Essays Module

A.  Content and Organization

The first thing I’ll do is read over my essay with fresh eyes after taking some time off from working on it, so I can tell what’s actually on the page instead of what I was intending to write. Then I’ll be able to decide whether I succeeded in writing what I meant to.

I’ll organize what I find in the actual essay into a reverse outline so I can see how all my ideas relate to each other:

Introduction:

• Description of the image I’m analyzing, plus purpose and background
  • Background: it’s a religious event marketed as a magic show
• The advertisement uses ethos (the man) and pathos (drama), leaving out anything Christian, to draw in all students, including non-religious ones, to the show.

Body paragraph 1

• An ethos appeal is made by making the man himself enticing
  • His confidence and aesthetic make him appear competent, like his show will be entertaining
  • He is young and attractive, which appeals to the student demographic
  • The image leaves out any mention of religion that might interfere with the built-up ethos appeal

Body paragraph 2

• A pathos appeal is made by the dramatic elements of the image
  • Bright blue eyes in a black and white photo feels surreal and dramatic, reflecting and reinforcing the magic theme
  • Tape over the mouth creates a sense of drama and danger
  • The phrase “Magic Redefined” does the same, reinforcing the magic theme
  • The image leaves out any mention of religion that might interfere with the built-up pathos appeal

Conclusion

• The image works by creating a strong ethos and pathos appeal to draw in its audience, without including the religious elements that might put them off
  • Comment on the significance of the rhetorical situation

I was pretty careful with my organization through the whole thing, paying attention to my thesis and how each point in each paragraph contributed to the whole argument, so my outline looks pretty tightly organized. Everything is what I intended to say, and it fits together closely.

As for assessing how well I’ve answered the actual the prompt, let’s take another look at the prompt:

In a 3-5page essay, make and support a claim about how an image (picture, painting, advertisement, etc.) or a text (song, poem, speech, etc.) is being used.

Making a claim about how an image is being used—not about what it’s being used for, but going a step further and looking at how it does what it’s doing. Looking at what I actually did write, I talked about what strategies the image uses in order to achieve its goal of attracting students to attend the show. Seems to me like I’ve answered the prompt, then.

Writing Center Appointment

Since I knew I wanted another set of eyes to look over this essay to make sure I was actually communicating what I wanted to, I decided to make myself an appointment at the Writing Center

First, I asked my tutor to look over the structure and organization of my essay, to see whether I was answering the prompt, and he told me it looked pretty good. Then I specifically asked for some thoughts on my conclusion, since I felt like it was pretty weak but didn’t know how to strengthen it, since the prompt says clearly not to add any new information.

I felt like I might want to go in the direction of commenting on what a “rhetoric of omission” implies—what it means to deliberately withhold information from the audience, and what it means for the success of an image that omits crucial information if, when the audience falls for it and later realizes the bait-and-switch, the audience reacts badly. Not going into depth, but sort of touching on the idea. But I hadn’t discussed this directly anywhere in the essay, and so couldn’t introduce it.

My tutor helped me figure out how to talk about this idea a little more towards the start of my essay, putting it into my intro as background information and referencing it in the body, so I’d have the freedom to discuss it more in my conclusion. And after doing this, I rewrote the second half of my conclusion:

Of course, this omission and the consequent inclusion of non-religious audience members lasts only until the moment that the religious theme is revealed during the show. This image carefully caters to a widely inclusive audience with a clear sense of its purpose, drawing in as many students as possible, including non-Christian ones, to make a religious point with a lot of punch—but the image’s and the show’s purposes do not necessarily coincide. If the show’s goal is to proselytize, then the omission of crucial information in the advertisement, which caused many students to leave the show midway through, was apparently not an effective strategy. However, for the image itself, if the goal is simply to spark interest and increase attendance—regardless of what happens after students get into their seats—then the rhetoric of omission is remarkably effective.

I’m much happier with this conclusion than what I had before, and I’m still staying true to the prompt. So since I changed things in my intro and conclusion, in my reverse outline now they’ll look like this:

Intro

• Description of the image I’m analyzing, plus purpose and background
  • Background: it’s a religious event marketed as a magic show
  • Once this became clear in the show, many students left
• The advertisement uses ethos (the man) and pathos (drama), leaving out anything Christian, to draw in all students, including non-religious ones, to the show.

Conclusion

• The advertisement works by creating a strong ethos and pathos appeal to draw in its audience, without including the religious elements that might put them off
  • The image’s goal is only to draw students in, not to fulfill the show’s purpose of proselytizing to non-religious students
  • It succeeds at the former, not at the latter

All right, this looks pretty good now! With the help of an appointment at the Writing Center, I got all my content and organization cleaned up nicely.

My tutor also had some advice on the wording-level, which I’ll look at as a part of the next step in revision.