Introductory Essay

Samuel Faries
5 - DEC 2015

Rhetorical Knowledge Throughout my time in this class and my many hours of research and
writing I have learned how rhetorical knowledge applies to me as a writer. I have learned how it
can very easily influence the way that the information is delivered to the audience and even
effect the impact my writing will have on my audience. For me as a writer that is speaking on
behalf of firearms and gun control it is crucial that my rhetorical knowledge is something that I
take into account before I start my persuasive writing. If I do not take into account Audience,
Text, Venue, the Speaker, and Context more than likely I will repel my audience away and they
will never finish reading my work. Here is a breakdown of how rhetorical knowledge is relevant
to me and my writing:
AUDIENCE My audience is a person that might feel that firearms are unsafe to the public.
Someone that is not educated of firearms or their drastic benefits that they give to this country. I
am trying to explain to the person that might not believe that gun control will only make violence
rates and murder rates go up, for the simple fact that gun control will only effect the law abiding
citizen. My audience is people that for ANY reason believe that firearms are the cause of any
murder, or a person that for some reason cant differentiate between a patriotic, law abiding
citizen and a person that owns firearms that arent registered for the sole purpose of doing harm
to others.
TEXT - My text is meant to open the eyes of those that might not be educated of firearms in any
way. To let them know certain things of fire arms such that they in fact do save lives in the hands
of a good law abiding citizen. Even to the point that the police have no legal obligation to put
your life in front of their own, and can never promise to get there in time to save any ones life.
My text hopefully reveals that just because you might have firearms does not mean at all that you
are is a mentally ill person that wants to kill everyone.
VENUE - My venue is my web site. I am constructing it is a way that is similar to that of other
firearm sites. This is important because my web site might not have the message that most of the
normal firearm sites would have. Also most normal firearm sites are not for the audience that
mine is intended for. What is interesting to me will be the reaction of those first looking at my
site because at first they will not be interested in a web site for something that they do not
believe in. However when the see that the content is directed at them I hope they will be inclined
to continue reading.
SPEAKER I am a southern country boy that grew up on a farm shooting guns for sport and
hunting my entire life. This is important for me to keep in mind because my audience is the
complete opposite. I use my background and knowledge of firearms to hopefully open the eyes
of my audience to show them the ideas and reasons for someone wanting firearms. And that there
are many more reasons to owning firearms other than what is portrayed on the news of just for
killing. I am trying my best to give my audience a look at what is more than likely the complete

opposite of their own views and to give them sound reason for not believing the way that they
might.
CONTEXT In the world today there is someone somewhere that is killing one another.
However this is not new and in fact has been happening sense the beginning of time. Everywhere
on the news you will find how there was a shooting here or there. You can even find politicians
that are doing everything that they can to ban certain firearms when they DO NOT KNOW THE
FIRST THING ABOUT THE FIREARM. I think it is funny because often they use the incorrect
terms proving their lack of knowledge. This just makes me very mad because they are spreading
false information to the public that do not know any better, and the politicians have a direct hand
in pushing for gun control. This is why my views are reasonable. This is also why I am trying to
show my reader the different views because in context of the world we live in today firearms are
a very controversial topic.
(Above is a sample from SLIP 9) through rhetorical knowledge I have learned that depending on
the audience and the venue It is crucial to take into account how the : style, tone, formality, and
medium will affect the opinion of the reader.
Critical Reading Critical reading is very important in any research. However it is
tremendously important to my portfolio and the research I have completed this semester. Critical
reading is the ability to analyze, synthesize, interpret, and evaluate ideas, information and texts.
Throughout the semester and my research I have been reading a lot of new material to introduce
into my SLIPS. I have had to use critical reading to analyze and interpret the work that I have
come across. In my field of writing I am writing about a topic that is strongly opinionated this
means that I have to play close attention to reading the new information critically making sure to
not let biases, incorrect information and the reliability of the source corrupt my own writing.
Also I have to be able to synthesize works where I do not let my own beliefs interfere with the
facts in my writing. My topics are opinionated but it is that way in hopes that my audience can
see the other extreme in terms of opinions. While having many unbiased, uncorrupted facts to
support my own personal beliefs. Some of the web sites that I have been critically reading are :
http://concealedcampus.org/
http://americangunfacts.com/
http://www.infowars.com/18-little-known-gun-facts-that-prove-that-guns-make-ussafer/
http://www.newsmax.com/FastFeatures/gun-save-livesstories/2014/10/28/id/603652/
http://gun-control.procon.org/
http://www.nssf.org/events/featurette/2012/0712.cfm
http://programs.nra.org/
http://3gunnation.com/news
http://www.examiner.com/article/carolyn-mccarthybarrel-shrouds-and-assault-slings
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium1.680072

Composing Processes This was the hardest thing for me throughout this class. At the
beginning I struggled with the open-endedness of the class. The rules were little to none and I
had a hard time grasping that because grades are definite. My process throughout this class has
been often to get an idea of what I want my audience to take from a work and use the
information that I have researched to articulate what I am trying to get across. However to my

despise I have realized that one process cannot be the answer to all writings, there were many
tasks in the class that required many different ways of completing them. At this moment is when
I started to appreciate the sketch books that our professor made us do. This gave me the ability to
plan and write out my own rules that I could go about and solve in my own way. This gave me
the opportunity to find a consistency in the class. Maybe not in the rules or the creative writings,
but in the fact that I can write my personal plan out before proceeding with it. The Process
Journals quickly became a new found source of brainstorming, revising, drafting, editing, and
closure.

Knowledge of Conventions is knowing how to use tone, style, information, organization, and
document design to convey a particular message to your reader. This is important to me as a
writer because I need to know how my word choice will affect my reader. If my audience is the
person that knows nothing about firearms I cannot use a bunch of technical terms that my reader
will not understand. This dictates that the writer has a strong knowledge of conventions and how
even the lay out of the page can affect the impact the reader takes from their work. One example
of knowledge of conventions is a task that we were given in the semester. We were to look up
web sites and view their use of conventions and how it would impact the outcome of the reader.
This is what I concluded from the task. . Process 8 - I realize that my topic is very
controversial however I feel that the audience of these website including mine is the person that
does not support firearms. A lot of the web sites try to show people many different aspects of
things that guns could have prevented. This portrays firearms in a way that they are supposed to

be viewed in. If you were to look up the definition of weapon right now you would see that it
will have a very negative connotation to it. Many web site try to present to the reader hard facts
that might push them one way or the other. Facts that might be hard to hear because something
terrible could have been prevented. There are usually not many colors to the web sites. Also
many of the web sites use pictures to get the persons attention along with keeping it throughout
the reading. I position myself as a reader for this material as someone who enjoys guns but
understands the terrible things that they can be USED for. I try to learn as much as I can from the
content and understand that just because it is put on the internet by someone does not mean it is
true. The tone that you tend to find on some web sites like the ones that I have below is one or
two different ones. One being some one that is unavailing a new fact that the reader has not
known before and hoping that it will change their perspective on firearms. Or the other being that
the person is mad because people do not understand the benefits that come from fire arms, And
just lump the good law abiding gun owning citizen that shoots for recreation and the criminals
that dont own registered fire arms any way in the same group. These are not anywhere close to
the same kind of firearm owners. They even own the firearms for two completely different
reasons. I do find it interesting to think who would read these articles. Because they are clearly
written for the person that does not know much about guns. However, that person would not be
the person to read these web sites because of how you have to find them on the internet. With the
exception of the gun facts pages. Someone interested in learning them might click on the web
site thinking that the facts were going to be written with the opinion that is similar to their own.
However when I find myself in one of these situations I hardly ever read past the point that I
have found out witch side they are pulling for. So I think that the most successful websites are
the ones that present plain unbiased facts because if the reader is interested in learning they will
read it when most would be deterred by any glimpse of a writer being biased in a way that is not
in the readers favor. Through this process it gave me the knowledge that 90% of the time if a
web site is boring or they ramble off with no end in mind most people wont read it. The set up
or the design of the page very much determines what kind of audience you will attract and if you
can keep their attention long enough for them to read the information you have put in front of
them.

Critical Reflection is the ability to articulate what you are thinking and why. This is important
to me in my writing because I need to know how to be able to go back and explain the
significance behind everything that was completed in my portfolio. If I can think about this
ahead of time this will allow me to write my initial work with the end in mind and will further
help the impact that my reader will take from my work. In a sense of flawlessly connecting them
to gather hopefully opening the eyes of my reader to the points that I am trying to articulate by
giving them sound reason why the first time they read my work.