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Jonathan M. Andres
PhD. Sibson
English 110C
12/04/2017
My First English Class of College
As far as my first English class goes, I learned a bit more outside of the realm of English

than I thought. I learned about rhetoric, persuasive styles, formal writing tone, citing sources, and

how to build a proper essay. While I was already introduced to these topics in high school, going

over them in college was good for solidification, there were some aspects that were completely

foreign that were learned.

Rhetorically speaking there are three different main ways to use language to convince

someone onto your side of an argument. Ethos, Pathos, and Logos are the names of these three

different ways. Ethos is the Ethical argument of an essay, meaning that the person making the

claim has some sort of compelling argument. For example, a dentist has ethics regarding dental

work. Therefore, it would be valid for that dentist to endorse a product. So, in any case where

someones word is being taken based on their accredited expertise in a field. Pathos is the

emotional appeal a statement would invoke. Its trying to promote an emotion to drive someone

action. I attended a prolife march last year, and one image that vividly sticks with me were the

incredibly graphic pictures of aborted fetuses. That image to this day brings a lot of disgust and

even hatred towards that topic. It swung my opinion from being more passive to having a strong

stance on the topic. It is Pathos because it used my emotions incited by the picture to have a

different opinion. Logos is an argument I will be using a lot as an aspiring engineer. Logos is

using logic to sway someones beliefs to your point of view. This usually answers the why

question. With the ability to convince people the second most basic part of any paper is structure.
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Most papers have a logical structure to logically and effectively communicate the purpose

behind the paper. Starting at the beginning a paper should have a hook to entice the reader into

the subject matter. Then the intro paragraph should include a brief, yet intriguing explanation to

introduce the reader. Somewhere in the intro, I prefer the end, there should be a thesis

statement, which states the main topics discussed in the paragraph. Following is a body

paragraph with a main topic of some sort that will be the topic sentence. The paragraph usually

argues to prove the topic sentence, which is a part of the thesis statement. After the topic

sentence there is evidence to verify your point of view. Evidence is explained with commentary

simply yet effectively. This is to ensure that people can understand the evidence and its

pertinence to the situation. The body paragraph then ends with a conclusion and transitions to the

next paragraph. After the body paragraphs comes the conclusion of the paper, this should recount

the points with entirely repeating what is said. This is to ensure that the important information of

the paper sticks with the reader. At the end of any persuasive essay is the call to action. A

statement, which compels readers to act in a certain way towards a cause.

Tone and word choice are two important factors of writing although they individually

may not account for much. Differing papers have differing tones on how to appropriately

communicate them. Tone is the sense of how a reader writes something, you can still hear their

writers voice in your head. There are certain situations for differing tones then. For example,

Scientific writing tends to be more dry and factual, than that of a novel. Word choice also

follows under the tone of a piece of writing. It needs to agree with a novel. One can hardly

understand a work of specific mean with broad and inaccurate terms. Making sure each category

of studious writing matches the taste required.

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For different studies there are different formats and ways on citing. Failing to cite a

credible source is known as plagiarism. It is stealing of someone else intellectual property, and

claiming it for yourself. It is also improper for one to use themselves as a source in a paper. As

long as the writer makes a strong attempt to give credit properly, then it is not considered

plagiarism. Different subjects however hold different formatting structures. MLA, APA, and

Turabian are all examples of these. This helps especially if someone is questioning the validity of

your content.

In Sibsons class we learned to critique and interview people for their writing. Forming

cases on how they could improve there writing, and getting to the truth of people. When

critiquing someones work its good to annotate it. This will provide quotes and example for you

to make your case on the literary work. Annotates can include anything from observations to

simple commentary.

In Sibsons class we also learned more outside the realm of English. She specifically

structured the course, so we could earn a better understanding of engineering. Her life tips to

incoming freshman will be appreciated, as she tries to develop healthy habits for her world class

engineering students. This was all applied through rhetoric to our interests. It helped us want to

learn how to properly write, and gave us the tools to persuade in case the experience ever arises.