Course Reflection

Before this course, I had learned that rhetoric was restricted to nonfiction text, and that rhetorical and figurative devices could not overlap. I had previously analyzed rhetoric only in speeches or articles, and believed rhetoric could only take certain forms, like oration or argument. Throughout this course, I have been given a new perspective on genre, composition, and rhetoric. I have also been given a new perspective on genre and its multiple facets, like mode and form. This course also taught me how important the rhetorical triangle is to fundamentally understand how a work is composed and written, and understanding the appeals that a work makes to certain audiences also helps me understand the composition of a work and how the intended audience of a piece affects the composition. I did not realize how tight knit and connected many parts of rhetoric are to each other, or how much feedback and amplification there was between parts. Audience and appeals to the audience can be made using tools such as the rhetorical triangle or other rhetorical devices, but the usage of certain tools can affect the intended audience and the unintended audience. I also did not realize the importance of early engagement with a discourse community and how to critically engage with my discourse community, as well as recognize the various conflicts inside a discourse community.

I had a lot of structural errors with my second project. I felt like the framework of the paper and its artifacts was strong and made sense, as it addressed key components of the artifacts (audience, exigence) before progressing to analysis of the artifacts. However, I found a lot of clarity problems with the introduction to the paper. In terms of logical sense, certain sentences addressing the need for creation of the IBM System/360 came after its features, which makes no sense, considering its features solved problems introduced by previous IBM machines. While the introduction has the most revision done to it, the artifact analysis was not left untouched. Even here, there were issues with components of the rhetorical triangle and accurately balancing the analysis for each artifact that I left out. I balanced these, along with the comparison section, by adding in aspects I hadn’t considered before to improve the overall structural cohesion of the paper.

The course writings also taught me how to analyze different types of rhetoric. I learned that rhetoric is not limited strictly to nonfiction text— it can also be employed in visual composition (films, art) or in poetry. The course writings allowed me to practice the skill of analyzing different types of rhetoric in various formats, like the Pulp Fiction analysis, where I analyzed Jules’ oration as well as the visual composition of the film and cinematography. Dissecting and correcting my own reflection allowed me to improve my skills in personal writing, as it made me consider clarity issues that I didn’t see before and how they impacted the reception and message of my piece.

I still think, even after all of this revision, that I struggle most with clarity and internal organization. I don’t think MLA formatting is second-nature to me yet, and I hope to learn more about it so I can properly organize my papers. In the future, I hope to get better at this so my pieces don’t suffer from problems that impede others’ understanding.