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Eng 102 Self-Reflection and Growth
Eng 102 Self-Reflection and Growth
ENG 102
own behaviors, actions, flaws, growth, etc. I will only be focusing on one reflection today and
rhetoric. Whether it is recognizing holes/short hands/fallacies being used by the person who I am
having a conversation with or if it is honing my persuasive skills through ethos, pathos, and
logos.
Before beginning English 102, I had the basic building blocks of rhetoric along ethos,
pathos, and logos in the previous semester in English 101. English 102 continued to build upon
them and laid down more “brick and mortar” if you will, with using these three aspects of
subject which gets us worked up or which we are passionate about, then write an argumentative
paper trying to persuade people, on why my view is correct and what action needs to be taken, if
any.
I hate when people do not use their turning signals not only is it rude, but it is required by
law to use them. They help prevent accidents by letting other people know in your lane
and in the other lane they want to go to that they want to come over whether in front of
someone or behind another car. By using your turn signal you people will be more
inclined to let you over then if you were to force your way over without a signal. No
matter what though the person who is in that lane has the legal right way to that lane. Just
because you put a signal on does not mean you can automatically come over into that
lane. You must wait properly for an actual opening in the lane where you do not force
So, if you couldn’t tell, I picked the lack of turn signal usage to practice and enhance these skills
mentioned previously.
Throughout the final draft of this classical argument essay, I used a lot of logos by
presenting facts and statistics which could make anyone fascinated with numbers to cringe. One
example, is of how many crashes were possibly caused by not using a turn signal in Arizona.
When you add up these categories of how many crashes Arizona had, it comes out to be
18,852 crashes in 2017 that the cause could be due to not using a turn signal (Arizona
crashes, where one or more people died. The injury in crashes of the 18,852 there was
3,826 injury crashes. This means that 20.82% of the 18,852 crashes either resulted in
death or injury.
Statistics is one form of logos which would win over anyone who is persuaded by numbers and
logical reasoning. At this point, in the discussion, most people should be thinking “Ya okay,
there might be a problem here”. Another aspect of logos I used to persuade my audience was the
“black and white” writing of the laws of Arizona pertaining to the required use of turn signals
As for Pathos, my whole introduction plays on emotions. I learned that a powerful tool of
persuasion is a story, preferably true, or scenario to begin your argument. It pulls your audience
in and makes them invested to hear the rest of what you have to say. You play upon their
humanity and their concern for life and their loved ones. I’m not going to copy and past the
whole page and half, but I will give you the second to last paragraph of the introduction as an
example.
I run over to the other car to check on the driver of the other vehicle. They were not
wearing their seatbelt, so they were flung forward into the windshield which did not
break from the force of their head hitting it. I could tell even in my dazed state that they
Any time death is involved, or a horrific accident happens it tugs on them good ol’ heart strings.
Throughout the essay, I continue to talk about serious injuries and deaths caused by people who
Though I did not use much of my own personal ethos, I built upon the ethos of others,
when using them as reliable and knowledgeable references. An example of such is utilizing SAE
International (Society of Automotive Engineers, one of the founders being Henry Ford) as a
source of information about the turning signal. If an organization founded by Henry Ford, the
legend who created the first motor vehicle, doesn’t qualify as experts in the automotive industry
to include new technology being integrated into vehicles, then no source would qualify. Or
another example is when it comes to the laws of the road by using Arizona Legislature to back
up my claim of it being illegal not to use a turn signal. By using these sources that already have
Our second major project, we were given two choices which were to write an essay
geared towards a resistant, but reasonable, audience or create a satire piece about our previous
topic chosen for the classical argument. I chose to do the satire option and created a brochure that
was proposing the outlaw of turn signals and the required use of them. I went to such an extreme
so that the audience that I am really trying to persuade them to use their turn signals, will stop
and think, “well wait that is overkill or ridiculous”. This would force them to admit that we need
turn signals and also open up to the idea of consistently using them. Throughout the written parts
of the brochure and in the design of it I employed the use of the patriotic fallacy in hopes that a
percentage of the audience would recognize said fallacy and call me on it. For instance, “Defend
your freedom, defend your safety, and defend against the laws the limit our rights!” because
America is all about people’s rights and the preservation of those rights. I even used the term
“Big brother” from the book 1984, referring to the controlling government taking away rights.
Another example of using this fallacy, is the background of the inside of the brochure is the
American flag; and on the back of the brochure was George Washington with a Bald Eagle on
one arm and a mini-gun in the other hand. What can be more patriotic than that?! I made up the
organization name, to match this picture, sponsoring said satire brochure. The name was
“Founding Fathers if America Against Restrictions of Freedom & Rights”. Seemed only fitting
with the founding father himself, George Washington, as the background of the last page.
Which brings me to my final lessons I learned throughout the semester which was
fallacies and all the different types. Now, there were a few I instinctively would pick up in
conversations as someone trying to “pull a fast one” on me, or a group of people, but never knew
the proper names of them and did not even realize that they were fallacies. We see personal
attacks all the time in politics; even in the last two chapters of Heinrichs’ Thank You for Arguing,
mentions how politics have gone away from using rhetoric to emotions and personal attacks.
Also, worth mentioning is the loaded question fallacy, which is always used in political debates.
This was one of those which I knew that I knew that they were trying to “pull a fast one” on the
Like I stated earlier in the last two chapters, Heinrichs went over some political aspects
and how politicians have lost/stopped the use of actual rhetoric versus now using emotions and
values, along with personal attacks, to run the government. He also did a quick review of pathos,
logos, ethos, and several other rhetoric tools discussed throughout the book. Then he gave
examples of using them in conversations, or trying to get a promotion and persuading the boss to
give it to you. It was good to see an example of several of these tools being used all at once
within an example conversation. But not only did he show how to use some of the tools he’s
given us but why you would not use certain tools at certain times in a conversation or not use it
Even though it wasn’t necessarily a direct lesson of rhetoric, it was still interesting to
learn that the birth of a great nation was influenced by great philosophers from Greece and
Rome, which the Founding Fathers of America idolized and based the Declaration of
Independence off of their school of thought, is crazy. It does show the good consequence or
results from proper rhetoric and persuasion. Instead of what politics is now. How the Founding
Fathers used rhetoric to debate and create the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is quite
astonishing. People coming together, who have different values/beliefs to be reasonable and
discuss how to divide power and create a system of checks and balances to keep all the power
from being in one person or groups hands, is a miracle comparing to the same system they
I do agree with him, we do need to start teaching proper rhetoric at a younger age. I’m
not sure if it would close the gap or get rid of political parties altogether, but it will help from
having emotions rule the political system versus thoughtful reasoning debates. It will force
people to come across the aisles to debate/argue properly or look unfit for office by slurring the