Writing Process

Writing an essay is much more than just an introduction, body and conclusion. True, these are the key components but there are many other things a good writer needs to include to write effectively. Writing a good essay takes time, not many people, if any, can just sit down at a computer and type a flawless, inspiring, informative essay in one shot. There is a process for writing, starting with getting to know your audience and topic. Knowing your audience is one of the most important steps in the writing process because they are the reason you are writing. Next you need to get all your thoughts out on paper in your first draft. This helps to lay out everything you know about your topic so you can see what is important, what you can cut, what needs to be added and so forth. Once you've rounded your first draft out you should get have someone else take a look at it. Peer review is especially important because often a writer can't see certain flaws in their own work. Peer review is a good idea after every draft of your essay, so you can see trouble areas you still need to work on. All through out the writing process you should be adding rhetorical tools to help organize/clarify and draw your audience in. There are many tools a writer can use, for example Cause and Effect/Causal Chains. This tool helps readers to follow along better because they can see a direct cause from an event and how events effect each other in the long run. Another tools is the use of Gazes, like Consumer Gaze. Consumer Gaze tries to get customers to buy a product so they do a commercial to a popular song that gets stuck in your head so you remember the product and hopefully buy it. Although there are many tools, you don't have to use all of them. Just use enough that you get your point across to your reader in a way that is clear and concise, while holding their interest. After the body of your essay is done then you can work on writing your introduction/conclusion. The introduction should catch your audiences attention and state your thesis, whereas your conclusion sums up what you've talked about and again states your thesis. Once this is done and you are satisfied with what you've written, make sure to read it out loud to yourself so you can hear if it flows nicely. If it does, then you've completed your essay!

Blog Reviews

Blogs I reviewed:

Whitney Mattox
http://whitneymattox.blogspot.com/
Good- How to Write an Essay
What I thought needed work- Cause and Effect Blog 4A

Kelsie Hair
http://writewithme-kelsiehair.blogspot.com/
Good- Rhetorical Terms Blog 7A
Needed work- Helpful Elements Blog 12B

Geena Gross
http://geenagrossenglish.blogspot.com/
Good- Subject specific rhetorical tools
Needed work- The idea of a Peer Review

Process Explanation

Throughout this class I have learned so much about writing. The most important of which is a process to write essays. The first step, after a topic has been chosen, is for the writer to simply write down all the knowledge they have on the subject. This step is important because it separates for the writer what they already know, from what they still need to find out. Once the needed information is gathered, the writer can start organizing and refining the essay. In this step, the writer should add rhetorical tools to help bring in their audience. This is when the writer can use things such as compare/contrast, visual gazes or cause and effect to convey what is important. A possible way of organizing the information could be by using classification and division.  Once the first draft is finished, it's important to have it read by another set of eyes. Sometimes other people can catch things in an essay that the writer can't. Then after editing the essay, the writer can make changes and be satisfied with the final product.

Classification and Division

As a writer, you can't always count on your audience knowing as much about the subject as you do. Oft times the audience can get lost in a sea of confusing phrases and give up on trying to understand what the essay is trying to convey. In these cases, when the subject matter is difficult to comprehend, it is useful to use Classification and Division.

Classification and Division is a technique in which the author breaks the essay down into smaller segments, in which the important terms pertaining to the essay are thoroughly defined. In this way the audience can get some background information so that they can understand the material better. Classification is dividing the essay into bigger chunks of related information, whereas division is breaking down the classification segments into even smaller, more detailed pieces. By using this tool, an author can define any important terms that are used in their essay and directly link them to specific issues within the article. This makes it easy for the audience to follow along and stay on the same wavelength as the writer.

Defnitions cont.

In my article, it talks a lot about something called a "Nuer". A Nuer is a type of ethnic group found predominantly in the newly independant region of Southern Sudan. Nuer's are darker skinned than the northern peoples and easily recognized. The Nuer's are often discriminated against if they live in the north and treated like second-class citizens.

Mary, the subject in my article has only one profitable skill and that is making and selling alchohol illegally. She uses a big plastic jug and a soda bottles to brew it. She has been caught multiple times and has recieved countless whippings as punishment.

Dual citizenship is important in this reading. It means that Mary cannot be a citizen of both Sudan and Southern Sudan. Which leaves her to choose between a underdeveloped and dangerous South Sudan or a discriminating, unjust Sudan.

Description

Details can make or break a writer's work. Too little and the essay will seem dry and listless, too many irrelevant details and the audience will get bored. Definitions should be used to help the audience get a better understanding of the authors point. When explaining a definition, it should be more than just a dictionary answer. A writer needs to explain why the definition is being used, in what context, give an example or possibly explain the process that it is used in.

The New York Times article I chose is entitled "For Woman in Sudan, No Escape From Misery". The article explains the harsh living conditions for Southern Sudanese living north of the border. South Sudan recently split from Sudan to form an independant nation. By doing so, some Southern Sudanese were trapped on the north side and are unable to get back to South Sudan. The discussion in which it is taking part is about the hard living conditions for those in other countries, and the many difficulties they face by living there. The article tries to open the publics eyes as to what people of other nations are having to go through.

Rhetorical Terms

Any good writer knows that rhetorical tools are a must have in their work. I've gone over many different kinds such as plasticity, open-ended closure, visual gazes, compare/contrast techniques and others in my past blogs. As a writer, you need to be aware which specific rhetorical tools will best help get your point across to your intended audience. Some tools are used more effectively towards a certain group of people than compared to another. For example if you are a car salesman, you would probably want to use a compare/contrast technique to show a potential buyer how your cars are better than another car dealer's. You would not want to use, say, open-ended closure because it doesn't suit your needs as a salesman.

Some new rhetorical terms we learned today were persuasive themes, master narratives, content & technical signatures and audience resonance/effects. All of these are applied towards visual media. A persuasive themes aim is to make the audience feel emotions like nationalism, tradition or even scapegoating. It is universal and can apply to anyone. A master narrative is similar, but it applies to people in a specific area. Master narratives are rooted more in culture and context and they can reflect things like shared hopes and concerns of a particular community. Almost all visual communications have a tendancy to package the imagery and technical elements in a way that a viewer could identify a familiar structure or signature to it. This is called content and technical signatures. Signatures reflects distinct characteristics and choices for a piece of visual media. Last but not least is audience resonance and effects. It's a "return of investment". To clarify, it's a way to measure if a campaign had the desired impact of the audience it was intended for. Indicators can help to measure the amount of influence, for example, a soap commercial had on an audience once it was aired. An indicator in this case would be the number of bars of soap that were sold after the commercial started airing.