To be Honest Cat

Angelica Mendoza

Arizona State University

7 December 2018
 To be honest Cat, when I first registered for this class in May, I was terrified. I

didn’t think I would be able to pass this class based off of my performance in AP

Language and Composition in high school (believe me it wasn’t great). However, a good

friend of mine told me, “You were placed in this class for a reason. You’re a good

writer. Just believe in yourself, and I’m sure you’ll do great.” I’m glad I chose this class

in the end. It was actually my favorite class this semester. I loved the energy of the class

and how it challenged me to produce my best writing. Thank you for allowing me to find

my voice and for teaching me how to better analyze/see the world. I will definitely stop

by to catch up every now and then, if you’re not busy of course!

I had no idea what fallacies were at the beginning of this semester. When first

learning about them, I was stressed because I knew in the back of my mind that there

would be a test over all twenty of the fallacies. Circular reasoning vs. equivocation,

loaded question vs. straw man (or ventriloquist), and bandwagon vs. appeal to tradition

were all getting jumbled in my head. Now, I know that when I didn’t want to give my

mom a kiss goodbye when I was ten, and my mom said, “You don’t love me anymore”,

she was using straw man (ventriloquist) fallacy against me. However, it could be a

loaded question if it was stated as a question because saying either yes or no would not

result in a happy ending. I am also able to point out that when my dad wants to use

Donald Trump as a reference in, literally, any argument he is using false authority. I

completely surprised myself when I got a 105 on the fallacy test, and I can see my growth

in understanding these concepts as I look back on the five fallacy exercises. The new

knowledge I gained about fallacies will also give me higher ground in arguments because
I will be able to point them out and make a contestation or concession to counter their

ineffective argument.

APA format was another foreign concept that I explored this semester. Learning

this format was very challenging because it’s vastly different than the MLA format that I

know like the back of my hand thanks to high school English classes. I know I haven’t

mastered the art of APA, but as a nursing major, the introduction to APA format during

my first semester of freshman year will benefit me in the long run rather than seeing it for

the first time during my clinical rotations.

Here’s an excerpt from my classical argument:

Representative Bob Goodlatte, R-Virginia, praises the passing of the new bill in a

statement saying:

The Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act is

already having an immediate impact to end these terrible crimes. In the

days after Congress passed FOSTA, numerous websites advertising

prostitution shut down because of the strong criminal provisions contained

in the bill. (Targeted News Service, 2018)

One big difference is the hanging indented quotes that take up 4 lines or more.

Sometimes, I wouldn’t be sure if it had to be a hanging indent if it was three and a half

lines since it technically takes up part of a fourth line. That is something that I still have

to research. A big mistake that I made in the excerpt and throughout my paper is how I

formatted my in-text citations. The period is supposed to be after the parenthetical

citation and not before. Also, only last names are supposed to be in the citation. First
names, including first initials, should not be included in the parenthetical citations like I

did in this excerpt from my classical argument:

COYOTE RI, an organization of sex workers and sex trafficking survivors in

Rhode Island, conducted an impact survey after FOSTA. Sixty-percent of those

surveyed (156 sex workers) stated that without online screening capabilities, they

now see potentially dangerous clients. (Jackson, C. A., & Heineman, J., 2018)

I know what I did was wrong, but this paper will prevent me from making future

mistakes that could take away my direct admit status as a nursing major.

To be honest Cat, the biggest lesson I learned about rhetoric is that controlling

your audience’s mind is crucial in mastering rhetoric. Controlling the mind is a hard task

because there’s logic, emotion, and trust involved, also known as logos, pathos, and

ethos. Everyone knows what the three concepts are and how to point them out, but

executing them is another story. Pathos and logos are easy to use because it is universal

across people. For example, in my advanced appeal I used pathos to push the audience’s

feelings (hopefully negative) about Mr. Astofitna in this final question and answer from

the interviewer and the interviewee:

Are you saying you care more about your business than those girls’ wellbeing?

It’s not that I don’t care about them, but it’s more so what’s happening to them is

none of my business. Whatever the seller chooses to do with them is outside my

realm of control. Additionally, it’s not affecting my life in any way other than

positively, so why should I worry about it? It’s unnecessary stress to put onto

potentially saving their lives, I could be focusing on more important things like

expanding my business. Once it starts messing with my life, that’s when I would
 have to step in. However, business is booming, the demand is high, and I have

the supply.

When using logos to strengthen my advanced appeal, I went in the opposite direction that

writers usually take. Instead of trying to make sense to the reader, my goal was to

confuse the reader and strengthen the antagonist character as seen here:

I’m not getting in trouble for it. Honestly, it’s just money for me. I don’t like to

think about what happens because then I feel like a bad person. You know the

phrase that goes, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to see it, did it really

fall?” It’s like this situation. I don’t see these people getting abused or trafficked,

so is it really happening?

I thought this was a unique way to use logos and a crucial part of my appeal. Ethos is a

harder concept to use because everyone’s perception of authority and credibility is

different. I used a representative to appeal to ethos in my classical argument:

Representative Bob Goodlatte, R-Virginia, praises the passing of the new bill in a

statement saying:

The Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act is

already having an immediate impact to end these terrible crimes. In the

days after Congress passed FOSTA, numerous websites advertising

prostitution shut down because of the strong criminal provisions contained

in the bill. (Targeted News Service, 2018)

Since he is a real-life person, a reader may have biases about him that I wouldn’t know

about because I didn’t do much research about him. If given another opportunity to write
an research argument paper, I would research more in depth my audience and the people I

cite to judge whether their credibility will benefit my paper.

According to Heinrichs, the first step to controlling the mind of your audience is

to change their mood, as said in chapter nine of his book Thank You for Arguing. In

order to control an audience’s mind, your mind must be able to have full control of your

own mind. What I mean by this is that you must be passionate about your standpoint,

make sense to yourself and understand what you’re talking about, and trust that you are

doing the right thing. Reading through my classmates’ papers let me understand a little

bit of who they are. You can tell when they are passionate about their topic because they

put a piece of themselves in their papers. I really appreciated Nicole’s paper about racial

discrimination and Rapha’s paper on the confederate statue. While both educating me on

topics that I wasn’t highly knowledgeable in, they both turned their mindset into my

mindset. I especially liked Livia’s satirical Christian Post article. It was smart of her to

use a real news information provider to her advantage.

Heinrich’s chapter, “Run an Agreeable Country”, really made me think about the

impact that argument and rhetoric have on my life. He’s right when he says that the word

argument often has a negative connotation attached to it. However, rhetoric is important

to me and has made several positive impacts in my life, and it is helping me to grow into

the individual I strive to be. I’ve seen rhetoric become an intellectual argument between

two of my friends who stand on opposite extremes about the military. In the end, they

agreed to disagree, but I could also tell that it created a positive bonding moment within

our friend group. Rhetoric allows me to have a voice and hone the idea that what I say
matters to others and makes an impact on other people. It helps me understand that

everyone has their own opinions, and not everyone will agree with me.

To be honest Cat, your class helped me to understand what a badass I am and can

be. Thank you, again, for investing your time in teaching me how to argue, and I hope

you have a wonderful break!