Understanding Context and Research Reflection

In a fully developed short essay (minimum of eight paragraphs in length), please answer all of the questions
below and post your essay to the discussion forum. Your work should include an introduction, a body of
supporting evidence, and a conclusion.
Remember that you are having a conversation with your peers in this particular genre of writing, so adopt an
appropriate tone and vocabulary for an audience of contemporary college students. Edit your work for clarity,
punctuation, and usage, and don’t forget to comment on the works of two peers in order to earn full credit for
these discussions.
Questions for Analysis
What is Carroll saying about the nature of rhetorical analysis? How do the fundamentals of rhetorical analysis
figure into your life, both as a student and as a citizen? Describe a pair of specific examples in which these
concepts might play (or have played) a role in your participation in those areas.
Using at least one citation from Carroll’s essay, comment on the role of context in framing contemporary
arguments. Is there enough contextual background on news stories, speeches, advertisements, and other
areas of rhetoric in today’s digital information culture? How does the Washington Post’s proposed feature of
the “Knowledge Map” (noted in the Shan Wang article) enrich the contemporary news environment?
Finally, in the second half of your essay, explain to your classmates the general features of your research
argument. Using the taxonomies of reflection in the previous section as a guide, answer the following questions
in your final four paragraphs:
What did you learn about your topic that you didn’t already know or that was surprising to you?
What is an area that you would like to improve upon as a writer moving forward, and which aspect of your
research argument are you most proud of?
Finally, how do you see the subject of your research argument changing over the course of the next ten years?
Where will it be in a decade’s time?
41) “Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis” (http://writingspaces.org/essays/backpacksvs-briefcases) is by Laura Bolin Carroll and is located in Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing , Vol. 1, and
licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.
(42) “The Reflective Student: A Taxonomy of Reflection (Part 2)” is written by Peter Pappas and is made
available at Copy/Paste (http://peterpappas.com/2010/01/reflective-student-taxonomy-reflection.html) under a
CC BY-NC 3.0 license.
(43) Image of Taxonomy. Authored by: Peter Pappas. Located at: http://peterpappas.com/2010/01/reflectiveprincipal-taxonomy-reflection.html
lect and read this article, “Backpacks Vs. Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis” by Laura Bolin Carroll.
(41)