Rhetorical Analysis Paper: Reflections

Before this, I had never done a Rhetorical Analysis before, and this made it a very different experience for me. The hardest part was learning what the main purpose I was going for when writing this paper. Fortunately, I found it interesting to pick apart someone's argument, and make an argument about theirs. Now that I think about it, it seems almost metaphysical; like an introspection of an introspection. I appreciated the rough draft workshopping with peers, and felt that what they had to say was helpful, but something that also would've vastly improved my paper would've been imput from the teacher specifically on the rough draft. Operating under the assumption that almost none of our class had written a rhetorical analysis before, it would've helped us to know exactly what the teacher was looking for in our papers. Also, being able to read the paper that you had written would've been extremely helpful, as the example of a rhetorical analysis in the book was pointed out to be a bad example.

Things that I found helpful to me in writing my paper was really poring over my chosen article, and picking out the specific parts that I found effective and well-written, and what was not. I then analyzed these parts, and tryed to figure out what made them good, or poor. Questions I would have about the next paper will be: What will the exact, main purpose of the next paper be? Will we have a specific prompt to write to? What kind of audience will we be writing for (you, our peers, academic community, average reader, ect.)? How would you like our papers to read (informal, strictly formal, ect.)?