When writing essays for English 2 this year I have tried to show a lot of my own voice in these papers so the reader or audience can really see my personality. I wanted my character to come out of these essays, and to my surprise I was shooting for one main goal, and that was to present ethos in my arguments. What exactly is a good definition of ethos? Being from a Greek fluent family, I know all about this word; ethos comes from the greek word ethikos (ἠθικός) meaning the showing of moral character. So, ethos couldn't be more easily defined than the showing of your personality or character. Looking back at my papers throughout the special, you can see that all of them have shown some of my personality or interest. The first assignment was rhetorical analysis, and for this assignment, I decided to show an image advertisement for the tempurpedic pillow. I used this object because sleep is the most important aspect of my everyday life, and I pride myself among my pillow. It is the number one thing that helps me sleep through the night, and I have to say that I absolutely love it.
The next assignment was the claim paper, where I examined the argument of texting and driving versus drunk driving. I used this topic for my paper because being a teenage college student, I admit that I text and drive frequently, so I wanted to see what kind of facts I would see when researching for this paper. Interestingly enough, I was at more danger while my eyes were on my phone while driving, than if I were to drive intoxicated. I definitely changed my driving habits after I turned in my final paper. It was fun to write this paper because it related so much to my own life and many other lives of teenage students like myself. I'm sure that many my other classmates in English Composition 2 are victims of texting and driving!
The last assignment was the rogerian essay, in which I attempted to bring common ground to the classic argument of deforestation is ruining the natural earth. Being an environmental engineer, I am obviously not for deforestation but conservation of natural resources, so this topic was most appealing to me. Through research I was able to see some of the claims that high-end logging companies were able to say about what they do for the earth's conservation and how they do it. Obviously, forest conservation sights aren't going to tell you everything that logging companies do to conserve as much as the earth as possible, but only the bad facts. It was very comforting, being an environmental engineer myself, to see that most of these logging companies actually plant back the trees that they cut down.
Well, you know who I am through my paper, but most of you probably do not know me as a person really. I came to the University of Oklahoma from Austin, Texas where I grew up throughout my entire childhood. I am in the fraternity of Sigma Phi Epsilon where I met most of my friends I have today at OU. I enjoy the summer time the most out of the year, which is why I am extra excited to be done with this semester of school. In the summer, I am an avid wakeboarder, and all together just like to be on the lake with friends. I enjoyed this semester of English, and believed that it taught me to be a better writer through argument type paper. Since this last blog is about ethos, my personality when I am away from school is very fun. I am definitely the loudest person in my family and am always willing to do something fun. I was the pledge trainer for our spring pledge class in the fraternity. So if anyone is ever bored and is interested in doing something during some down time, you can definitely call me up and I am always ready.
I really like your final blog post. I was reading the guidelines for the final blog and i was trying to make it way harder than what is was meant to be. Your final blog was fun but informative, I really liked how you put it together so well.
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