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Reflection

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47 views

Reflection

Uploaded by

api-254131784
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Reflection: English

I originally took English 1010 at 8:00a.m. - 8:50a.m. Mondays, Wednesdays, and


Fridays throughout spring semester 2014 in order to meet general education credits and to
improve my personal communication skills. The professor was Jeffrey Aird, who was an
enthusiastic and thorough teacher with a method that seemed responsive to students
individual perspectives. Although prior to this class I had thought that I possessed
sufficient reading and writing skills, both the readings and the lesson plans have helped to
enlighten me about better word use for transitioning, pointing, signifying or elaborating
in order to make my writing and speaking more conversational. Hopefully this is evident
in my position synthesis paper. Among the things that I learned in preparing for the
position synthesis paper were: proper use of an English template, more accurate word
selection for signifying action, rhetoric techniques for persuasion and MLA format.
Perhaps the main point of the class was the idea that good communication and
persuasion requires incorporating and considering information from a variety of
perspectives in order to be well informed when trying to join the conversation. In
joining the conversation, as the book They Say/I Say put it, I learned it is important to
address who cares about the topic, as those people would be the intended audience.
Similarly, it is also important to point out who might be affected and how since it might
not be evident to readers who should care or what it could mean to some. In addressing
who cares and why it matters on almost any topic there will be a variety of information
that could lead to any number of perspectives. This makes it important for an author to,
not only clearly summarize the topic, but to explicitly state their thesis as to clarify their
thoughts from those of others.
In my opinion the most important thing we learned in this class was the rhetorical
appeals and how they help to persuade and influence peoples thinking. The appeals
seemed to be the building blocks of effective writing in how they address: timeliness and
relevance as kairos, credibility of an arguments source through ethos, logic and facts
with logos, and effect to, or shared value with the intended audience by use of pathos.
Each individual appeal- pathos, logos, ethos and kairos- can be used in two different
ways particular to each appeal. When all appeals are used together to present a topic the
author has effectively joined the conversation and informed the reader on different basic
perspectives surrounding the topic. This is assuming the author includes opposing views
and gives them a fair voice, or in other words, addresses naysayers in order to show
credibility and be more persuasive.
Thus, being a good writer, or speaker I have learned is intimately tied to being
thorough in research, fair in comparisons and judgments, conversational in tone, and
convincing in logic and layout. These factors combined with a good view of the different
respective views surrounding a topic create innumerable strategies for addressing any
possible topic in discussions with any possible audience. However, it is important to edit,
revise and rewrite before presenting for best effect. Also, although seemingly obvious
and easy if you are original, or accurate, it is a continuing occurrence that people fail to
correctly cite and give credit properly to the original sources of ideas, research, statistics,
interviews, quotes, etc. This is especially important in any educational or professional
writings and speeches in order to maintain good credibility among a persons peers. With
all this in mind and being put into practice I will continue to get better at engaging,
informing and persuading in different circumstances.

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