Understanding rhetoric and how to utilize and manipulate it to get your point through to your target audience is critical when creating any piece of writing, especially informative writing. There were three significant instructive writing pieces in English 110 that I was able to grasp, adopt, and develop my usage of. One of the course learning objectives that I was successful in completing was sourcing. “Locate research sources (including academic journal articles, magazine, and newspaper articles) in the library’s databases or archives and on the Internet and evaluate them for credibility, accuracy, timeliness, and bias” (course syllabus). Sourcing is a type of rhetoric that falls under the authorial rhetorical principle. Knowing where to obtain your sources and how to identify their reliability, biases, and weaknesses to choose how to use this knowledge to develop your work is proper sourcing. I was able to use this course outcome to improve my utilization of sources to bring credibility and consistency to my perspective throughout my work in the three key writing pieces for this class. My first piece of writing was a source-based essay in which we had to select four sources on our topic and do a rhetorical analysis on each one. My topic was racial inequality in the United States and how it has impacted the country’s general quality of life throughout time. In the second paragraph of my source-based essay, I introduce the author, the type of source, and the article’s aim, before moving on to an appraisal of his trustworthiness based on his experiences and fields of study. “Render is a student from East Kentucky University, he majored in history and lives and works at Austin Texas where he focuses on American society and culture, especially race and social movements. His area of study together with his experiences living in the city of Austin validate his arguments in the article.” (Source-based essay). This illustrates my assessment of this author’s reliability, which is demonstrated by the fact that he resides in Austin, Texas, and majored in history, making him a reliable source who understands what he is talking about and can back up his statements concerning racial inequality and gentrification in East Austin. This method of identifying materials and assessing their reliability is then expanded and applied in my inquiry-based essay to support my ideas and create a clearer purpose for my writing. “… (James Render). The author is raising attention to the issue while also condemning and expressing a negative attitude toward how black people are treated and placed in repressive situations. Overall, this demonstrates how minority groups were technically isolated due to their financial disadvantage to the East side of the city, which was considered a “hoodlum,” but this did not deter them; they worked for decades to make this part of the city a better place…” (inquiry-based essay). Here, we can see how I use the author’s claims, which were already validated in the previous essay, to provide an example of the effects of racial inequality on minority groups, which not only strengthens my arguments but also provides my audience with a broader spectrum of the issue at hand, allowing them to understand why it is a problem and why something should be done to end racial inequality.

      Another course outcome that I was able to develop and enhance my use of to better my writing over the course, is understanding the type of sources and writings that should be used to get to certain audiences. “Understand and use print and digital technologies to address a range of audiences.” (Course syllabus). This also reflects one of the principles of rhetoric which is audience. In my source-based essay I began by identifying the intended audience in each source as part of my rhetorical analysis, which I did by identifying specific components of each type of writing to understand why a specific type of genres can have more influence on a specific types of people. “‘If a team with the right quarterback situation adds him, everyone is looking at kneeling very differently now.’” (Klemko). This demonstrates how the author directly refers to people in leadership positions within the NFL.” (Source-based essay).  Here I identified the author’s intended audience which he refers to directly, however, I also expand on aspects of newspaper articles such as the type of information they carry that make people in leadership positions within the NFL prospect of reading this genre more than others. Moreover, in my composition of two genres assignment, I was able to choose the two genre compositions that were better to expose my topic to my intended audience. My intended audience were government officials who have the power to initiate a change in racial inequality. Therefore, I concluded that an online newspaper article and a social media post were the best genres to get to my audience. “In fact, a report made by the New York Times concluded that over 90% of government officials read these newspaper articles daily whether online or in paper…. Overall, social media is a good choice because of the accessibility that it provides no matter the race or social status.” (Composition of two genres). This demonstrates how I now use the distinctions that certain audiences like that was made previously to choose what genres are best to expose my purpose and message to my intended audience. The accessibility and influence of social media and online news sites make them good to reach people no matter the social ranking.

      This all builds up to demonstrate my improvement in the third-course outcome which is the use of rhetorical principles to elaborate my writing. “Recognize and practice key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations.” (Course syllabus). Rhetoric involves seven principles which include author, audience, tone, purpose, genre & medium, context, and stance. I previously demonstrated my use, elaboration, and improvement of author, audience, purpose, genre & medium, and stance. However, over the course, I was also able to master the use of the remaining two principles, tone and context which is also reflected in my writings of the semester. Context is referring to other events that might have been happening around the same time and affecting the issue directly or indirectly. I integrate context into my writing at the heading of my online news article for my composition of two genres. The heading reads “US Racial Inequality the oldest and Most Calamitous Pandemic; Will it ever come to an End?” (Composition of two genres). This shows the use of context in that I use a metaphor to compare racial inequality to a pandemic being that during the time that I wrote this assignment the covid 19 pandemic had struck the world and everyone was suffering its consequences. This made my topic more relatable to the intended audience and any other audience that read it. In the same way, this shows my use of tone because my word choice and comparison help me give a more serious yet curiousity evoking tone to my writing.

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