“What would you say is your writing style?” When asked this question, I was initially at a loss for words. At certain points I would look at the next paper with anxiety. It took me a little while to realize that its not just the fact that I hate writing or writing isn’t for me, it is also my lack of organization. This lack of planning has changed over my senior year in high school, but most especially over the course of this STP. The ideas I absorbed from the readings, especially from Gerald Graff, pushed me to work on this organization.

When asked to read Gerald Graff for class, I was immediately interested because of the title, “Disliking Books at an Early Age” (just like Anne Lamott and, “Shitty First Drafts.”). I read to get it out of the way and saw books (at an early age) as an obstacle to fun things or just fun in general. Graff’s work brought up many past feelings I experienced regarding the struggle of reading. His journey from struggling reader to college professor and dean, gave me the confidence to keep reading. This reflection of similar circumstances, chronological order, and his level of credibility I felt made it the easiest to reflect on as well as the easiest to write about.

“My father, a literate man, was frustrated by my refusal to read anything besides comic books, sports magazines, and the John R. Tunis and Clair Bee sports novels,” (Graff 112). My dad introduced me to Clive Cussler novels (action and fiction novels) when I was a young reader. I loved these books so much that I would only be interested in reading these types of novels. I sat down in the BSR (Barracks Study Room) to begin my outlining process. When writing my outline, all I really wanted to do was show my personal examples of how Graff’s story related to my own. This just shows that the pathos of Graff’s argument was very strong and I needed to control this aspect to analyze the other aspects of his argument. These personal reflections offered insight to add depth to my paper. What kept me focused to the paper and not drifting away in my own thoughts was the chronological order of Graff’s story.

Graff organizes his piece very well. I noticed this when I first started reading and offered his whole background story. Some scholars will introduce this developed and golden theory and not offer much background. Graff introduces his struggle and I appreciate his honesty in his writing. While some scholars may not see a brief background relevant to their certain writing (in some cases it may not be), I get this feeling that the certain author thinks they are better than the reader. Graff offers a very humbling introduction that would make any reader comfortable to continue.

This comfort gave me the ability to focus more on my thesis and less on my personal experiences. However, my first draft was a detailed and lengthy essay that had very good points on Graff’s argument, but lacked the organization. The “Questions for Rhetorical Analysis,” handout helped very much with the data collection, but the analysis aspect was difficult. I had so many thoughts in my head; I just did not know how to organize them. I checked over my peer-review sheets before writing my final copy and the idea came to me of writing a three-pronged thesis.

This may sound silly to some readers, but I never really thought of developing my thesis on pathos, ethos, AND logos. My first draft had more of my personal thoughts I had on the reading and how Graff appeals to a wide audience (more of the pathos side). My final was a drastic and important change from my first draft. It took less time to write than my first draft and I felt like a more efficient writer. I understood the goal of the assignment the further I developed my main body paragraphs off of my three-pronged thesis.

The overall goal of this assignment, in my opinion, was to show what makes an effective argument. The argument was so persuasive that I wanted to summarize his whole argument and became very disorganized. Other than my organization problems with my first draft, the essay was fairly easy to write. Graff was easy to read because of his chronological order and easy to understand because of his use of pathos. I did not experience the frustrating writer’s block once I had my thesis developed enough that I could organize my whole essay accordingly. This essay was very eye opening and I will continue to structure similar papers in the future this way.