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Rhetorical Knowledge

Rhetorical knowledge is the ability to recognize and utilize different aspects of

writing to compose coherent works. This first example is from my third bibliography. I

chose to use it because we had to write a summary of the source and provide an

objective analysis of it at the end. It required the use of rhetorical knowledge to know

when it was appropriate when to use personal thoughts and when not to. The summary

portion should be only what the author said, but in your own words without any opinion.

The ending however, was to be put into a different font/size/color to ensure the reader is
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aware in the change from summary to personal thoughts. Therefore, this section can be

opinionated and less formal than the previous section.

This second example of rhetorical knowledge is from the intro to my inquiry

thesis. I explain that discipline is actually more than just punishment in order to clarify to

some readers who might believe this misconception. By dispelling the misconception,

possible ambiguity between discipline and sole punishment is reduced. I also use

multiple synonyms of corporal punishment such as spanking, physical punishment, and

corporal discipline to help familiarize readers with terminology that is frequently used in

my sources. Interchanging multiple synonyms of your topic also allows for readers to
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know what something means without having to blatantly giving a definition; which can

be boring and wordy.

Critical Reading

This first example of critical reading is from my inquiry thesis. The highlighted

portion is my personal interpretation of proverbs 13.24, Whoever spares the rod hates

their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them. In order

to provide my stance on the meaning of this proverb, I need to make sure of the actual

definition of discipline, the time period in which the Bible was written, and the context in

which it was written as well. If the proverb is taken out of context it could lead to

misinterpretation. I concluded that because it is written in proverbs which is mostly

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metaphorical, that discipline does not necessarily mean physical punishment, and the

fact that word usage has slightly changed since the bible was written, that the proverb

does not mean that it is necessary to spank your child in order to discipline them.

For my second example of critical reading I chose part of our fifth studio where

we had to read and analyze a work written by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from

Birmingham Jail. I chose to include this section because it asks to identify what voices

Dr. King pulls into his letter and why. This required me to first identify when he used

someone elses perspective by looking for signal words and phrases. I then had to
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understand the idea Dr. king was trying to convey and then see how it compared to

what the other persons opinions and thoughts were. By doing this I was able to better

understand Dr. Kings beliefs and thoughts on the subject at hand, therefore allowing

me to better comprehend the subject better as a whole.

Knowledge of Conventions

This first example is the works cited page from my inquiry thesis. I included it

because in order to successfully compose a works cited page, you must know what

format you are writing in and what specific formatting rules it requires. For example,

MLA format a dedicated page for your sources rather than APA where the citations go in

the footer. It also requires that certain titles of sources be put into italics such as

newspaper articles, while others are required to be surrounded in quotes.

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This second example is from the introduction of my thesis. When using direct

quotes, it is important to use ones that are relevant and that make sense. Sometimes

you might find a quote that you want to use, but it might have things misspelled or might

be worded confusingly. This problem can be rectified by using brackets to include your

own words to make the quote easier to understand.

This third example is also from my inquiry thesis. The parenthetical citation is one

used for when there are multiple authors for one source. In order to give credit to all

authors without having a long citation, et. al. is used to notate that there are other

authors. This helps prevent excessive wordiness without leaving out any necessary

credit.
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Composing Process

The first example of my composing process is from a section of my inquiry thesis.

The crossed out part and the highlighted part are similar paragraphs, but the highlighted

paragraph is an edited and revised version that has been integrated into the following

paragraph. It was originally used as a transition paragraph between The side that

approved of corporal punishment and the side that opposed the use of corporal

punishment. However, it proved to be better placed within the following paragraph

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because it allowed for explaining of the following paragraph and helped remove

redundancy.

The second example is from in-class peer evaluation of my inquiry thesis. One

comment on my thesis from my classmate was that she was unfamiliar with the term

corporal punishment and suggested that I use other synonyms of the word. To help

alleviate the confusion, I used multiple synonyms early on such as physical punishment,

corporal discipline, and spanking. This will hopefully allow more readers to immediately

know what I mean by corporal discipline.

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The third example is from another peer review session of my inquiry thesis. In

this one I had two classmates comment that my stance on my topic was still a little

vague and hard to identify. To fix this, I included a short narrative of my personal

discipline experiences and then reflect on it at the end of the paragraph. In my

reflection, I made sure to explicitly state my stance on the topic and give reasoning for

my inquiry into the topic.

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Critical Reflection
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The first example of critical reflection is a reflection on my first draft of my inquiry

proposal. One of the things we were instructed to keep in mind when drafting our

proposal, was to make sure our topic was applicable to our classmates and the greater

UNCC community. This came as a problem to me because I couldnt think of how an

inquiry topic about disciplining young children could be applicable to college students.

This was a problem because I was used to thinking that people who went to school with

me were too young to have kids. Upon further reflection on this problem, I came to the

obvious realization that many college students are of the age to consider kids and that

there are possibly many non-traditional students who already have children.

The second example is a reflection done after composing a screencast video

addressing my annotated bibliographies. While composing my screencast, I had to stop,

go back, and rerecord certain parts of the video. This was because I wasnt as fluent

with my material as I thought I was. Upon reflecting of the struggle that was my

screencast, I decided that it would be best to make a short summary of each annotated

bibliography and a short explanation, at the top of the document where I was working on

my thesis, before diving into writing it. This helped me be more comfortable with my

information and made writing easier because it was fresh on my mind.