Reflection on Project 2 Draft

In the blog post below I will be reflecting on what I learned about the drafting process by peer editing the drafts of my classmates. I will be focusing specifically on questions asked in A Student's Guide in order to evaluate my understanding of my draft. 

I reviewed the essay draft of Mira and Alex for my peer review.

1. After reading through these drafts and looking back at my own, I realized the importance of having a clear thesis and how it influences the readers understanding of the paper's purpose. I feel that I had a very clear thesis which drove the majority of my analysis. It uses specific rhetorical strategies and links them together. However, this linking in the thesis could cause some confusion and I may want to keep the ideas separated until the conclusion.

2. I intended to focus on one particular strategy in my thesis in one paragraph each with the evidence being examined in that paragraph. However, I fell incredibly short on my evidence analysis and only did minor allusions and summarizing of the actual points of evidence from my article, so this are in particular requires some SERIOUS work. My analysis isn't terrible, but it is unclear without the particular evidence.

3. The 5 elements of a rhetorical situation are: text, author, audience, context, purpose. I primarily focused on audience and context. I fell a little short in the other three areas, not realizing how important it is to focus on all five equally in order for the reader to get a complete grasp on the article and my own analysis. I want to go more into the details of the article and the authors claims and purpose.

4. I feel that I executed the analysis of rhetorical strategies and their effects on the audience better that most of my other elements in my analysis. However, it is possible that they are rather convoluted and dense. I might try to thin them out to make room for more evidence and examination of the text itself, while maintaining the integrity of my rhetorical analysis.

5. Once again, I failed miserably in the area of evidence. I completely neglected this element of the analysis, even though I have evidence already picked out for each analysis in my outline of this analysis. I desperately need to implement my evidence in order to actually make a compelling argument and analysis.

6. My conclusion is a little dry, but it does end up answering the question "so what" in regards to the article and its effects on its audience. However, I don't think it leaves the reader very interested or wanting more. It's too dry and I need to spice it up substantially.

Bilton, Matt "mirror" 3/11/12 via Flickr.com