Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Self-Assessment
During my time in Honors English Composition II, I have improved my rhetorical skills.
Through my studies, and through my research paper writing process, I have been able to take
away from this class numerous skills which I will carry with me for the rest of my life. These
skills include learning how to rhetorically analyze texts, how to conduct research, and the
First, I learned how to analyze arguments rhetorically. I did this in many ways. One way
that this happened was through our discussion of different modes of argumentation. I discussed
the Rogerian mode of argumentation, which suggests the use of three different viewpoints to
avoid a narrow perspective, the Toulmin Method, which postulates that there are several key
ideas which are held in every argument, and the Aristotelian method which emphasizes the use
of logos, pathos, and ethos, which are better known as logic, emotion, and authority. I also spent
time rhetorically analyzing modern texts. In class I examined Super Bowl Advertisements which
are designed to entertain and convince people to purchase products. Throughout the course of
my research, I also had to rhetorically analyze various texts. To understand the three main
infrastructure plans, I had to derive information from countless news sources through looking at
what the article stated, who the other was, where it was published and other rhetorically pertinent
factors. In order to create my conclusions, I needed to be familiar with various modes such as
historical texts and economic studies. Also, I spent many weeks creating and editing an effective
analysis of a modern article critiquing President Trumps infrastructure plan. Through all of this,
I discovered that research is not listening only to arguments in your favor, but also examining
One of these ideas that greatly helped me to write my paper was the Rogerian Mode of
represent each side of each argument fairly. Not to mention that the Rogerian emphasis on the
three viewpoints was the basis for the structure for my research paper which focused on the
infrastructure plans of Donald Trump, the Democratic Party, and the Republican Party. For
more information on how this mode of argumentation helped my writing process, reference my
In my research project, I was also able to analyse a real world situation. I looked at an
issue that is being discussed by many people across the country, Americas infrastructure and the
engineering jobs that can be created from it. Through this process, I was able to examine
exigences as I tried to reason through the the three positions on this topic.
technological techniques. Through opportunities given to me in class, I have been able to search
through the online databases that are available through the UCF library website. Using these
databases, which were often specialized to produce information in only one field of study, I was
able to find professional studies related to my content. However, many of my sources for my
paper were not found in such a particular manner. To locate many useful references, in many
cases I relied on a simple Google search to find these articles. In the course of my research
process, I found that these searches often provided me with news sources and the websites of
organizations, which were not only professional sources, but also provided material relevant to
my research project.
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need to use certain keywords. For example, keywords such as Infrastructure, would give me
broad results about infrastructure while modifying this keyword slightly into keywords like
Thirdly, I learned the importance of the peer review. Through peer reviews, I have
discovered not only how what I say impacts others, but I have also discovered how a text is a
conversation of many voices. Through peer reviewing other peoples work, I have learned how
However, peer review has also aided my research paper. Through all of the peer reviews
and the feedback given to me by my professor, I have been able to identify problems that I
probably would not have seen by myself. Through this process, I was able to realise that I had
poor structure for my research paper that needed to be reordered. Also, there were many times in
my paper, I thought that I was providing greater clarity to my audience. However, peer review
helped me to also realise that I was being redundant at many points in my essay. These peer
reviews created a chain of revisions which helped to make my paper of a much higher quality.
For more information on this topic, refer to my blog post entitled, The Value of Peer Review.
Looking back, I am proud of the work I have done over the course of the semester. I
have examined various viewpoints on writing, underwent a lengthy research process with
numerous peer review, and then presented on my research. During this period of self-reflection,
I have realized that even though I was required to take this class, I am glad that I have
participated in this process because through it, I have been able to become a better writer.