Nov 3 Assignment - My thoughts

Coming into this year I had always heard of rhetoric but truly didn’t understand the word or the concept. Through this class and the assignments I have come to understand better the meaning and the use of rhetoric not only in advertising but in our daily lives. The rhetorical analysis was not the easiest thing I have done. It is difficult to critically analyze another person’s writing and see how their style and techniques worked or didn’t work.
This assignment was not the most joyful thing I have ever done. It took lots of thinking and just wasn’t very fun. It was boring as I went through the paper and listed the ethos, pathos, logos, audience, message, and speaker. Then writing the paper was difficult as I always like to put my own personal spin on things, but in a rhetorical analysis, this is very difficult. It just seemed like a really boring paper to me.
Although the work of writing this paper was tedious and not entertaining, I did learn a lot. I have learned how to recognize rhetoric and how commercials, articles, and everything that tries to persuade always focuses on a few major things. I can now identify those things as they relate to Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. I can see what things can work and what things don’t work at all. It has changed the way I look at life as I see what people do to try to persuade me to do what they want.
While I was writing the paper I remember thinking “How am I supposed to write 4 to 6 pages on this?” But as I began writing and really breaking down the article it seemed to come easier. I wrote my paper on imagery and how he used that to his advantage. The most difficult thing was saying that imagery either worked or didn’t work without using those exact words. I didn’t want to just say “using imagery in this way worked and persuaded the audience.” Or “Using this imagery didn’t work.” I need to still improve my paper and practice my critical analyzing skills.
I have also learned that I personally use rhetoric in my daily life. Any time I want anything I use rhetoric. I use different types of rhetoric on different people, depending on their personality. This shows that the audience plays a big role in the Ethos, Pathos, and Logos that the speaker uses to try to persuade the audience. I have seen the rhetoric triangle in my life and in all things. I can hardly watch a commercial now without thinking, “What is the message, speaker, and audience? What does he want me to do and what is he doing to persuade me to do it? Does it work?” This could get a little annoying as I am trying to relax and enjoy some college football on Saturday.
Rhetoric is a great tool that I will use for the rest of my life. Knowing how people try to persuade will help me in all aspects of my life. It was difficult to write 4 pages on somebody else’s article, but I learned a lot from doing it.