Thlog Week 2

            This week I learned a lot about rhetorical analysis and other vocab that has affiliation with rhetoric.  Previously I thought rhetorical analysis only occurred when one was reading a piece of rhetoric.  This of course made little sense to me because when I thought more about it I didn’t really know what rhetoric was.  I couldn’t define it or give an example.  When searching the internet, the simple definition of “a piece of literature using persuasive language or images” was helpful in learning what rhetoric is in literature, but the main thing I took away from class this week is the idea that rhetoric is everywhere.  Billboards, the school senate political ad outside my window right now, the layout of a building, the pattern in which the trees are planted, they all have a meaning in why they are what they are.  We are constantly analyzing these characteristics throughout the day whether we realize it or not.  For example, on the first day of class, when I walked in I saw Zack, saw what he was wearing, noticed his long hair and immediately thought to myself “this guy is chill.” In no way did I think I was rhetorically analyzing Zack, but Monday’s class proved this to be true.  Also, I learned that rhetorical analysis kind of has its own conventions of a genre of thinking, using ethos, logos, and pathos to use rhetorical analysis tools like exigence to analyze things we come across. 

            Also, something that helped me tremendously on my PB1B were the ideas of rewriting a sentence that didn’t sound quite right a few times to get something that makes sense and has less confusing syntax, and also leaving a blank when I’m drawing a blank.  The first one helped me because I noticed some of my sentences were getting complex and sometimes they didn’t make sense or were a little confusing.  Leaving the blank space helped me because when I knew what I wanted to say but didn’t know how to write it, which happens to me more often than I’d like, I could just move on and tie the next part of what I was writing to the idea that will be put into words later.  I didn’t previously do this because I though I’d lose what I was thinking which happened to me a little bit, so I just put the blank with a few key words to remind me of the thoughts brewing for that specific place.  This was also helpful when rewriting sentences as I would sometimes just write the ugly sounding sentence and then go back to it with a clearer mind or look at it from a new angle.  These two ideas, simple in nature were tremendously helpful in improving my writing in my opinion.  My opinion of myself and my work is slightly subjective so we will see what Zack thinks.