Introduction:

In the introduction of the book “They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing”, the authors provide us with correct structure when writing an essay. The authors believe that they have the best template in order to make an effective argument. The authors encourage their readers to use the given template. The authors make several arguments. One argument that is made is that people can’t make real arguments without being provoked. These arguments take a lot of time and thinking.  After reading the introduction, I believe that these templates offer a good way of structuring your essays. I believe that organization is key in every essay. A clear and organized stream of thoughts allows for the readers to clearly understand points that are being made. It allows for a more coherent piece and argument.

Chapter one:

In chapter one, the authors discuss the importance of what is being said. They essentially say that nothing should be left out of an argument. All important information should not be left out because they can’t assume that the reader knows what they’re talking about. An effective argument is one that can be understood. Their main points can be seen by the following quotes: 1) “…a writer needs to explain what he or she is responding to either before offering that response or, at least, very early in the discussion.”(pg.18) 2) “This little story illustrates an important lesson: that to give writing the most important thing of all-namely, a point- a writer needs to indicate clearly not only his or her thesis but also what larger conversation that thesis is responding to.”(pg.18) 3) “Instead of opening with someone else’s views, you could start with an illustrative quotation, a revealing fact or statistic, or a relevant anecdote.”(pg.20)

After finishing the reading, I don’t really have any questions. One thing that I might want some clarification on is how to effectively address an issue in an argument.

When I imagine “revising” my writing, I think of editing my paper in terms of grammar and in context to the best of my ability in order to fulfill the requirements of the assignment. I tend to leave my main points in tact and I work around my points. I remember when I was writing my college essay to get accepted to schools, I had to go through the most rigorous revision of my life. After peer editing, I realized I no longer liked my topic and thus I had to change my essay completely. I spent hours revising that paper until it was perfect. Revising is when you make changes to your writing in terms of the substance of your paper as whole. Editing is making changes to grammatical aspects of your writing. Proofreading is when you look for any mistakes you might have missed after you have completed the revising and editing portions. I liked Brock Dethier’s piece on revision. I could agree to some aspects of it. One part that I particularly liked was when Dethier claims that revision is unnecessary. I partially agree with his point as he states that people shouldn’t have to revise a paper if they were able to do well on papers that they completed the day before they were due. I do agree with that point. However, I feel like revision is always good as no one can get an absolutely flawless paper in terms of grammar and context without revision.

Currently, I have a clear idea on how I’m going to approach this paper. I’ve structured it in a way that I believe is organized. I feel like organization is key for this paper, as you’re comparing the structure of the two articles. I spent a good amount of time thinking about the topic. I’m definitely going to talk about the pathos of both writings, as both writers have a background in the topics and they show their bias throughout their writings. I’m going to also mention their targeted audiences and how it relates to their style of writing.

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For my rhetorical analysis paper, I plan on pursuing economic inequality’s impact on the economy. Originally, I planned on pursuing the topic of Ray Rice’s ban from the NFL, and if the ban was fair. However, I had a difficult time finding opposing argumentative papers on the topic. Anyways, I chose this new topic because it is a prevalent issue in the United States. In one of the articles, the writer is very opinionated about his belief on income inequality having no effect on the economy. I originally had a hard time finding an article that believed the growing gap in economic inequality was good for the economy. However, after looking for an article, I finally came across one. My two articles have a great contrast between the two and the articles, I believe, allow me to develop a better essay because of the huge contrast between the two. I’m motivated to learn more about this topic because I feel like I can make a very compelling essay. I’m interested in the different viewpoints that both articles offer. I also don’t know much about the topics so I’m anxious to learn more about them. I would’ve preferred to do my original topic on Ray Rice because I am very intrigued in the topic and I know a lot about it. However, this new topic allows me to expand my knowledge on something I’m not quite familiar with and I’m intrigued by the challenge it presents. This paper forces us to analyze persuasive and argumentative purposes of two texts and I believe my sources offer such different beliefs that I’m intrigued to see how my paper unfolds.