1 May 2019
Final Exam ENG 112
Kevin Roozen, associate professor/director of composition at University of Central
Florida, claims that “writing…is always an attempt to address the needs of an audience.” After
taking ENG 112 and exploring a variety of different writing styles as well as examining the
future requirements of my career goals, this idea has shown to be quite true. In particular, our
first writing assignment in this class was to choose an article from a selected list and write a
rhetorical analysis that gives “ examples from the essay and analyze the rhetorical situation,
touching on persona, audience, argument, and purpose as well as the use of rhetorical appeals
logos, pathos, ethos, and kairos. Your analysis may also touch on organization and method of
delivery as it is relevant to the piece you have chosen.” To craft a rhetorical analysis, we had to
largely shed away any personal or opinionated tone and adopt a more formal, competent, and
well-studied persona to suit the needs of objectively delving into the intricacies of an author’s
methods of conveying their ideas. The reason behind this shifting of our persona is what makes
Roozen’s point gain more legitimacy. We had to appeal to a specific type of person. Going into
our first assignment, we knew that the only people reading this paper would be, first and
foremost, our professor, secondly our peers, and then lastly ourselves. If our audience was a class
of kindergarteners then we wouldn’t use language that would completely go over their heads,
otherwise the entire point of writing the paper itself becomes null. We want the people who we
know are going to read our writing to understand what we have to say, because we care about
whether or not our intentions and purpose carry on from text to reader. From knowing our
audience, we then had to craft and choose specific and correct appeals of our own to convince
whoever was reading that our analysis was in face valid and reasonable. In the case of our
rhetorical analysis, logos and ethos played the dominant role in helping to make this happen
effectively. Logos was by far the stronger of the two appeals, largely because a rhetorical
analysis is based entirely off of logical thought pathways that eventually lead to conclusions
from the preceding analysis. Ethos is important as well, but to a lesser degree since for a
rhetorical analysis, once you establish your ethos, you as the writer don’t have to continually
reestablish your credibility repeatedly throughout the paper, but rather put full force into logical
appeals to convey your ideas to the reader efficiently and intelligently. What this really says
about writing for this course and for others is that we have to be conscientious writers and be
aware of not just what we are writing, but why and most importantly for who.
These skills have already translated themselves to other classes, specifically my
Engineering Graphics course, which is a class that is directly related to my future career in the
field of engineering. I had a realization recently when my professor explained the ins and outs of
what we should be aware of when creating our presentations for our final project in the class. Out
of all the points he touched on, the one he stressed the most was knowing your audience and
knowing the right words for them to hear. As someone who will likely be working with many
other engineers on large projects, there is absolute certainty that I will have to hold presentations
to groups of other engineers, project managers, analysts, and various people associated with
whatever work I end up doing. In this situation, knowing your audience is what will make or
break your success as an engineer doing these presentations. Many of the people I could be
presenting to are likely experts in my field, or well versed in the topics I would be conveying,
and coming off as to simple or too complicated could derail a meeting or presentation and
severely hurt my chances of gaining future opportunities for advancement within the industry.
For me, going into engineering, it has been a stark truth that being a good writer, speaker, and
reader go hand in hand with being a good mathematician, physicist, and problem-solver. Those
two areas of knowledge are not separate, but combine to be what creates a truly excellent and
successful engineer. Even outside of presentations, I will have to know the audience of whoever
may be interacting or purchasing whatever I may be working on. Of course, rhetorical appeals
may not play a big role in designing a steering rack for a car, but knowing the audience of where
the product ends up plays a role in how it will be optimized for its function. In short, having
these skills to analyze an audience, apply specific methods to appeal to said audience, and
executing the appeals in a meaningful way will be an integral part in my future as a student and
practicing engineer.