Self-Assessment of Paper 1

1. The assignment was to write an essay, or rhetorical analysis, of a current political cartoon or magazine advertisement. The main focus of the essay was to explain the author's use of various rhetorical appeals.

2. Based on the subject of my political cartoon, the American economy, I am trying to tell my audience about the current state of it and how the author sees our country's newly elected leader, Obama, handling it.

3. The audience of my paper is my English professor and my fellow classmates. Not knowing their own political preferences, I tried to keep this interpretation as straight-forward and non-partisan as possible.

4. In terms of visual rhetoric, I felt it necessary to place my cartoon on the second page, right below the start of the third paragraph. I made this conscious decision in hopes that my audience would get their own image from the first two introductory paragraphs without first making a biased interpretation off of the actual cartoon. Only until I started explaining the various details did I add the cartoon into the essay.

5. I am most proud of my conclusion, or last paragraph. I feel it is short and sweet and right to the point. Nothing is more dull than a long, dragging conclusion. Mine sums up the basic rhetorical appeals and how the author uses them. Most importantly, I ask my readers the question that is raised by this cartoon and let them make their own analysis of the deep-rooted meaning within it. Nothing is better than leaving your reader wanting more or just simply pondering your essay.

6. My second paragraph I am less satisfied with. It can be considered problematic because I automatically jump into the American flag and how I find it to be the most important part of the interpretation. Now, this may be open to debate. I probably should not be so bold as to tell my audience what I think THEY should find important. I think I saved it though by backing it up with the public law quotation, for this tells people the role it plays in the cartoon.

7. I feel I picked a cartoon that was challenging yet interesting to write about. It was not necessarily easy to interpret, but once you really read into it the options were endless. I feel I played upon this very well. The hardest part to me was staying non-partisan, for I wanted soooo badly to incorporate my own personal political preferences. But I kept focus and looked at the cartoon from both viewpoints. I wanted my audience to see the cartoon not as I did, but as non-partisan viewers. This way, they could better interpret the cartoon. Its very easy to find within political cartoons an aspect that supports your own political party, but this doesn't necessarily mean it was the author's intent that you see it that way. Hence, I did not display the cartoon until the second page, third paragraph, when I started dissecting it. Overall, I am very pleased with my paper and the revisions I have made. The rough draft was a little short on information, but I made some additional revisions to make sure that EVERY rhetorical appeal was addressed. My thesis merely stated the most important ones that I wished my reader to focus their attention on. I feel however that the final paper was concise, informative, and grabbed the attention of my readers. YAY!