In comparison to writing I have done in the past & writing I have done for this semester, both had to be in the form of essays with sources to support my main topic or argument. For essays based off literary works, I was given the option to choose my own topic so long as it was within those works. In contrast, essays I’ve done in the past were research essays or were based off literary works, whereas this semester I’ve had to learn & write about a rhetorical essay. Unlike writing I’ve done in the past, with the rhetorical essay I was given no limitations as to what I wanted to write about. Also, because rhetoric is a new form of writing to me, I had to learn & understand how to write about topics in an argumentative & persuasive way without writing in the first person. Since the beginning of the semester, my understanding of rhetoric has changed in the sense that I know how to analyze articles in this manner & learned how to write my own article through the topic of my choosing without showing personal involvement. Before this semester, I never learned about rhetorical writing & was mainly required to write research or argumentative essays where I had to state my own personal beliefs. The only other essay I’ve written so far this semester was an essay that required a summary of one’s argument as well as my personal opinion on the matter. This is where I can see where some rhetorical terms coming into play without writing rhetorically. The process of writing my first essay for this class was almost like writing the essay for my other class, except that essay was not based off a topic of my choice therefore I did not need to find my own sources & I didn’t have to list the rhetorical terms within that paper. For this class, I started out my essay with an introduction, summaries of my sources, rhetorical analysis’ of those sources & a conclusion.
