Manuela Moreno

Professor Bevill
ENGL 1302-11
08 March, 2015
Communicating
Another semester of writing trillions of essays and reader response has
passed by and I am left with my brain fried. Frankly, I am out of words to write and
unfortunately this is only the beginning of my college career. There are many more
essays in my future and all I can say is: God help me! Composition II has truly
challenged me mentally and physically as well, physically because of all the late
nights I was forced to stay because of my excessive procrastination. In this
particular class the essay that has most benefited me is the first essay which is the
rhetorical essay. The rhetorical essay taught me the most about effective
communication by challenging me mentally to understand how rhetorical devices
such as emotional appeal, logic, credibility, and fallacies strengthen the execution
and success in delivering a speech. My first rhetorical essay that pertained to
former president Bush addressing the nation over terrorism demonstrated me how
to effectively communicate through his use of fallacies and a persistent use of
emotional appeal, logic, and credibility as a broken hearted and pained president.
Before Composition II I was unaware of my incorrect writing techniques and
lacked effective communication in my papers. My first essay had an immense
amount of comments that helped me prevent the same mistakes in future essay.
Through the mistakes on my rhetorical essay I began to recognize my mistakes and
weaknesses in my writings which are sentence structure, grammar, and MLA
format. My first essay lacked many small details that I would never have realized

without the peer reviews and comments left on my final essay. After analyzing my
final submitted rhetorical essay I realized the elements I lacked at effectively
reaching the reader, they helped me reach the reader on my second essay. The
first paper I wrote definitely proved to be the most helpful because the address
George W. Bush gave showed me how give an effective speech. The address itself
showed how appealing emotionally captivates and tugs at the hearts of the
listener, in this case a broken nation. This speech showed me which rhetorical
devices to use in different instances and how they to benefit from them.
It is obvious from all three of my essays that I benefited most from my first
essay. Although the final grade for the rhetorical essay is the lowest of the three
major essays I learned the most from it. I did so by not making the same mistakes
on my second or third essay. Compared to my first essay the other two are much
better structured, there is less grammar errors, and my MLA format is almost
perfect. I received higher grades on my causal argument and proposal argument
because I was able to realize my mistakes on the first essay. I was also able to
communicate with the reader better in my causal and proposal arguments because
the rhetorical essay taught me how to reach the reader or listener through the uses
of rhetorical devices.