Robert DeFeo

Professor Lilley

ENG - 101

4/22/19

Self Reflection Essay

Starting this semester, we were present with six different “SLO’s” which are

student learning objectives to be completed by the end. I’m writing this self reflection

essay to demonstrate, using the work that I’ve completed this year, that I have in fact

completed these student learning objectives. The outcomes we were tasked with are as

follows,

1. Critically evaluate written, oral, and/or visual arguments;

2. Construct cogent, evidence-based arguments;

3. Identify and employ fundamental rhetorical concepts including the

rhetorical triangle, the canons, and/or the appeals in both formal and

informal discourse;

4. Summarize, quote, paraphrase, and synthesize source material in

support of an argument;

5. Employ drafting, peer review, and revision techniques in order to

improve content, style, and structure of their own writing;

6. Appraise their own composing abilities and composing processes through

critical reflection.
 Starting the semester Professor Lilly taught us about the methods and modes of

rhetoric and demonstrated them through advertisements. One of the first devices she

taught us about was “Aristotle’s” rhetorical triangle. The triangle harness’ three

persuasive strategies, Logos, Ethos, and Pathos. Professor Lilly also taught us main

rhetorical canons, Invention, Arrangement, Style, Memory, and Delivery. These canons

have helped us to better analyze and evaluate other rhetor’s arguments as well as our

own. We have used these devices for our first paper up to the present.

My first, second, and third outcomes were fulfilled with the writing of our first

assignment, a visual rhetorical analysis. Professor Lilley tasked us to select an

advertisement from a magazine and give a rhetorical analysis. I chose an Aveeno

cream advertisement from cosmopolitan magazine. I thoroughly looked at this

advertisement and used the devices which Professor Lilly taught us to determine

whether or not it was an effective advertisement. I determined that indeed it was,

backing up my claim by identifying its strongest rhetorical canons as it’s arrangement,

style and delivery. Professor Lilly also taught us about structuring essays in mla format,

with an introduction, body paragraphs and a conclusion. I organized this essay as such

Giving more detail to the rhetorical triangle in this essay, I said the Aveeno

advertisement harnessed ethos in their advertisement since they have already made a

name for themselves in the beauty industry. They demonstrated logos by presented

exactly what the ingredients to the moisturizer, were directly on the ad. I highlighted the

pathos in this advertisement, by speaking about the facial expressions that the woman

was displaying. I claimed that the advertisement was trying to sell a sense of

contentment and refreshment due to the smirk on her face.

 Most of my fourth objective and part of my fifth was fulfilled by our third

assignment, a research essay on a topic of our choosing. For my essay I chose

something that I found relevant and interesting not only to my life but to other people's

lives as well, the impact of social media on our younger generation. I was arguing the

fact that the implementing of social media with kids at a younger generation was having

a negative effect for the following reasons, the likelihood of mental conditions such as

anxiety, depression, development of low self-esteem and increased chance of suicide. I

used a multitude of sources to help make a strong a strong evidential argument. One of

the sources which I quoted was apart of research done by University of Swat and

Peshawar on the correlation between social media and depression in students. The

article I quoted stated, “students who spent more time on social media were found

depressed was supported by a study on association between online social networking

and depression in high school students and found that high school students who spent

more time on social media had a greater risk for depression (Nasir, 2018).” This was a

large support factor for my paragraph about depression.

To further complete my fifth outcome, I have recently also revised this research

essay thoroughly since completing it. This was part of our curated portfolio assignment

which is being presented in website form. I have gone through the essay fixing

overlooked grammatical errors and have found enough to have made this revision

process worth it for me. Using the tracking feature on Microsoft word has also been very

beneficial since it highlights my changes and even keeps the mistakes I made as well

so that I can return to them.

 The remaining parts of my fifth objective, drafting and peer review, have been

completed through the writing process of all the assignments I’ve had to complete thus

far. Professor Lilly has had us for each essay submit a rough draft so that we could

partner up with a peer in class review them. She made a peer review sheet with

questions such as “Identify the rhetorical triangle.” These drafts and peer review days

have proved helpful for me, they have allowed me another perspective to look at my

arguments and have highlighted mistakes that I had originally overlooked.

My sixth and final outcome is fulfilled through this self-reflection. Throughout this

semester, I’d identify my strongest style of my writing to be persuasive. On the other

side of the spectrum, I’d consider essay structure to be my weakest point in writing, but

after this class it has certainly improved. I have certainly grown a lot in many other ways

as well, such as my ability to site. My in-text citations were certainly a big handicap of

mine before this class and have been plagiarism as it turns out.

As it pertains to my website, I wanted to it to be sleek yet simple, so I could grab

a viewers attention but not overwhelm them to avoid distraction from the true purpose of

it’s creation, to showcase some of my work. I wanted to make my home screen my

creative element of my essay for the same reason, attention grabbing. I also made the

title of my website, “Breal”, since I feel it is such a simple phrase which manages to

send a much greater message. I chose to add photo graphs to each slide. The visuals

on the research essay’s slide were to hopefully implore pathos before the reader

reached my paper, so to set the mood and hopefully trigger a bit of emotion. The visual

on my small assignment slide was to increase my ethos as a rhetor, providing my

reader with a large sized image of the advertisement I was analyzing. When it came to
color choice for the page with my research essay on it I decided to use red, so I could

draw alarming attention to what I feel is an important subject, social medias impact upon

the younger (ages below 20-21) generations. The slide with my small assignment, I

chose green for the color of my header since green is not only used in the

advertisement itself but also creates a refreshed feel, relating to how I saw the

advertisement in my analysis. Lastly, I decided to include this self-reflection on the

website portfolio because I feel like a great way to improve credibility as a writer, is to

provide insight into their mind. This way the reader can have a better understanding as

to why to I’ve made some of the decisions I have instead of wondering.

My creative element was actually a lot of fun to create, though difficult might I

add since I certainly not an expert at photoshop. It took me a quite a bit of time to learn

of to use some of its tools. Starting with the color I chose a blue to signify a bit of

sadness, since my research essay its self was a bit grim focusing mostly on the

detrimental effects that social media may cause. This uses pathos to set a subliminal

tone for my readers. The image I created on this blue background shows a man hiking

up a phone filled with a few facts pulled directly from my research essay in place of a

mountain. I think that this arrangement gave me a good way to employ logos by

implementing some facts directly on my creative portion. The man is attempting to climb

to his goals of, happiness, confidence, and sleep but is being weighed down by 3 social

media apps, preventing him from reaching his goals. My hope him arranging this in the

way that I had was to make it relatable. Everyone is climbing a mountain whether they

see it or not and social media could most certainly be that thing which is weighing them

down from reaching the top. Then above this image itself I placed a quote that I thought
not only pertained to the content of my essay but was really impactful. My intentions

were to use pathos here and touch on my readers emotions. This quote is a bit hard

hitting so I hoped that this quote would be something that could stick in readers minds.