Charles Harper

Professor Maple

English 101

1 December 2018

Critical Reflection

Throughout this semester, I have grown immensely not only a critical thinker, but as a

writer as well. These seemingly long, but yet very short 4 months have taught me how to

construct in-depth thought, concise and punctual grammar, to take time and think through and

organize my thoughts, and execute gathering data whilst presenting it in a clear well distributed

way. Everything from writing stories, to doing research and defending my opinion with logic,

credibility, and appeal to emotion. In completing these assignments, I have not only grown as

writer, but as a person as well.

In unison with the completion of this course, I too have worked diligently in order to

meet all of the SLO’s required. The SLO’s have shown that I have absorbed and attained the

required knowledge necessary in order to become a successful writer not only for the rest of my

college career, but for the rest of my life as well. I have learned that for any writer, critical

reflection and revision are among the most difficult areas, and most often are not taken seriously

enough or in some cases are just overlooked completely, I am no exception. Providing structure

to our writing through outlines and showing us the proper way to not only look back over your

work, but to actually sit an analyze it has forced me to grow in areas that I knew needed work,

but most importantly places where I thought need no work at all.

 I doing this I completed a website that takes a past paper that I have written and used the

revision techniques that we have learned throughout the semester in the form of all six SLO’s. I

chose to put this critical reflection first as I believe it sets a solid foundation and precursor into

my work. It will spell out the revisions that I have done in order to completely analyze and

hopefully overall improve my paper. Following that, I decided upon stating how each SLO was

used in my paper. It is imperative that once it is clear what revisions I did to my paper, to know

what my guidelines were for my revision process. Then after I put my first draft up so the viewer

can see what my first initial thoughts were as well as my general understanding at the time of

what my rhetorical analysis was supposed to be. Lastly, is my revised copy of my rhetorical

analysis. It is just that, my final product, my final way to show the viewer that I have learned and

acquired the necessary skills that I will need for the rest of my life.

I started off my revisions by looking at the professor’s comments on my first draft. It said

that overall, I had a good paper and did a good job, however I lacked a true concise thesis.

Meaning that I never truly stated my opinion nor did I take a side. The thesis is arguably the most

important part of rhetorical analysis. So, after the first paragraph at the bottom of page one states

“ I am writing this today to further my claim through the means of credibility, logic, and the

emotional ties of the public as to why I believe that Ellie Wiesel and his speech had a more

profound impact on society that Regan.”. Here we now have a basis for my entire paper and a set

up for the entire structure. I feel as if this is the most important revision of them all.

Reading on I found that there was really no need to define the term “egos”. The analysis

should be structured with and contain egos, logos, and pathos, however, stating when you are

using them and announcing it I feel takes away from the overall flow and power of the paper.

This was found on the first paragraph of the second page.

 Another small yet effective change that I made was actually sitting down and rereading

my paper and fixing all of my grammatical and punctuation errors that occurred in the first draft.

To be completely honest, I was shocked at just how many there were. It now is no secret to me

that I need to focus harder and not be so careless.

Realizing now what a rhetorical analysis is all about, I came to the conclusion that I was

too unbiased throughout my paper. Normally being unbiased is almost never a bad thing, I feel as

if I did not quite grasp the full concept of what a rhetorical analysis actually was. Though both of

the men are exceptional in not only their words but with their actions as well, I realized that I

never quite took a side in all of this. This is imperative when constructing a rhetorical analysis.

With that being said I added a few more sentences throughout my paper in order to drive the

point home and make clear whose side I am really on. In discussing the lives of the two men I

added “However, it is clear to me that Wiesel has much more of a solid backing. Through his life

experiences he has lived his message and to me, has more of a positive message and influence.”

to the second paragraph on the third page. I felt the need to clear up who I thought had the most

credibility as far as the lives that they lived. I too added on the fifth page my analysis on the

logical stance of both speeches. I once again took the side of Wiesel due to the fact that it is clear

to me that Mr. Reagan, as a politician, has some sort of agenda for saying the things that he says.

The entire premise of his speech is to support another candidate and inadvertently tear the other

down. Wiesel speaks of repeating the past if we forget the past. Something that has happened

before countless times. He has no ones best interest at heart except the worlds and he uses past

examples and clear thought in order to drive that home. Lastly in choosing a side, on the sixth

page I added “Which in this case I see Wiesel as the clear victor. Both evoked emotion, but

through Elie Wiesel’s horrific past, he was able to connect with his audience on a much more
powerful level. Evoking anger to win to me is much less significant than evoking sadness and

guilt in order to change the world.”.

With these revisions, I am now certain that may paper is a true rhetorical analysis. It has a

clear side whilst supporting my case and overall decision. The spelling and grammar are correct,

and now I am confident that my points are concise