Writing the Rhetorical Analysis paper was definitely one of the most difficult parts of this class for me. Throughout my writing classes in high school, I constantly struggled with deep analysis of novels such as We by Yevgeny Zamyatin. I find that I don’t focus enough on specifics and instead summarize instead of quote. Additionally, I have always loved creative writing such as poems and short stories, so I often hit writer’s block during analysis essays due to lack of interest. However, writing this paper has definitely improved my analyzing skills and caused me to enjoy writing more than before.

            I began the paper with an introduction that was only one short paragraph comprised of information about dystopias and a general background of the novel. I soon after realized, though, that this paper needed a two part introduction to split the two topics up. This idea sprouted from class, when we were shown examples of two part introductions and how they can improve the paper. I always had the notion that introductions are supposed to act as a one paragraph “hook”, but this class changed my perspective of introductions completely and swayed me away from the stereotypical format.

First Draft of Introduction

Final Draft of Introduction

        As seen above, I added in information such as the quote by Kunkel and I brought in specifics about the difference between 1984, The Hunger Games, and We. The introduction of these various novels in the introduction helps connect my body paragraphs together, whereas before they all sounded very choppy. I also added in what normal dystopias usually consist of, such as “one or two individuals who overthrow government”. Adding in these specifics developed my ethos by showing that I know what a dystopia is. As I look back at the introduction, I realize that I could have summarized these novels a little bit to give the reader some background, but too much summary would have been unnecessary. Also, I could have definitely clarified what the connection is between my opening sentence and the rest of the essay. Describing a dystopia as “an attempt at a utopian society that ends unsuccessfully in the suffering of the citizens” in my first draft was awkward, so changing it to Kunkel’s quote helped a little bit.