Retrospective Essay

There are many key features of Critical Inquiry that are used in
this presentation essay. Theres a variety from vertical development to
Citation packages, each one was used in the essay but the two that are
the most interesting to me are Rhetorical Strategies and the Evolving
thesis.
Ill start with Rhetorical Strategies, this includes the rhetorical
triangle. The rhetorical triangle is broken up into three elements,
which are Ethos, pathos and logos.
Ethos has to do with the author/writer, it refers to the value of
the writer such as how ethically credible or fair they are about the
subject. Basically, the more open minded the reader is the more
believable the reader it. For example, if someone has bias towards one
certain religion and then they go on to describe someone in that one
religion, how believable are they going to be? Not very believable
because they are rather close minded about this specific group of
people. This was brought up in my Presentation Essay about the Rec
Center, I would say that in my paper I seemed rather close-minded. I
think this because when I talked about the cardio room I glorified it
saying it was not intimidating, everyone was able to use it, it was
simple to follow along and it confortable. This may not all be true to
every single user, it is just the majority like I said which seems slightly
more open minded. To further add to this I think I was slightly bias on

the weight room when I first talked about it. I made it sound
intimidating, scary and threatening. However, after that I said I only
felt comfortable using the weight room once I used the cardio room for
a few months and gained some knowledge about weight lifting(5). I
showed how I have seen both sides of the argument whether its from
a new user that has never come or someone that has been using the
facility all year long. Although it seems like I am close-minded in that I
have opinions, I tried not to be. I tried to talk about both sides from the
first time I entered the Rec to the past few months where I feel much
more confident.
The next part of the Rhetorical triangle that I included was
logos. Logos is the logic or credentials behind the logic of the piece.
This is very easy to talk about mainly because I am the one physically
entering the gym. Like I said in the paragraph above, I talked about my
own experiences at the Rec. Not only did I talk about my experiences I
also talked about others such as this quote As you can tell, my initial
reaction to the weight room was distant and uninterested which can
easily happen to others just like me. I have many friends both male
and female that still hesitate to use the weight room because of these
thoughts and experiences(4). This further strengthens my logos
because not only do I have primary data from myself, I also have
primary data from the people around me that are in the same
atmosphere. When reading this essay one may think that I have a

single view on it but once I add in a peers view on the Rec, claims
become much more acceptable.
The third part of the Rhetorical Triangle is pathos. This has to
do with the audiences emotions. I think that I used the emotions of my
readers very clearly. Im sure the majority of my readers have had the
experience of walking into a gym for the first time or have the same
view I did about it if they have never been like when I said For
instance, the first time I used the Rec I was terrified to use any room
other than the cardio room. The Cardio room seemed like a universally
recognized room meaning anyone and everyone knows how to operate
the machines. It is relatively simple to recognize a treadmill and
understand that the use of that machine is for walking or running(3).
This plays with the readers emotions of feeling vulnerable, scared and
inadequate for certain machines or rooms. This was one revision that I
created from the original essay. In the original essay, there was little
emotions and personal experience, I felt that if I added in personal
experience it would be somewhat more meaningful. I assume there is a
certain part in the readers life where they can relate to this. I then
pose the opposite side when I say after I got confortable with the Rec, I
stated to use the weight room more often. Again, I am sure there is
something sort of similar feeling when they overcame something so
they can relate to this feeling as well.

The second key feature of critical inquiry I want to talk about is

the evolving thesis. The evolving thesis starts with a critical inquiry
question then as you add some framing concepts and claims as well as
evidence. After that theres an addition of anticipated objections, which
leads to revisions of either your claims or your thesis. This whole cycle
keeps continuing, as one adds new evidence or statements the thesis
takes a turn to form to the new accusations. This cycle finally ends
when all the culmination ideas come together and one explains the so
what to the thesis.
I used this technique in my essay, the first thesis that you will
see is not even the first thesis I thought of when I came up with my
topic. Like it says on my home page, we went though multiple rewrites
of this exact essay. I have come a long way from where I started. My
original thesis didnt even have anything to do with the specific rooms
in the Rec Center, I made another revision here to add in genres into
my thesis. This changed my paper drastically by narrowing what I
talked about genres in just two rooms in the Rec and how users affect
them or how they affect users.
However, the thesis I start with in this essay is If genres are the
way one reacts to a particular space, then how do the different rooms
in the Rec Center affect the genre of activity people decide to
participate in?(2). This is a general thesis that interested me and is
actually the ending thesis of my previous essays. From this I talk about

the reasons one goes to the Rec Center and what the preconceived
notion of the Rec Center is. I talk about the differences between the
users and how although each and everyone has the ability to use each
and every room there are individual limiting factors that are not taken
into account because they are not very visible. This goes along with my
initial thesis, but then I go on to talk about how the gym is organized
after I as the question So how does the layout of a room change the
genres? I have already talked about the layout of the weight room, but
a room to contrast this would be the cardio room(5). As I contrast the
two rooms I start to talk about the genres in each of them that I
brought up in my original thesis but I also start to develop my essay
towards how the layout affects genres, which alters my thesis a little. I
asked this question to complicate my thesis If the layout affects the
perspective of a room, does the genre of a room come from the users
or from the way the Rec is laid out?(6). I then talk about the other
side of how the users affect the genres of the rooms, which was
opposite to the layout changing the genres of a room. Finally I finished
talking about if the user has an affect on the genre or if the Rec Center
chose its genre when they built it (aka the layout) created the genre
with my ending thesis. Throughout the paper my thesis or thoughts
change based off the information I talk about of the questions I pose.
This gives the reader a new topic to think about every so often so that

they do not get bored off the same points being repeated over and
over.