Cavanaugh, 1

Maddie Cavanaugh
English 250; Section SE
Assignment #2 Reflection
Instructor Futhey
December 9th, 2015
The True Cost of Junk Food Reflection
In beginning to revise the second assignment of the semester, I found the multiple
different aspects of writing in which I have improved upon throughout the semester.
Because of this, I was able to revise The True Cost of Junk Food, effectively and
showcase the progress I have made this semester, and my current writing communication
skills.
Throughout the assignment, there was a lot of summary of the essay, Is Junk
Food Really Cheaper? and not a lot of analysis of the information from the essay. I used
a lot of specific examples from the text but did not go deep enough into the analysis. In
the revision, I included more in text citations, and more analysis in each paragraph. I also
made small additions to make the flow of the assignment make more sense. By adding,
An emotional appeal may have been omitted because it would take away from the focus
of the essay, which is the money and cost of junk food, and move towards trying to
emotionally connect with the audience in order to reach them. it goes more into of an
analysis on why Bittman chose to go with a logos appeal throughout his essay. By also
adding in, This comparison is effective in this case because it illustrates that calories are
not the underlying issue, but the quality of the food consumed, and the eventual cost is. I
explain why Bittman uses this specific comparison and how it applies to his overall
message.

Cavanaugh, 2

Most of the portions of my assignment that I chose to delete during the revision
process were because they were either repetitive of other sentences and paragraphs or
went into too much summary of the text, and not enough analysis. By doing this, I was
able to focus more on the analysis of Bittmans essay and not so much on only
summarizing it. In addition to deleting excessive amounts of summary, also deleting
repetitive portions allowed the assignment to flow more cohesively and make more sense
logically.
However, there were some portions of the assignment that did not require any
major changes during the revision. This included the majority of the examples from the
text, excluding citations, and summary of the text. For example, in one of my paragraphs
for this assignment I wrote, In one of his studies, he compares the costs of two separate
meals, for a family of four, one costing $28 at McDonalds, and the other costing only
$14, even as low as $9 with using food purchased at a grocery store and then made at
home (660). This fact alone completely supports his argument, yet he continues to give
the reader information to further and strengthen his argument. I thought that this specific
portion of the assignment did not require any revision because it contained a lot of
important information from Bittmans essay and how I believed it supported his overall
argument.
While reading through this assignment, I noticed that I followed the typical fiveparagraph essay format, and during the revision process I decided to break up the
paragraphs more to make the organization of the paper more logical. By doing this, I was
able to break away from a typical essay format and add in more transitions, information,
and analysis.