Rhetorical Analysis Examples

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After concluding and graduating from high school, I was confident in my skills writing literary analysis: breaking down the diction, literary devices, characterization, and imagery present within the realm of a novel to form an argument regarding the novel’s central theme. Yet, the writing assignments and expectations held at UC, Irvine would catch me off guard my first quarter. Unable to enroll into Writing 39B in the Fall Quarter, my first writing experience at UCI was producing formal lab reports in Chemistry M2LA, deviating from the simple worksheets I was used to in high school. Therefore, we had to figure out what the T.A. was looking for through trial and error, hoping for a good grade each week. I would put together my objective, procedures, …show more content…

However, since I was successful in this lab course, it would not be until Winter Quarter when I fully recognized this flaw in Writing 39B. Enduring my chaotic and unproductive process of writing the Rhetorical Analysis Essay and Rhetoric in Practice Final Project has greatly influenced and improved the way I conduct my writing process in general. The specifics of my writing process and how it has evolved will be expanded upon in the following chapter. In the end, learning the importance of having an efficient drafting process and starting my assignments in a timely manner has improved my performance in my other classes; especially lab. I now start my lab reports earlier, focusing on making them more organized, detailed, and well-written. The positive impact from the lessons I learned in 39B is evident as my grade in lab went up from an A to an A+ over the course of one quarter. However, more importantly as a chemistry major, writing and publishing complete, informative, and concise lab reports will be essential to my success both at UCI and my dream occupation as a research chemist in nuclear and …show more content…

Prior to attending UCI, my writing and drafting process was fairly simple: first finding quotes that I could analyze thoroughly and was related to the prompt, write down basic commentary for each including literary devices present, form a working thesis based of my commentary, and then go straight into writing it in paragraph form. I would usually only have one draft of my papers that I would continually update until I turned in the final draft. Many of my English instructors in high school focused more upon understanding analysis rather than the process of writing a strong paper. Therefore, my process worked for all four years of English courses, getting either an A or B in the class. However, the flaws in my process would become exposed once I tried to apply them in Writing 39B. Diction, imagery, and literary devices present only within the realm of the novel is one piece of the puzzle. Thoroughly supporting an argument requires rhetorical analysis of many more aspects including: the audience, author, message, background information of the genre, and even context behind the culture. Therefore, applying my writing process for the Rhetorical Analysis Essay of Ted Chiang’s short story, Understand, was more detrimental than helpful. In fact, my disorganization resulted in an incomplete first draft that was not coherent. It was not until I was finalizing my