freewrite #2

After reading Kant’z essay on being a good researcher and writer there were some main points made which are essentially to writing a good rhetorical analysis and paper. First it is important to carefully analyze sources and understand them before writing about them. While researching and finding articles you must look at the context in which the source was written in and the historical time period. A source can read completely differently if it is written in a time period where political or social conflict was relevant. For example if in the 1990’s an American writer had written about Iraq and terrorist attacks and a general hatred or stigma against Middle Eastern people it possibly would have been viewed as racist. But written in now after the 9/11 attacks, Americans would look at that as the norm and an acceptable document which coincides with their beliefs about people in that part of the world.

    Secondly you must carefully break down statements made in a document and decipher whether they are facts or opinions. When writers are creating a document which aims to persuade their audience to believe their point of view and argument they will carefully omit and use certain points of information to create sway with the reader on their side. In combination with this point it is important to establish your credibility as a writer to the reader is more likely to believe and know your sources are also credible and authentic.

    Additionally to making your reader and audience see you as a credible writer you must investigate and understand who will be reading your paper. For my paper I will be writing to people who are my classmates and already have wary beliefs about the media and their role in perpetuating false beliefs about people in the Middle East. If writing to a set of college students their other moral values must also be taken into consideration, if they are a more liberal set of people who are against the war you will have an easier time persuading them to understand your beliefs. But if writing to the middle-upper class college graduates who are middle aged, they may be more conservative and be less likely to understand you as a credible source and having legitimate points.

    Another important made in Kantz’s article is to create an original argument which you feel strongly about, enough to argue and making a persuasive idea. The article also talks about closing and filling the rhetorical gap by making original contributions and research which surrounds your own personal views of the topic.

    For my own personal purposes in writing my paper I will attempt to meet Kantz’s standards and points for improving writing by better analyzing my sources and looking at where they were written, the context and who wrote them. Additionally, I will look at the situation in which the article was written in as a whole and then try to decipher which facts the writer left out and included in order to persuade me. I will also try to incorporate my audience’s ideals into my paper so that I can better persuade them in understanding and agreeing with my argument. To create a proper and successful ethos I will work to use different opinions about the war, maybe even use blogs from some Iraqi people to show that maybe their media has not portrayed the same negative ideals about Americans as we have about Middle Easterners. I will also document how in past wars which the United States has been involved in the government used blatant propaganda to persuade the American people to feel hatred towards the country which we are at war with. If the government has done this in the past with our country, what is stopping them from doing it in this war?