Brown 1

Mackenzie Brown
Professor Zawilski
RC 2001-410
21 September 2015
Rhetorical Analysis Reflection
Biology and Psychology are two major fields that have developed many of the
fundamentals of todays knowledge in the medical field and developmental research.
While the two fields differ greatly, they also have many features that fall hand in hand
with one another. Both fields can be very dense, especially when scientific terms and high
learning concepts are involved, which makes conveying information to different levels of
experienced audiences so difficult. Due to the depth of the topics, many different forms
of writing are used to publish this information to a large population rather than a selected
few. In other words, the different representations and elements of each academic
publication help individuals with different backgrounds on the topic get a feel for new
medical findings.
Since findings within these two fields are always changing and continuing, it
allows a chance for great discourse to occur. For example, many individuals may have
higher understandings on specific topics within the field in comparison to others, and
many do not always agree on new findings or reasoning. Since Biology is my major and
Psychology is my minor, I am very intrigued in both topics. Additionally, my rhetorical
analysis topic, how teenage brains function, is very interesting and allowed me to see
how teenagers really do differ from adults in their decision making due to both biological
and psychological reasons.

Brown 2
Writing has always been one of my weaker subjects throughout school, and a
process that I continue to improve. Our discussions and peer editing sessions throughout
the past couple of weeks have tremendously helped my writing process by allowing me to
see how my peers organize their thoughts and ways in which I could improve. At the
beginning, I really didnt know where to start or how to organize my thoughts. I have
always considered introductions to be my strong point, so I started there. Next, I thought
it would be a good idea to list specific rhetorical elements and compare each of these
elements from each text within a given paragraph. After reviewing my paper and my
peers, I realized my paper could have better flow and better organization. From there, I
tried to describe the elements of each publication separately first, and then compare
specific elements that distinctly demonstrated many differences at the very end, which
can be seen in my third draft. In doing this, I feel I increased not only the flow itself, but
allowed my audience to grasp a better understanding of how each individual publication
worked for its specific target audience. While my flow increased tremendously from each
draft, I believe my paper could use better examples and elaborations about the texts and
what makes them so different.
Since the topic is something that I find very interesting, I believe I presented the
information in an enthusiastic way, or at least tried to. In order to increase the tone I wish
to present to my audience, I feel relating the rhetorical elements more to specific
examples within the text and the field itself could show the excitement I share on the
topic. Giving examples and showing depth within my paper is something very common
in these two fields, especially when describing new observations and findings.

Brown 3
Any paper can be revised, and while I think I made tremendous progress between
my first and third drafts, I still see room for improvement for my final portfolio. Finally,
in my final draft, I hope to look for more emotional appeals within each text, which may
call for me to dig deeper and truly try to understand what kind of reaction the author is
hoping to get out of their audience. Finding these emotional appeals also helps relate the
topic and its importance to my audience.