Writing an Outline

In previous english classes, teachers always ask for an outline before turning in a paper.  As chapter 4 reinforces, outlines help to organize thoughts, ideas and arguments.  It aids in audience analysis because you have to think of which points to make and in what order to make them depending on the audience.  It’s interesting how I know and understand these concepts but still don’t apply them.  I didn’t really write out a formal outline for this narrative before I started writing it and now I really regret it.  My ideas are all over the place and I’m still not even sure what my specific purpose for this project is.

Chapter 4

As I was reading through this chapter, I found a few interesting things. I like how they included the checklist for revising drafts, since we can definitely apply the information to our essays. It was also nice to see a section about proofreading too, because thinking back, I know I didn’t look through my two drafts for my first essay nearly close enough before turning them in. I think I definitely should have applied the “eliminate wordiness” suggestion to my last draft. But that’s ok, because I can apply it to the final draft. 🙂

Silko’s Strategy in “The Border Patrol State”

It was interesting to see how in-depth the book went in analyzing Silko’s essay on the injustices in her hometown. Most of the time, when I’m reading a well-constructed argument, I don’t always notice the different types of appeals that the author is using, but I know that they are effective because they influence my thoughts about the subject. It’s clear that Silko put a lot of thought into her essay, making sure to argue through all three appeals. It was helpful to be reminded that while most of us would like to think that we’re fair and detatched when analyzing an argument, appeals to pathos are the strongest, and most often the appeals we remember most clearly.

-Matt S.

The Three Appeals

I was reading chapter five pages 72-74 and I thought the information was very important to writing our papers this semester. My English AP teacher senior year went over ethos, logos, and pathos a lot. I find it very helpful now whenever I’m writing my papers. It helps me a lot to think about these appeals and how they will affect my paper. In our narrative it is very important to have a lot of “pathos” arguments. Even our pictures can really appeal to pathos. But looking ahead to future assignments I believe it will be very important to have many appeals to logos. I just wanted to encourage everyone to read this section because I know really understanding what these three things are has really improved my writing.