Argumentative Rhetorical Analysis Reflection

For the Argumentative Rhetorical Analysis project, we had to choose a rhetorical text from popular culture to analyze how the rhetoric is used and its effect on the audience. I was very excited when I received the prompt for this assignment, because I knew I wanted to look at the rhetoric used in modern day social media. My initial idea took me in many different directions. At first I wanted to look at the rhetoric used by TikTokers and people promoting TikTok, but that was sort of a dead end. Then I decided to look at the rhetoric of other influencers, and eventually I stumbled upon Youtuber Currently Hannah’s parody of a travel influencer’s typical vacation vlog. I thought her exaggeration of their editing and acting styles perfectly demonstrated the rhetoric used by travel influencers to promote the idea that they lead a perfect and luxurious lifestyle. My first draft of the paper was all over the place, I had so many ideas and things I wanted to talk about that I didn’t know where to start or how to organize it. After the peer workshop in class where my peers gave me some feedback on how I could better organize my thoughts, I constructed a plan for my final draft that essentially scrapped the entire first draft. Using my daybook to write an outline for the essay consisting of what each paragraph would discuss and what quotes would be used to support my claims, really helped me to better organize my paper and display all my thoughts in an effective way. This project taught me how rhetoric can be used to help an audience recognize and relate to the topic, and agree with the main message or argument of the work.