Nishant Prakash

Wilson Writing 2
December 2 2015
Dear Matt,
During this quarter I have learned much more about the deeper aspects of writing than I
anticipated I would. When I came in I wrote a very, very weak essay. My WP1 had no direction,
choppy information flow, and pretty much everything that could be wrong was wrong. But now I
feel as though I understand how the process of writing should work. I began to look at my work
through a different lens. I can see how rhetoric works, or even better, what rhetoric is. Before the
class if someone asked me what rhetoric was, I would literally have no clue, but learning about
logos, pathos, and ethos brought me to a new method of argument. In classes and papers,
whoever is making a point, is trying to have the audience buy into their argument. Through
learning how to identify the three aspects, I was able to understand how to formulate and support
my own arguments. I would like to, in the future, learn more about analysis, because I do not
think I understand what it means in the context of writing.
I chose to revise my last two writing projects. I chose to because I felt they were better
bases to work off of. The first Writing project had zero basis in terms of what was discussed in
the classroom and I felt I could not go back and effectively create a project on the level of
expectation from the rubric. My second writing project however I improved on. I felt I was able
to demonstrate that I could identify the uses of rhetoric and the genres function in a discourse
community. I actually decided to change up my stance in terms of my argument. I felt like doing
this because as I progressed in the Geological Catastrophes class, I found myself more
comfortable as a part of the discourse community. As you mentioned, if I did not understand the
implications of the article I should say that. But at the time of revision, I had enough of an
education within the field that I was able to grasp what the claims were saying. Therefore, I felt

that I could better, and more consistently argue that while the community seems hard, it is not
that difficult to become a part of. This is primarily in my taking of the article and expressing how
to an absolute outsider, it seems too distant, and then broke down that idea by using evidence
from the classroom. I did this because of the new audience given. I can imagine being a student
considering an earth science and the intimidating factors of such a field. I then decided to talk
about the classroom in terms of my professors rhetoric. This was a huge topic in class and I
realized it fit very well. A professor who can effectively use rhetoric with be able to ease the
process of entering a discourse community.
I chose to also revise writing project three. This was because I did best on it. I felt proud
of what I was able to do, and I felt it would be best to represent how my experience in the class
related to my improvement in my ability to write. My goal remained the same in that, I was
writing about the same process, but I decided to streamline it for a new audience. First I needed
to make the Translation simpler, stripping it down to more of a Bill Nye sketch than Cosmos, but
both shows served the same function and, in my mind, are part of the same genre, it is just that I
have had more experience with Cosmos. I began with a completely new beginning, to establish
an original train of thought, which I could use my previous evidence for.
For me I valued the feedback in terms of my organization, thesis, and argument the most.
From the beginning of the course I realized I had no grasp of what a thesis really was. In writing
project one I had no thesis, no real argument, or any point when I began writing. As a result, I
had a misguided jumbled walkthrough of two pieces, without a connection from evidence to
anything. In these projects I found I had trouble finding a consistent argument to follow. I always
chose to ask about first my thesis. I felt that if I did not my entire paper would have no
foundation and this flaw would become too hard to go back and fix. In addition, my organization

became, not a problem, but something I would question constantly. Putting some pieces of
evidence in certain places would change my argument. Overall I very wanted input on my piece
about aspects that a legitimate reader, separate from my view as an author, could see. When I
read my own writing, I know what I am talking about, I know what I want to say. But when
others had to read it I could see where my errors were. This was also apparent when we did the
read aloud peer revision exercises. These exercises were new to me during the class but their
effectiveness became clear. I could see where I confused the reader and the auditory cues
allowed me to get a better grasp of what needed to change.
In the future, my writing projects will be more organized. I cannot say how much of my
understanding of rhetoric and discourse communities will apply to many of my classes in the
future. But I have most definitely been able to figure out how to make my writing clear. I really
want to focus on the concept of information flow with index and stress in the future. These
concepts were completely foreign to me coming into the class, but they make sense. I never
found a distinct method of correcting my choppy style of writing but thinking about it and seeing
it demonstrated, I wonder why I was not taught it in high school. Knowing what I know now, I
hope that these papers hit their marks. For Writing Project 2, I hope that you will be able to see
that, in the essay, is an argument that convinces you that Geological Catastrophes is a class worth
taking, and that it can be understood by another student possibly considering the class. In my
Writing project 3 hope you can see why, and how I broke down the article, to become something
that could be shown in a high school class room, and that could possibly compel a reader to learn
more.
Sincerely,
Nishant Prakash