Writing Portfolio
rhetorical knowledge
Understanding Writing Situations: Joining the Conversation
Rhetorical knowledge is being aware of a writing situation and its various components. Every writing situation is different - articles, books, comics, assignments, blogs, essays - and each has its own "rules" to follow when writing in that situation. Using several skills in order to write effectively in different writing situations will ensure a good understanding of rhetorical knowledge. Throughout this course, I have obtained a lot of rhetorical knowledge and have learned how important it is to pay atention to the writing situation at hand.
Before doing this assignment, I never thought of writing in terms of a situation or conversation. Writing was simply me conveying information or an opinion to an audience, normally my teacher. However, after reading these articles and thinking about them, I developed a new view regarding writing that would help me throughout the rest of the class. Although I had to think of writing as a conversation for the rest of the semester, these assignments were the ones that introduced me to the idea of truly understanding the situation under which you are writing.
For example, when I discussed tone, "tone is a big element of writing, as well as conversation. A rude tone will lead to disinterest for your reader, or listener, very quickly," I realized that writing really is like a conversation and you have to be aware of how you are portraying yourself to your target audience. You need to consider several aspects of the audience in order to effectively convey a message to them. Writing about pop music in a blog about rap will likely irritate the reader, just as when talking you wouldn't randomly go off topic. Writing is all about communication, and is so similar to speaking yet we don't realize how similar the two actions are. These introductory assignments built the foundation of what I would learn in this course and eventually be able to convey effectively.
Peer Feedback:
Do and Don't
Giving peer feedback is always a great activity for helping others and for developing your own writing. I almost always benefit from good peer feedback and I also enjoy giving feedback. Knowing what to do and what not to do while giving peer feedback is very important. I have always been a big sucker for grammar; I feel the need to always fix every grammar mistake. However, I learned through this activity that it's actually better not to focus on grammar at first when peer revising. Look at the content first and grammar later. Once I began doing this, I believe I gave more effective peer feedback. The writing situation of peer feedback is different than most other writing situations because it is generally less formal and more personal. The do's and do not's of peer feedback are basically the guidelines to follow for the specific writing situation. I had previously given plenty of peer feedback, but this assignment allowed me to greatly better my peer feedback, allowing me to help others, as well as myself much more. Giving praise and criticism is a big rule in peer feedback because if you give someone olny negative comments they will think their writing is terrible and become discouraged. Similarly, if you only give praise, the writer will think you don't really care about helpping them better their writing. Knowing the writing situation of peer feedback has helped me better myself in helping others with seeing their writing potential, while increasing my ability to see my own potential.
rhetorical appeals
Rhetorical appeals really surround us every single day, whether we are aware of them or not. Studying rhetoric can better your ability to understand a writing conversation. I had a previous knowledge of rhetorical appeals before doing this assignment, but upon doing the assignment, my knowledge greatly increased. I understood more why rhetoric is so important and how it can be used in one's own writing to more effectively entise the audience. I wrote in the assignment that "Rhetoric is around us every single day and becoming aware of these appeals will lead to an increase in knowledge and the art of persuasion." Upon writing this statement, I was unaware how true it actually was. Now, however, I am very aware of rhetorical appeals and their power in writing. I had to use ethos several times throughout this course to ensure my credibility with my audience. Incorporating sources and addressing both sides of an argument were things I did to ensure my credibility for my audience. I also had to utilize pathos in my website at certain points to try and connect with my audience on a more personal level. Rhetoricl appeals change for every writing situation, so being able to use them accordingly becomes very useful.
blog
As someone who never wrote a blog before the one for this class, I had to learn a lot about the writing situation of a blog. It is much different than writing a formal paper. Blogging is much more informal and you are able to incorporate several modes such as pictures, gifs, and videos. You can play with fonts, colors, and organization of information in a blog; it isn't linear like an essay. Also, normally when we write ssays the audience is solely the teacher who will be grading it. With a blog, being published online, ideally anyone can be your audience. With this in mind, I had to think about who the target audience for my topic was. Once I figured that out, I then went about my writing keeping in mind several aspects of my target audience: age, opinions, knowledge of the subject, visual preferences, etc. When writing my blog, I kept all of these things in mind in order to keep my target audience engaged and happy. I had to inform my audience and make the content fun and interesting, while also establishing my credibility with them through sources and personal opinions/experiences. Blogging is certainly a different writing situation when compared to a formal written essay. However, I enjoyed the expereince of learning how to blog, as I think it will help my writing processes in future work.