Jesse Illich

Dr. Bret Zawilski

R/C 2001, 181
Wednesday, December 9
Final Reflection
This course definitely expanded my rhetorical knowledge and made me further aware of
how rhetoric is in any form of writing or even photographs and art. The project that challenged
me the most was our first project, the Rhetorical Analysis. While I did not have a good grasp on
what rhetoric really meant, I had to differentiate two very similar articles and explain how their
rhetorical decisions fit into the text. This further made me aware of some rhetorical decisions I
can make in my own papers. For example, identifying your audience is a huge concept I heard of
but never notified within my own writing. While this seemed to be the most interesting rhetorical
concept, I also felt isolating constraints within papers help construct a better overall argument.
Notifying rhetoric in my writing helped but I think the most beneficial concept to me was that
writing is a process. With the course encouraging multiple pier reviews and numerous drafts, it
was up to the student whether to participate in them to improve their papers.
From my shitty first draft to my final draft was beyond progress. I relied heavily upon in
class reviews and benefited greatly from our online video reviews and conferences on the major
issues essay. My shitty first draft was practically a list of ideas arranged in sentences. There was
not a lot of flow and terrible grammar was demonstrated. For my second draft, I avoided just
working on grammar issues, but I expanded my resources and ethos more to have professional
arguments. My third draft consist of further additions and splitting of paragraphs that I feel can
be expanded. After professional feedback on my papers, I further re-arranged and developed a

more professional tone in my texts. My final drafts were meant to have little to no grammar or
spelling mistakes but with more issues continued to pop up with the numerous revisions I
completed. I learned that my writing always needs work; however, all writing can be further
developed. The process does not end in the writing world and I always have room for
improvement. After a semester in this course, I feel more comfortable in progressing my writing
from a rough first draft to a polished draft.
The writing in my Major Issues Essay related to the writing in my field the most because
of the need for a professional tone and how topics must flow together. In the medical field,
papers must sound professional to have any credit given; otherwise the text will be overlooked
and be deemed as unprofessional. A solid base of ethos is also required to sound professional and
must have logos to support your argument. This is my biggest concern while writing in my field
because you must know what you are talking about and use plenty of vocabulary from your
discourse community to be recognized as apart of the community. While I am very young in my
education, Ive got a lot to learn to be able to place myself within the medical society. Another
big part of my writing relating to my field would be arrangement. I am on pace for a science
degree and that calls for plenty of lab reports and in the medical field would be patient write ups.
If lab reports are improperly arranged, they are not only looked at as unprofessional but become
harder to understand for professionals within the community that are use to seeing the writing in
a specific order. For medical professionals, a patient write up that is disorganized could lead to
potentially a mistreatment or someone being prescribed an incorrect amount.
From my rhetorical analysis, I learned how rhetorical decisions can greatly alter similar
topics. While you are directing information to an audience, there are certain rhetorical decisions
that can help relate the exigence of your paper across more effectively. From my third draft of

my rhetorical analysis to my final draft, I did a variety of rearranging, grammar and punctuation
correction, vocabulary enhancement, and added further information. After receiving feedback on
my third draft, it was clear that my paper was not arranged to its full potential. I took the bottom
2-3 paragraphs and grouped them with similar topics at the top of the paper. Therefore, all of my
information relating to the audience and constraints was at the beginning of my paper, and the
rhetorical decisions made were discussed in the bottom half of the paper. I also added an
additional paragraph at the end concerning the exigence between the two articles I choose to
compare. I also revisited my citations and works cited page, fixing the mistakes mentioned in the
revision video.
My Major Issues Essay needed work on sounding more professional and additional
information needed to be conducted. I added more information about how steroids can be used in
the medical field and specific diseases that are regularly treated with steroids. In my introduction,
I made my thesis statement more clear and also clarified transitions from paragraphs that were
unclear. The lower portion of my paper was rather unprofessional. I worked with the information
I had and made the information present itself as more professional. I also added another source
into my paper that was used to further explain steroid uses.
The Multimodal mini-ethnography needed a lot of work. This was the hardest to revise
because working with website creators is not my expertise. However, I did manage to fix a great
deal of problems like lack of information and potential grammar issues that affected my own
ethos or credibility. Previously, I was short on topics like what is exercise science, is this
major right for you, and expanded on the careers associated with the pre-professional aspect of
exercise science; rather than just having links to websites to do the explanation for myself. I now
feel the website is on the path to being professional. The information I was able to give was

greatly restricted due to the fact that I have still yet to begin my concentration major core classes
because of general education.
As a result of the assignments completed in this course, I learned a great deal about my
course of study and what it takes to be apart of specific discourse communities. The path of
gaining personal ethos begins on the journey of your college education. While I am also
beginning to form my own opinions on topics that interest me because of knowledge I am
gaining through my education here at Appalachian.