did not use much of my own personal ethos, I built upon the ethos of others,

when using them as reliable and knowledgeable references. An example of such is utilizing SAE

International (Society of Automotive Engineers, one of the founders being Henry Ford) as a

source of information about the turning signal. If an organization founded by Henry Ford, the

legend who created the first motor vehicle, doesn’t qualify as experts in the automotive industry

to include new technology being integrated into vehicles, then no source would qualify. Or

another example is when it comes to the laws of the road by using Arizona Legislature to back

up my claim of it being illegal not to use a turn signal. By using these sources that already have

built up their credibility and ethos in return builds my own credibility.

Our second major project, we were given two choices which were to write an essay

geared towards a resistant, but reasonable, audience or create a satire piece about our previous

topic chosen for the classical argument. I chose to do the satire option and created a brochure that

was proposing the outlaw of turn signals and the required use of them. I went to such an extreme

so that the audience that I am really trying to persuade them to use their turn signals, will stop
and think, “well wait that is overkill or ridiculous”. This would force them to admit that we need

turn signals and also open up to the idea of consistently using them. Throughout the written parts

of the brochure and in the design of it I employed the use of the patriotic fallacy in hopes that a

percentage of the audience would recognize said fallacy and call me on it. For instance, “Defend

your freedom, defend your safety, and defend against the laws the limit our rights!” because

America is all about people’s rights and the preservation of those rights. I even used the term

“Big brother” from the book 1984, referring to the controlling government taking away rights.

Another example of using this fallacy, is the background of the inside of the brochure is the

American flag; and on the back of the brochure was George Washington with a Bald Eagle on

one arm and a mini-gun in the other hand. What can be more patriotic than that?! I made up the

organization name, to match this picture, sponsoring said satire brochure. The name was

“Founding Fathers if America Against Restrictions of Freedom & Rights”. Seemed only fitting

with the founding father himself, George Washington, as the background of the last page.

Which brings me to my final lessons I learned throughout the semester which was

fallacies and all the different types. Now, there were a few I instinctively would pick up in

conversations as someone trying to “pull a fast one” on me, or a group of people, but never knew

the proper names of them and did not even realize that they were fallacies. We see personal

attacks all the time in politics; even in the last two chapters of Heinrichs’ Thank You for Arguing,

mentions how politics have gone away from using rhetoric to emotions and personal attacks.

Also, worth mentioning is the loaded question fallacy, which is always used in political debates.

This was one of those which I knew that I knew that they were trying to “pull a fast one” on the

political candidate but never knew the nomenclature or proper terminology.

 Reflection of the chapters 29 & 30 of Heinrichs’ Thank You for Arguing

Like I stated earlier in the last two chapters, Heinrichs went over some political aspects

and how politicians have lost/stopped the use of actual rhetoric versus now using emotions and

values, along with personal attacks, to run the government. He also did a quick review of pathos,

logos, ethos, and several other rhetoric tools discussed throughout the book. Then he gave

examples of using them in conversations, or trying to get a promotion and persuading the boss to

give it to you. It was good to see an example of several of these tools being used all at once

within an example conversation. But not only did he show how to use some of the tools he’s

given us but why you would not use certain tools at certain times in a conversation or not use it

at all depending on the audience and setting of the conversation.

Even though it wasn’t necessarily a direct lesson of rhetoric, it was still interesting to

learn that the birth of a great nation was influenced by great philosophers from Greece and

Rome, which the Founding Fathers of America idolized and based the Declaration of

Independence off of their school of thought, is crazy. It does show the good consequence or

results from proper rhetoric and persuasion. Instead of what politics is now. How the Founding

Fathers used rhetoric to debate and create the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is quite

astonishing. People coming together, who have different values/beliefs to be reasonable and

discuss how to divide power and create a system of checks and balances to keep all the power

from being in one person or groups hands, is a miracle comparing to the same system they

created but over 200 years in the later.

I do agree with him, we do need to start teaching proper rhetoric at a younger age. I’m

not sure if it would close the gap or get rid of political parties altogether, but it will help from

having emotions rule the political system versus thoughtful reasoning debates. It will force
people to come across the aisles to debate/argue properly or look unfit for office by slurring the

other candidates’ names.