English 103 Final

Goals are always important when it comes the learning and English 103 has been no different. Setting up goals creates a point that students and teachers must strive to reach. One such goal of English 103 is course goal number four or “compose texts in various media using solid logic, claims, evidence, creativity, and audience awareness.”

Throughout the course of this class, the proof of this goal has been obvious. Professor McArdle constantly reminded us to remember who we were writing for. Whether it is government politicians or our friends on Facebook we had to keep in mind of how our selected audience would respond to our words. For instance, if we wrote something offensive or insulting to the audience, many would stop reading our essays right there and then. Situations like this are often good to avoid. Evidence and claims are also important when appealing to an audience. Well founded claims backed with solid evidence will often be the best way to persuade another person into changing their mind about a subject. Of course the evidence must be true and its source must be valid in the field being represented. If the evidence is used to appeal to the reader’s sense of reasoning, logic becomes an important tool. One of the three main appeals, logic, or logos, can be the best option if the intended audience is most moved by facts, data and statistics. The cold, hard, reasoning types can rarely deny claims that are well established facts. These dimensions in writing are good to keep an eye out for when critically reviewing the work of others.

Course goal number six states “develop strategies for becoming more critical and careful readers of both your own and others’ texts.” This goal cannot be more evident than when the class held group reviews and critically reviewed the works of other students. These review groups encouraged us to keep an eye out for all the ideas we had come to learn in English 103. Appeals, facts, and intended audience were all subjects that we as reviewers kept in mind as we read each others’ essays. I noticed that as the semester went on, more and more people were able to give helpful criticisms of works and find solutions that could solve problems in the text. I notice I myself have become more observant of the texts I read even when not in class. Whenever I see advertisements or the like, I begin to question who the intended audience is or what appeals the advertisers are using. This goal introduced some pretty helpful life skills that I can easily see myself using in the future. This leads me to another life skill I acquired from this class, the skill of appeals.

Course goal number one states “understand that persuasion-both visual and verbal-is integral to reading and composing.” I think this can best be described as the three appeals ethos, pathos, and logos. These three appeals, the appeal of the credibility of the author, the appeal of emotion, and the appeal of logic, all play essential roles in the foundations of persuasion. By learning about these appeals, I feel that I can more successfully write a persuasive essay and realize when those appeals are being used on me.