Letter to the editor, a poor argument

In the WRIT 1122 class we were assigned to do a series of letters to the editor as informal assignments to the class. We were to pick one and revise it to construct a good well thought out and well written argument.

In my last blog post I mentioned how two aspects of the course had helped me improve my writing this quarter. I also talked about how they both go hand in hand for making a successful argument in writing and that if one aspect were to fail, it makes the final outcome ineffective at best. I believe this is exactly what happened with my letter to the editor. I think my letter to the editor was written well with precise word choice to get my points across and still fit within the 200 word limit, and also used the various rhetorical appeals to pathos, logos, and ethos, or at least a lot better than it would have been at the beginning of the quarter. This however was not very relevant at all though because my argument itself was flawed. I had originally tried to piece together an argument against something in an article that really was quite unfounded and just did not make much sense at all. Since that was the letter I had initially written I kept trying to improve on that, however I found I was always stuck and confused as to where I was going with the argument. This is a definite example of where my writing was flawed in that the argument founding the entire work was flawed.

In addition...

In class yesterday we had 10 minutes to blog about the improvements made to our writing and changes made throughout the course. I was thinking since then of some additions I could make.

Another aspect of improvement made to my writing resulting from the course has also been integrating skills from the course. Most importantly, forming precise bullet proof arguments and proposals. One can practice writing a lot and effectively become a good writer with great word choice, sentence structure, and overall getting thoughts into writing, however practice is NOT everything, to contradict a commonly used cliche. There are some skills that need to be learned and studied, such as in our 1122 class, how to build and structure effective arguments. This is definitely one important aspect of the course in which I improved my writing. The class discussions and overall, just all the information about writing and making such arguments and proposals was very beneficial to my writing. I find this to be because no matter how much I practice writing, good writing is not necessarily a good argument and vice versa. I realized that both are definitely good skills to have and both compliment each other to form the ideal work. One can have a great argument but not be able to communicate it very well through writing which in turn doesn't quite get that argument out there in the way it needs to be or make it very credible. Then again, one could also be great at words but have an a poorly structured argument that doesn't make much sense and that will also be ineffective. Most definitely the practice writing and the skills learned in the class discussions go hand in hand and this is what ultimately has helped me noticeably improve my writing throughout the course.

Improvements from the the WRIT1122 course.

By taking this course, I have had many opportunities to learn about writing.

The first aspect of improvement for my writing has been practice. The course has supplemented the writing I have been assigned in all my other classes to keep me busy enough with writing that there is always some paper or written assignment I am working on at all times this initially was a bit intimidating to me as I was not a very good writer at the beginning of this quarter. What it did however, was improve my comfort level with writing. After this quarter I can write and compose my thoughts into writing so much more efficiently that I can write a lot more and it doesn't take me as long. This has proved very useful and came just from the practice and experience of constantly writing something. Prior to this I was always intimidated by large writing assignments and also had a big problem with composing my thoughts and getting them into writing, it would take significant amounts of time to complete papers that were not all that big. This practice has also set in stone the new things I learned from the WRIT1122 course, meaning now when I write a paper or some other piece of writing for another class, some of these things just develop naturally in my thoughts as I write, and I don't end up having to chop up my first draft as much to try and fit corrections in.

Rhetorical appeals in the Declaration of Independance

To begin, Thomas Jefferson coordinates with appeals to pathos, or appeals to emotion with his argument. From the Declaration of Independence here are two quotes that demonstrate appeals to pathos: “He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people” and “He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.” These, as well as many of the other facts listed could be seen as appeals to pathos merely because his use of vivid precise language that depicts how oppressing the old form of government was by evoking a response in a reader of feeling the emotion, feeling sad, angry, or sorry after reading it. These are one of many facts Jefferson was pointing out in the Declaration of Independence and are just examples of his use of language and wording to appeal to pathos.
All of these facts, as they may be structured to appeal to pathos, also exist as a logos appeal. Before listing them Jefferson states: “The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.” Following this quote he lists all of the facts about the old government. This is an appeal to logos because it also shows the logic involved with why the United States was declaring its independence. Showed in these facts were all very logical reasons for the colonies to declare their independence and they also make it very hard to argue for the case of not declaring independence.
In this list of facts there are also ethos appeals to back up his argument. A lot about what he exposes in these facts call on wrongdoings of the old government which makes the reader really question morals in general and their state of existence under the old government. This appeal focuses on making the reader especially consider the ethics involved with the old leadership and by proving that it is unethical, or making the reader feel that way, it serves as an ethos based appeal. An example from this list is “He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.” This shows how it is against the morals of most people for judges to be dependant and make decisions based on the government and how much they are payed.
What makes this entire document so effective is that in this list of facts, they all serve as appeals to pathos, logos, and ethos at the same time.

Rhetoric? What's that?

In the beginning of the quarter and starting off WRIT1122 I had absolutely no idea what a rhetor was, a rhetorical appeal,or even what rhetoric was to begin with. This was when I thought this class would surely be over my head. I remember my first question in the class was "what is rhetoric?"

Since then, I have learned a lot from WRIT1122 and have been integrating that knowledge into not just my writing in the class, but in my other classes as well as writing outside of school.

The understanding of the pathos, egos, and logos rhetorical appeals is definitely useful and crucial to deliberately structure a rhetorical argument, but nothing compares to the argument analysis that was taught in class with the claim, the reason, the warrant, the grounds for the reason, and the backing to the warrant. By asking myself when I make an argument whether it be in writing or not if I have included these and if so where have I included them, my arguments have improved greatly.

The letters to the editors have been a great way to practice this.

Revisions

In class on Monday we had peer reviews of our letters to the editor. Ben and Louise did an excellent job of giving me the proper peer feedback. Usually a typical in class peer review people either rag on you for a misplaced comma but nothing else, or they tell you its the best thing they had ever read.

Ben and Louise were excellent because they provided excellent honest feedback about how to improve the different aspects of my letter to the editor. Their feedback and suggestions with how I could improve the letter I found very useful while revising. They both pointed out how I could improve on a counter argument in my letter to the editor and in the discussions of all our peer reviews they also gave me some ideas that I could think about for creating a counter argument.

Ben also gave me excellent feedback about how to make the transitions between different appeals more integrated and better flowing. The in-class peer review session was very beneficial to my review process!

-Nick

Rhetorical Writing

In my previous blog posts, as well as the midterm critical self-assessment I answered questions and talked a lot about what I plan to change in my writing through college. I mentioned a few things that mainly focused on and surrounded the wide variety of different types of writing encountered at college and adapting to them.

One thing I would like to add to expand upon this is that I would also like to incorporate different aspects from each type of writing to different writing styles. This past week on Wednesday and Thursday I had a twelve page midterm paper to write for a business class. To answer the five essay questions it was a constant battle of including as much information as possible to make effective arguments, without making the paper end up being any longer than it really was. Through all these arguments, I realized just recently after thinking about it that many of them were logos and ethos based.

After this, I got to thinking that writing is not as class/type differentiated as I thought. Adding to my goals for college writing I believe I will now also work on implementing things that I learn from all my writing into my future writing assignments. The things I learned about arguments from WRIT1122 and the letters to the editor could have proved quite useful in my business midterm if I analyzed my arguments in that fashion. This is something I definitely plan to work toward and taking advantage of everything I know about writing in all my writing assignments and subjects.

My writing and adjustments to college

In response to the question: " So what changes would you like to make to your writing as you adjust to college?"

As I adjust to college, one major change I would like to make to my writing in the college environment would definitely be opening my mind to various styles of writing. In my high school experiences they teach and focus primarily on one specific type of writing in English classes from freshman to senior year. All other subjects, whether it was sciences, mythology, or even secondary courses that aren't even part of the core subjects, all focus on and expect writing to be in the same form and style.


In college, and especially post college, writing varies greatly according to the field as well as the subject matter. Though I absolutely love it compared to writing in high school due to the variety and more interesting forms of writing, I find it hard sometimes to adapt because the typical high school style of writing is so ingrained in me.

This is the main thing I plan to focus on correcting in my writing as I adapt to college. I plan to approach different types of writing styles and forms with more of an open mind and learn along the way as I work on and complete various works of writing in different styles.

Another thing that closely goes along with this is precision. Mainly to me it seems like the different types of writing styles are designed to suit what the writing is trying to accomplish in the most efficient manner possible. This is something I plan to work on adapting to better. High school writing seemed to me to be a stretch of how far one could expand on an idea, which is not a bad thing necessarily, but at times it would seem like there was a length requirement of the various works that would be difficult to reach, thus the point was to be as broad and generalized as possible and to include material just for the purpose of meeting that requirement.

College writing I have encountered thus far has been the exact opposite, where there is an incredible wealth of information, ideas, and arguments that need to all be communicated and presented. Here the goal is not to be as long and drawn out as possible, but be as clear, concise, and efficient as possible with writing to communicate the information, ideas, and arguments without making an excessively huge mess of words that just makes for a reading catastrophe.

This goal to implement much more efficient word choice and way of writing supplements that of open mindedness to various forms of writing as I adapt to college.

Ahh! Blogging?

When I first heard of the blogging assignment for WRIT1122, the first thoughts and images that came to mind were "Oh, those weblog things people write on the internet about random junk" and "I've never even really READ a blog in depth, much less WRITTEN one before." This is what one of the scariest things about writing is for me, is writing something in a style I am unsure about and have never written before. I always wonder, what if this isn't anything like what is expected of me?

Well, like just about everything else in life, "practice is everything." To help out, Dr. Schonberg also provided me with some good examples and links to blogs which have really aided my understanding of blogging over the last week. One main thing I have learned a lot about blogging is that it takes on a much less formal style of writing. There isn't much to it as far as a specific style or organization goes. From what I have seen from numerous blogs on the web, the style's the blogs are written in vary greatly, depending on the topic the blog is about, the style of the blog (whether it is a technical blog, a more personal blog, etc.), and also, they seem to vary from person to person.

After this research I have actually started to take an interest in reading blogs, and hopefully writing plenty of my own as well as even starting up my own blog relating to activities outside writing.

-Nick

In class writing revision

Dr. Schonberg,

I am a freshman here at DU who has successfully completed his first quarter. I am writing this to inform you of where I am at as a writer right now, where I was before I came to the University of Denver, and where I have come since then, as well as things I have realized about college writing.

In my first year seminar which related to evolution and fossils, we wrote semi often. In class quizzes were usually written out answers to questions instead of multiple choice. Our midterm and final exams were also papers. Ultimately, in just this one quarter long class I produced approximately ten to fifteen pages of writing. The writing assignments as stated above were all in place of tests or quizzes, so they were ultimately assessments of course material. The assignments related to the methodology of the course in addition to the material. Most of these assignments usually asked me what I thought of a hypothesis and to prove or disproved based on my opinion which was based on the information learned from the material of the course. The writing in this course was not even close to what I had expected of college writing. My expectations of college writing was that it would be typical high school English class style thematic essays except juiced up on steroids by having huge length and vocabulary expectations. Or, in other words, writing assignments I already found boring and dreary that I often struggled and found great difficulty with, but a much harder version of it. So far, college writing has been nothing like this at all. In reality, college writing has been much more simple and down to the point. It is something I am enthusiastic about and can sit down and crank out page after page with little effort. It is so much easier and fun to write when there is more of a purpose to what I am writing that is actually interesting. This has been what the majority of my college writing has been like. I also like how it is so much more precise and efficient because there is so much information to write about, unlike high school writing which is a useless babble fest to attempt to fill five pages with something that has little to no importance or meaning to the writers.

As a university student I have learned a lot about writing, mostly that it isn’t these boring dreary repetitive thematic essays that are nearly identical from one to the other. There is so much variety in college writing and what is expected of it. For example, a business case study paper shares nothing at all in common with these high school style essays, nor does it really share much in common with an analysis of a deliberative discussion or a final exam paper in my fossils and evolutionary theory first year seminar. In college writing it is all tailored for the area and subject matter to write about the material in the most efficient manner possible. What I have realized however, is that I have much to learn about writing, and that so far what I have encountered is only a fraction of what I have yet to see and experience of college writing.

-Nick D’Antonio

WRIT1122 (MW 4:00PM)

1-14-2008