Lower Order Concers

The three lower order concerns I think I need to address most in my second essay are word choice, spelling and sentence structure.  In order to help prevent these mistakes from making into the final copy of my essay I plan on making a list of things I miss commonly and go back through my essays and check them against the list to make sure I have not made the same or similar mistakes.  I will also probably be questioning almost every single punctuation mark I put into the essay, with the exception of exclamation point, question marks and periods obviously.  I am also going to start reading my essays backwards to see if I can catch anything that seems out of place or just completely wrong.  And hopefully after doing all of these things the final copy of the essay will not have any, or as many, mistakes as previous copies or essays.

Higher order concerns

On my new revised essay on Kamala Harris I plan to execute the higher order concerns by first watching the speech over and breaking down the speech in three aspects. The first thing Im gonna break down is the Main argument that Kamala Harris is trying to make to the people. Im going to see whats her point of interest and the words she uses to communicate.Next Im going to analyze the crowd and see who the majority of people are, Republican or democrat, White, Latino, or African American and the main purpose she's trying to give. I want to see how she delivers her message and the order she puts her speech in and weather or not it is effective. Even by examining the little details of the speech it could help get the main purpose of the speech out like, how she greets the people when she comes out and little things like that. It says that after reading the first couple of lines that the reader should know where the speech is going to go. I plan on making that kind of impact.These are the Main issues I want to address and I feel like if I execute these higher order concerns that I will have an effective essay.

Essay 2 Revision

Mit Romney appeals to pathos through everyone’s patriotism, putting everyone on the same level by calling us what we are, a nation of immigrants.  He talks about the freedoms of this country and how America is a symbol of a better life, evoking a strong sense of patriotism throughout the audience.  He talks about all of the hard times the American families are going through, where they were hoping that they could just get a little bit ahead, or put a little more into their children’s college fund.  He talks about the American spirit, the never quit attitude that has made this country great.  He talks about how when someone would lose their job that paid “$22.50 with benefits” they would take on TWO jobs at less because that is what they needed to do for their family, they did NOT quit, but instead they worked harder to provide for their families because they is what they needed to do.  He evokes a strong sense of patriotism from the audience by appealing to their emotions through their struggles, and through their actions of what they need to do.  He appeals to the concern of people when they are at the gas pump and watch the price hit $50 and just keep going.  He using emotion, a strong sense of patriotism here, to sway the people to vote for him.

Mitt Romney appeals to pathos through everyone’s patriotism, putting everyone on the same level by calling the American people what they are, a nation of immigrants.  He talks about the freedoms of this country and how America is a symbol of a better life, evoking a strong sense of patriotism throughout the audience.  He talks about all of the hard times the American families are going through, where they were hoping that they could just get a little bit ahead or put a little more into their children’s college fund.  He talks about the American spirit, the never quit attitude that has made this country great.  He talks about how, when someone would lose their job that paid “$22.50 with benefits,” they would take on TWO jobs at less because that is what they needed to do for their family.  They did NOT quit, but instead they worked harder to provide for their families because that is what they needed to do.  He evokes a strong sense of patriotism from the audience by appealing to their emotions through their struggles, and through their actions of what they need to do.  He appeals to the concern of people when they are at the gas pump and watch the price hit $50 and just keep going.  He using emotion, a strong sense of patriotism here, to sway the people to vote for him.

Most of the revisions I made are just simple fixes to my very crappy grammar and spelling.  Including but not limited too misspelling Mitt Romney’s name….. But yea that’s all I really did to this paragraph.

How I intend to revise my thesis

At the democratic national convention Kamala Harris had begun her speech by giving reasons why it would not be a good idea for people to vote for mitt Romney. Then she spoke about barrack Obama and named all of the great things he had done while being president. Kamala Harris’s speech was effective because she used logos, pathos, ethos, and rhetorical strategies to get her point across to American voters to vote for Barrack Obama.

On Kamala Harris's speech  I think that I could have been more effective in multiple areas.I feel that my orignal thesis is really short, it was more of a intro without the actual thesis. I think that I was lacking detail on my ending, I feel that I could have used better words, put more thought into what I was trying to say. The argument that I was trying to make wasnt really a argument . It realyy was hard for me to come up with a argument for the speech. This thesis is kind of boring and I could go more in detail about Kamala Harris's past, where she come from and what she do. When I revise this thesis I hope to add all of these things into the new one. Hopefully it will be longer with greater detail then the older ones. On the new one I want my thesis to actually be an actual thesis because sometimes  I have trouble trying to make a argument for the ending thesis. Instead of focusing on her talking about Obama I think I want to focus more on what she is saying and what she is really making a argument about. 

Lower Concerns

Overall, I wrote a good essay. My concerns are grammar, inclusion of the date the speaker spoke and the style of my essay. Concerning grammar, I intend to look up and review the basic rules for grammar. I also intend to enlist some people to review my essay before I turn it in. I also want to take my essay to the writing lab and have them take a look at it before I turn it in completely. I have revised the first paragraph and added the date that Kerry Healey spoke at the Republican National Convention. My rubric also suggested my essay had engaging style but lacked variety. In order to fix this problem I intend to review my essay and revise some of the sentences to add variety to my writing. I will also ask people working at the writing lab for some suggestions on variety in my writing. I can also use the Bedford hand book to look up some variety to add to my style. I can use these exercises to not only help revise this essay but they will help me when I am writing future papers for this class as well as other classes.

Revised Paragraph

 In order to be successful, a politician must win over the hearts and minds of their voters. The appeal to pathos convinces voters that he/she cares about the community in which they live. The appeal to logos helps the audience understand logically that one person will do a better job than another. Kerry Healey uses pathos and logos in her speech to the Republican National Convention. Appeals to pathos and logos are applied by Healey in order to convince the audience that Mitt Romney is the best candidate for President of the United Sates of America because he cares about the American people and can run the country effectively while boosting the economy.

Revised:             In order to be successful, a politician must win over the hearts and minds of their voters. The appeal to pathos convinces voters that he/she cares about the community in which they live. The appeal to logos helps the audience understand logically that one person will do a better job than another. Kerry Healey uses pathos and logos in her speech to the Republican National Convention on August 30, 2012. Appeals to pathos and logos are applied by Healey in order to convince the audience that Mitt Romney is the best candidate for President of the United Sates of America because he cares about the American people and can run the country effectively while boosting the economy.

The only thing that was missing from this paragraph was the date Healey spoke to the RNC. Everything else was included. 

Original Paragraph of essay two and its revised version

Original Paragraph of Essay 2

President Obama builds moral and professional credibility for himself through his speech in order to earn his audience trust and confidence. First he started his speech with sense of appreciation toward his family, his wise president, and his chairwoman which show he is a thankful man with family values. Then he reassures that his values are the same as American values. The American values are the fundamental values of democracy such as that hard work will pay off; that responsibility will be rewarded; that everyone gets a fair shot and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same rules. He earns his professional credibility by reminding that he is not only a governor, but also he is the President of the United States who has earns four years of experience in this position and his leadership has been tasted. For this reason he points out some of his promises that he made when he was a candidate for his first of presidency and now all of them came true; for example, he promised to end the war in Iraq. He did. He promised to refocus on the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11.He did. Al Qaeda is on the path to defeat, and Osama bin Laden is dead, and the project of world’s trade center monument is finished.

Revised Version of Paragraph

President Obama builds moral and professional credibility for himself through his speech in order to earn his audience trust and confidence. First he started his speech with sense of appreciation toward his family, his vice president, and his chairwoman which shows that he is a thankful man with family values. Then he reassures that his values are the same as American values. The American values are the fundamental values of democracy such as the believe that hard work will pay off; that responsibility will be rewarded; that everyone gets a fair shot and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same rules. He earns his professional credibility by reminding American audience that he is not only a governor, but also the President of the United States who has earned four years of experience in this position with the testing of his leadership. For this reason, he points out some of the promises he made when he was an electoral candidate for his first of presidency. For example, he promised to end the war in Iraq. He did! He promised to refocus on the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11. He did! Al Qaeda is on the path to defeat, and Osama bin Laden is dead, and the project of world’s trade center monument is finished.

To revision this paragraph, I made some grammar correction, some spelling correction. I eliminate some wordiness. I also paraphrased some sentences to make them more cohesive and could be read smoothly. I did not change my topic sentence. I got rid of a sentence which makes conflict in my essay. “Now all of them come true.” I did not go over all of president Obama’s promises so I cannot write all of his promises came true. I also added exclamation point here and there to keep the reader entertained.

Writing lab's feedback on my second essay

I visit the writing lab on Thursday, November 8^th for revision of my second essay. The writing tutor told me I have a good context in general, excellent thesis, and great topic sentences which support my arguments. However, since I did not have time to proofread my essay before turning it in, I have lots of minor grammar error, wrong choice of words, and punctuation errors mostly in commas. She told me in order to have an excellent essay, sentences should be read smoothly and right punctuation and word choice help this. Most of this error can be corrected by proofreading the essay so I am going to proofread my essay for its revision to improve it. Another issue that my essay has is being longer than what was assigned for it. I have a long introduction and long body paragraphs, but very short and weak conclusion, and the reason is I passed the 800 words by the time I got to my conclusion, so I did not have enough space to write a strong conclusion. For this issue, the writing tutor gave me a very helpful recommendation. She told me “it would be better to start the essay with thesis and body paragraphs first because they are the main parts of your argument, and after that go back to your introduction and conclusion. Writing relevant and proper intro and conclusion would be easier then.”

Week 12: Revisions (cont'd)

Practical Argument Readings:

• Chapter 7: "Planning, Drafting and Revising an Argument" - Revision section (208-16)

Resources:

Purdue OWL: Higher Order Concerns and Lower Order Concerns
Harvard University: Revising the Draft

Discussion Questions:

(Please remember that these should be 200-300 words.  I have been seeing many very short posts recently.)

• What are three higher order concerns that you need to address in Essay 2?  What do you plan to do to address each?
• What are three lower order concerns that you need to address in Essay 2?  What do you plan to do to address each?
• Post an original paragraph from Essay 2 and a revised version of that paragraph.  Explain how you have revised the essay and why you made the changes you did.
• Do you plan to revise your thesis for Essay 2?  If so, please post your original thesis and explain how and why you intend to revise it.
• Make an appointment to visit the Writing Lab (G-06) for Essay 2 this week.  Once you have visited the lab, describe here what kind of feedback you received and how you will use it in your essay.

Assignment:

Essay 1 and Essay 2 revisions due Tuesday, November 13.   
PLEASE REMEMBER TO BRING ESSAY 1 AND ESSAY 2 TO CLASS ON WEDNESDAY.