Aguayo 1

Irtaly Aguayo

Ms. Smith

English 11 - Period 6

25 October 2017

ISSN Reflection

The art of persuasion is often achieved through the use of rhetorical appeals. So,

naturally, as we learned about the concept of rhetorical appeals our english teacher, Ms. Smith,

assigned us an essay on a current controversial topic. In this essay we had to apply our

knowledge on these rhetoric tools and persuade the reader to take our side while providing a well

written and logically sequenced essay. Also, along with the essay, she assigned us an Annotated

Bibliography in which we had to cite and briefly summaries the sources used in the essay. Once

receiving this assignment, I set two major goals to achieve. One of the goals was that I will not

procrastinate and wait until last minute to write my essay. I promised myself that I will not fall

behind with the drafts nor lag on my research needed for the essay. Also, another goal I set was

to make sure I clearly understood the topic before i wrote my essay. The reason behind this was

because when choosing my topic I realized that i was not as informed as I believed I was, and I

wanted to change that.

Although an essay sounds like a piece of cake, this one was not. At least not for me. The

reason it was hard was because I had a difficult time understanding the topic of health care. Since

I knew I will be taking more time during my research on this topic, I made it a habit to read short

articles of healthcare online whenever I had free time. After I felt confident about my knowledge

on the topic, I finally began my essay. However, as i finished my first draft, I realized I only had

three reasons as I revised. Because of this, I realized going back to research was a necessity.
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After reading plenty of articles I also realized that the pros and cons of each articles were

briefly stated in the beginning of each. So, when choosing articles for my essay, I made sure to

get articles from both sides to prevent a biased opinion. Another thing I realized was that the

articles that tend to lean towards my argument used a lot of pathos. So i figured in order to create

a strong persuasive argument like theirs I would have to focus on the emotional appeal provided

by patos.

Although this essay was to apply what we have already learned in class, a lot of learning

occurred throughout. In class we learned the differences between each of the rhetorical appeals.

First, we have logos which is the logical appeal that can be any kind of facts, informed opinions,

or statistics. Then, we have ethos which is the credibility that can be proven through authority,

character, or even qualifications. Lastly, we have pathos, which is what I used majorly

throughout my persuasive essay. Pathos is the emotional appeal which can be expressed with

sympathetic words and strong imagery. Along with learning my topic thoroughly, as I previously

mentioned, I learned that pathos is a major factor when trying to get the audience, especially that

of my argument, to side with you. Although I am proud that i was so ambitious to learn my topic,

I am disappoint that I did not properly manage my time enough so that I could have more than

enough time to write my essay. Certainly, time management will be something I change in future

assignments.

One of the special requirements made by the school, here at ISLC, was that we research

our topic worldwide and connected it in a way. So, the way I achieved this was that I researched

countries in which healthcare is provided for free, and the pros and cons they face. I also

recognized perspectives when completing my annotated bibliography in which I had to identify

and biases in the article. This made me aware and made me compare and contrast the viewpoints
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from each short article. Then after identifying the differences of each articles I communicated

my opinion and why other should side with me by completing an argumentative essay. This

made me feel completed and know I feel like I am capable of sharing my ideas on it.