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Gillian Scott

Harris

Honors ENG 1101

1 December 2017

Reflection

Logistics

The home page of my ePortfolio simply says Welcome. I thought about possible titles

for it, but nothing seemed right. Eventually, I decided on Welcome because it was better than

Gillian Scotts ePortfolio or Hi. At the bottom of the home page there is an arrow, the arrow

does not actually lead to anything, but I was unable to find a way to remove it. When clicked, the

menu button reveals three different tabs: Reflection, Process, and Final Pages. The Process tab

opens up to a page that has 3 buttons. The first two lead to my week 5 and midterm drafts. All of

my pages are combined for each, but they are separated and labelled appropriately within the

word document which is embedded in the page. The last button leads to a page dedicated to the

process of the rhetorical analysis. Since it is such a big piece, I wanted to give it a separate page.

Every piece is not directly related to my final essay, but they all played a part in how I gathered

my ideas and chose the topic and type of essay I did.

Philosophy

This semester, I learned a lot about rhetoric and argument. The first lesson being,

everythings an argument. At least, it is according to Lunsford. I have to disagree with her

though. Having studied her now, I can see where everything is arguable, but I dont think
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everything is an argument in its own right. There are the big things that people argue over

politics, religion, race, pizza toppings but there also the small things, like what movie to watch

at night. Not everything has to be an argument in the making. If all you do is look for how a

moment can be pulled apart and examined, eventually, you stop being able to experience them at

all. Having said that, I dont disagree with Lunsford because I think she is wrong about

everything being an argument, I disagree with her because I dont think we should make an

argument for everything.

Learning

I have learned a lot about the writing process in this class. The most important, is that

quality writing takes time. The development of all the various pieces and layers that give depth

to an essay is extremely time consuming, but so worth it in the end. Until this class, I never had

to create layers in my writing. At first, I found it difficult, but the more, I did it the easer it

became. The scenes really helped me figure out what direction I wanted to take my personal

essay.

Something new that I tried in this class, was using headers. It reminded me of the way I

take notes in class, with there being distinct sections for whatever the specific content is.

Sometimes I struggle with making all my ideas flow and appear cohesive. Transitioning from

one topic to another is sometimes a struggle for me. Once I reach a new topic, I just want to write

what I need to about it. I dont feel like trying to point out the connection the previous paragraph.

The topic has changed move on. The headers helped me point out exactly what the new topic

was without having to write about why it was relevant. Additionally, I liked how the headers

helped further tie together the rearranged sections I got from glossing.
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Initially, I was not fond of glossing. I really didnt like the idea of moving the pieces of

my essay around. I wanted to keep everything separated as it was written (ethos, logos, pathos

analyses, fallacies, claim, etcetera), as it just seemed logical to have each distinct section

separated on its own; however, as I used the technique, I began to see how it could help make my

essay flow better, and create a more convincing argument. My original essay order and glossings

can be found on the Rhetorical Analysis Process page. I only used the glossing technique in my

rhetorical analysis because my personal essay tells a story, and I felt that in order for it to make

the most sense, it needed to keep its linear pattern. Having used the technique for the rhetorical

analysis, I actually enjoyed it, and plan on using it again in the future.

When doing the backwards reading, I felt very overwhelmed. I often struggle with

keeping my thoughts in a linear pattern, so trying so start from the end and move my way back to

the beginning was very difficult for me. In attempting the technique, I found myself growing

more and more frustrated as what I wrote previously started to not make sense because I was

suddenly seeing the end as the beginning. Instead of starting at the end of my essay, I decided to

do it by sections starting from the beginning. Doing so made it significantly easier for me to keep

track of what my thought were, and served to not fry my brain as badly.