Art of Persuasion

Final Assignment

Art of Persuasion Peer Review

Matt:

When Matt wrote his first draft of the first paper it was completely academic.  He used other academics opinions instead of using his own commentary.  Then, as the class progressed, as well as the assigned papers, I was able to hear his voice and his own thoughts on the subject.  Matt’s first paper had a theme of academic adjustments, which is exactly how he progressed through his writing and finding his distinct voice against past teachings.  He would look at both sides of an argument and find some type of compromise in the conclusion.  Matt is a very logical writer with certain structure he enjoys implementing like the letter format inserted in two of his papers, creating fun visually and interest for the reader.  He started writing without a voice and now his voice shows his viewpoints poetically and artistically in a structured manner.

Eric:

As an intellect, he seems focused on improvement.  In his last paper, he emphasized that he struggled with citing sources and in the second paper he wrote I thought he did an excellent job of incorporating sources.  So, he must be drastically improving or he is hard on himself.  The sources that he used seemed to be information he learned from past classes, and the sources applied supported his points well.  Eric’s first paper had the theme of recognizing personal thought through constructive conversation and one’s voice can create opportunity for thought exchange.  However, one’s voice is altered in different settings like in revision and conversation, which was explained in his second paper.  In the memoir, he seemed to relate the message that he wants his voice to ring without too emotion.  So, in all three papers Eric is trying to create a voice that can be understood.  Eric shares some interesting ideas on voice in writing and academic Socratic seminars that was fun to read.

Brianna:

In her second paper, I completely could relate to her struggle in finding ownership in the text when writing the imitation piece section.  She established the theme of identity to audience.  All writers know the struggle in having the ability to relay what you have to say while keeping the audience’s community in focus.  The ideas constructed in her writing are connectable.  This theme of audience is apparent in Brianna’s memoir.  The first draft had an overload of information, but she transformed and revised the memoir to focus on attending to the idea of truth.  A truth that the reader can find provided in the presented story.  Her explanation of the struggle to write objectively about people in memoirs is an honest realization.  Her tactic of expressing a self-realized epiphany is something I want to and try use in my writing as well.  I would comment on the first paper but I couldn’t since it wasn’t there.

Chelsea:

On her about page, she talks about the fear of exposing her writing to the class.  She definitely took a leap of faith in sharing her memoir, and sharing very personal experiences with others, despite the possibility of unfavorable reactions, was very mature.  Intellectually, this she showed her ability to set aside emotion to learn the how to write about uncomfortable issues in an articulate manner.  In Chelsea’s first paper, she wrote about the potiential maintaining individualism in academic writing.  The theme of being an individual is observant in the second paper.  She explains how she stays true to her own voice—sustains independence—through the way in which she words the subject, even if she doesn’t agree on the subject matter.  Also, Chelsea’s memoir addresses being independent (individual) and having to rely on herself to surpass tough times.  The drafts, especially in the memoir, improved in coherency.

Reflection on My Work:

The first draft I wrote was definitely raw.  I struggled in transitioning between paragraphs, and I’m still working on that in my writing even today.  I have good ideas in the body of my papers; I just need to play the elementary game “Connect the Dots,” so my audience completely grasps the relationship between those ideas.  There were some presented ideas that needed more clarification, and I just need to improve on helping my audience know exactly what I am writing about instead of assuming they can put the thousand puzzle pieces together.  I am not satisfied with the first and second final papers because they weren’t “A” papers, but there’s nothing I can do to change those grades, which was somewhat disappointing since I’m a perfectionist.  I have put in a lot of effort into all my papers, and I am happy how my memoir turned out.  I liked playing with the visual structure and the punctuation.  This has been a great class, and I have learned steps to improve my writing, which is what life is about, self-improvement.