My Experiences with "Writing Rhetorically"

From my experience throughout the semester, I’ve come to learn how my writing will be applied during my time in college through both my understanding of Aristotle’s appeals on my writings and each week of assignments covering new writing styles.

From my writing projects, I learned about how the different parts of Aristotle’s appeals work in in comparison to different forms of writing. For example, when I wrote my blog post for an argument, the main focus was on logos. The point of the assignment was to create an argument that can be debated on from multiple perspectives. Because of this, logos are the only part of Aristotle’s appeals that was needed, since the main focus are facts and statistics rather than pathos and ethos, which focus on emotion and the author’s tone.

In contrast to that, when I wrote for a proposal, all three were utilized to create a complete writing. For this assignment, I needed to cover a problem, find a solution for it, and then provide the benefits towards fixing this problem. Because of this, all three of Aristotle’s appeals were needed to fully create a proposal for real world application. Between those two projects, I was able to learn how to apply different forms of Aristotle’s appeals from one writing project to another.

From my writing projects as well, I learned how different writing formats are to be used in each type of writing. This could be seen the most when it comes between writing for a report and writing for a film review. In a report, one of the most important parts is telling everything to the reader within the very first sentence, and grab the person’s attention immediately, with details about the events following suite for those willing to continue reading.

In a film review, while you’re still trying to get the attention of the reader, the information about the film isn't so upfront. You’re left to give a summary about the film, without revealing any spoilers from the film, rather than tell the person the entire story. Details are more important in a film review, as they tell the reader what to weary of when they want to know about the film, unlike in a report where the details only support what’s already been told in the very beginning. It’s through these projects that I was able to learn how to change up my style of writing for each week.

All in all, from my writings projects this semester, both my understanding of Aristotle’s appeals and each week featuring a new writing style helped preparing me for my time in college and even for further application outside of school. I feel that with what I’ve learned through the various writing projects, I’ll be prepared for what’s to come in my future.