Carley Moore Professor Padgett ENGL 1102 December 9th, 2013 Writing in a Nutshell In every other English class

that I have been a part of, their discussion of rhetoric was very superficial and ultimately unhelpful. That is one of the main differences that I found from being in this class. The majority of English teachers understand bad technique but they focus more on broader topics that one cannot utilize if they dont understand the essence of what makes a good argument. Other teachers also emphasize the importance of staying away from adding meaningless sentences into ones writing; however they dont go as far to show what those things looks like and what exactly they want instead. Peer editing in classrooms has also been an area that lacks focus and honesty. For these reason, this class has taught me the value of rhetoric and its uses, how to identify and eliminate platitudes as well as how to effectively workshop with your peers. In the early stages of this class, rhetorical strategies were introduced and elaborated on for the remainder of the semester. The use of rhetoric was vital in the writing of our own research papers. One needs to understand how to conduct an argument if they wish to influence the ideas of another. By watching all the videos in class and discussing the speakers strategies, we were able to see what worked and what did not work and shared ideas of how they could fix it. Therefore, his class served as an in depth study on mainly one thing that would help us with

any other paper that each student might have to write in the future. I learned that rhetoric can earn you credibility or it can strip you of it. Before this class I was unaware of the exact meaning of the ethos strategy, however, now I am able to employ it in my papers to present myself as a credible speaker. The heavy use of platitudes in my writing was not apparent to me until I had this class. I find that I used to add unnecessary sentences in my writing that would carry little if any weight as a result of trying to reach a page or word count requirement. I recently came to realize the name of these sentences as well as the negative effects they could harbor on ones writing. Not only do they decrease your credibility as a writer, they make your paper loose its spark. After being in this class, I find that when I write I consider every sentence and ask how it is contributing to my paper. Rather than add substance-less sentences, I also realized that it was more effective to have a conversation with your writing and the sources you choose to incorporate. The workshop process was another element of the class that I found to be beneficial. It was very helpful and interesting to listen to my peers comment on my writing while I sat their silently listening and considering every word. My writing has improved from workshop because I now know more of what I need to work on. By sitting quietly during workshop I was not able to make excuses for my writing. In turn, this made me see my writing for what it really was and how it stood on its own. The majority of the time the faults in my writing were consistently the same. Being told repeatedly what I needed to fix made me aware of what I do wrong, so now I can recognize the mistake before it happens. After this class I value more of what writing is trying to communicate to us. As this class has taught, writing is dialogic. I now understand that this means that good writing should be making an attempt at conversing with the reader. It

should be focused on including them rather than spouting out close-minded and biased ideas. Because of this, I have gained a new, positive perspective on writing that employs conversation and hope that all my writing in the future may exemplify this attribute.