4. Rhetorical Analysis Reflection

     Today, I turned in my Rhetorical Analysis for Writing 150.  I began the writing process by carefully picking a speech worth analyzing.  I felt I should choose a paper that I was not only interested in, but also one with a lot of figurative language and strong words.  I thought about using a Ronald Reagan Speech or Patrick Henry's "Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death."  Instead, I chose "The American Crisis," by Thomas Paine.  I appreciated the commentary's creative word choice, length, and context.
     I went through my paper with several different-colored high lighters.  First, I read through the first sentence and last sentence of each paragraph to try to identify the main points of the commentary.  Next, I identified the commentary's thesis.  Finally, I went through picking out figurative language and very strong passages within Paine's commentary.  I decided that he used a lot of metaphor, diction, and exaggeration. I was able to come up with two strong examples for each.  I outlined my paper, coming up with the thesis and each piece of evidence.
     The next day, I wrote a rough draft for my paper.  I thought of other examples of strong commentaries for my hook and led into my thesis.  I wrote each body paragraph, making sure to include strong analysis.  I have always been taught that my analysis needs to be more abundant the evidence from the work I am reading.  As I reached my conclusion, I restated my thesis, and went from narrow to broad, ending with a quote to summarize the importance of rhetorical analysis.
     I came to class early on the day of my appointment with Mrs. Steadman.  Since I was early, I went to the writing center, where I got some advice about my diction paragraph.  Next, I met with Mrs. Steadman, where I received a lot of good feedback about paragraphing and a few aspects of word choice. 
     Next, I implemented those changes.  I emailed my paper to my mom, who was an English major at BYU for a few years before changing majors.  She also found a few words to change in my paper.  This extra editing session made my paper more clear.  With all of these changes from the writing center, Mrs. Steadman, and my mom implemented, I read my paper out loud to my roommates.  Once I felt confident, I checked my margins and citations and printed it.
     In the future, with the Research Paper, I want to become more familiar with citations.  I have used citations many times before but still do not feel completely confident.  With my future papers, I definitely want to have my rough draft completed early on like I did for my rhetorical analysis and have several editors, as different people have good advice for improvement, just as I did this time.