Estel Boix Noguer

English 5M
11/08/2017

Cover Letter: Rhetorical analysis

During the writing of the Rhetorical analysis paper, I faced some difficulties. A
misunderstanding of the task made me wrote a paper not considered as appropriate for
the task, which made me feel quite discouraging for the third draft. However, rewrite it
again and try to improve it has made me learn of how a correct rhetorical analysis is
done. Now I feel encouraged to keep learning and improving my English writing skills
in the rest of the course left.

First of all, talking about course goals, the one I achieved during this paper was
compose rhetorically effective texts, informally and formally, in a variety of mediums
or genres. In this case, I had to analyze a previous writing and then discuss if it would
be acceptable in my current department of Arts and Humanities (more concretely,
journalism). The third part of the paper, a reflection of my writing was made based in
my memorable writing, and the writing techniques described in the CSUS handbook.

As a writer, I tried to create a strong piece using a style of writing quite unknown for
me: the unattached impersonal style. On my first draft, all the paragraphs were written
using this style. I feel more comfortable with it now, but I have realized that building
difficult sentences does not make a paper better. Also, I learned I have to ask more
frequently the doubts I have. This had caused me a bad grade on my first draft to a
misunderstanding of the instructions. In the second part of my paper, the writing style of
Arts and Humanities had to be described. Instead of giving importance to the CSUS
handbook, I focused on talking about a book from the outside of the class, which made
me lose points. Moreover, I spent too much time writing a detailed introduction which
was repetitive and it was not as much required as second and third parts.

What went well is that the paper chosen was memorable to me, so I remember well
what was about and why was so important to me. Despite being in Catalan, I found the
correct words to describe it, and for the third draft, I tried to make the description of the
column shorter, but without losing the essence of the detailed writing style I like to use.
What I would like to change is the construction of the paper. It was not well structured;
as I stated before, the introduction was so long and the important parts were not
explained at it was required by the Professor. Moreover, the book elements of
journalism was not needed here; despite is a book I really enjoy reading, on this book I
only had to use the handbook.

For my future assignments, I will try to understand better the tasks required.
Furthermore, a good organization of the paper as well as a good construction of
sentences will be the other objectives.

To close this cover letter, I consider that the second draft it is not properly finished to be
my final paper. However, this third draft might meet most of the requirements proposed.
Before posting it on my ePortfolio, I would like to see the comments made by my
professor. Depending on this, a fourth draft might be a good way to improve the mark
and meeting the requirements. What this paper may needs in order to be excellent is a
better connection between the second and the third part; in the third draft it has been
difficult to meet the goal stated previously, so I think I would be able to do a better
discussion and comparison between my paper and the writing points of the handbook.
Estel Boix Noguer
English 5M
11/08/2017

Writing experiences

Part 1. Introduction and description of the paper

Even though I decided to be a journalist when I was in High School, it was not
until last year at Univeristat de Girona when I was able to have a course on Spanish
journalism. In that class, I had to write a journalistic article criticizing either a speech or
an event we attended during the semester as an assignment. That article, which was the
first I have ever written, made me realize that journalism is what I am supposed to do;
that I want to be a columnist. Therefore, this essay will rhetorically analyze the column
that I wrote for that class. It talks about the speech by Bernat Puigtobella, director of the
cultural website nuvol (cloud in English), at Univeristat de Girona on November 21st
2016. In his speech, Mr. Puigtobella explained the function of his website and its
history, as well as its current situation in Catalan journalism. Nowadays, cultural
journalism is viewed as unimportant and his goal is to give voice to cultural news. A
goal that he is starting to achieve, as Nvol has shifted from just a cultural website to a
printed magazine. Furthermore, his entrepreneurship allows him to give opportunities to
novice journalists as interns and have an inside perspective on how social networks
influence websites like his on a daily basis. When it was time to write the column, I
found that it was an easy process thanks to the indications of the teacher. He provided
some useful examples and advice for writing as a real journalist. Moreover, thanks to
my extensive and detailed notes, I had a great deal of information about the conference,
which was reflected in my final article.

Part 2: Writing in Arts and Humanities

Following the criteria of the CSUS Handbook: writing and researching in arts
and humanities, a student from the Journalism department has to write according to the
guidelines, which share several specifics with the other departments of Arts and
Humanities. First of all, students of the departments of Arts and Letters have to explore
questions about human experiences. They use reading, researching, and writing as tools
to achieve it. Secondly, the book describes that scholars make arguments and support
their arguments by using the application of theories, close readings of texts and other
artifacts, and discussions of personal experiences (138). Moreover, when the theories
and the arguments are developed, a conversation of academic discourse communities is
built, which is reflected in journals and books. Thirdly, the way the scholars from Arts
and Humanities share their arguments is via reviews, critical analysis papers,
interviews, creative writing, and scholarly books. Fourthly, this field does not have the
objective of conducting systematic experiments; instead of that, the main focus is to
explore ideas and arguments. As a consequence of this, papers of Arts and Humanities
require less prescriptive language than other departments, such as science or
technology. As the CSUS Handbook states, because of the theories and arguments
expressed by arts and humanities scholars are often personal and subjective, a
personal voice and engaging style is often valued in arts and humanities writing (139).
After this analysis, the handbook presents some examples of writing assignments
from Arts and Humanities classes at Sacramento State. Then, a study of how research in
Estel Boix Noguer
English 5M
11/08/2017

the Arts humanities is done. The research is based on the analysis of books,
performances, etc. As mentioned before, the inquiry is more subjective and personal. It
also involves asking opened and focused questions about the material of research
(books, texts, works of art, etc.). The inquiry for creating the papers also involves a
careful analysis of this material, as well as consideration of social and historical forces
that shape the text. Finally, exploring what other experts in the field had said is useful
for the writing (an example would be using quotes or paraphrase). The last point
discussed in the Handbook is what is considered as evidence in Arts and Humanities.
Evidences are more focused on texts and authors than quantitative data or another type
or results. As the handbook states, Its commons for arts and humanities assignments
to require the writer to both closely analyze a text or work of art or performance and
also consider the wider cultural context of the text.(148). Moreover, the arguments
have to be coherent, well-developed, and supported with evidence. Finally, the
handbook remarks the importance of citing the scholars work in the writing in order to
engage with the discourse community of the discipline, as well as staking out a self
position within this community.

Part 3: Discussion

Comparing the writing created during my course, and the points of the previous
part, I believe that the article I wrote would be accepted for a professor from journalism
or/and Arts and Humanities. In Sacramento State.
The writing presented at my journalism course in University of Girona explains
my experience in the speech of the director of Nvol. Writing about experiences is one
of the main focuses in writing in Arts and Letters. Furthermore, the writing of the
speech, which reflects my experience while Bernat Puigtubella was speaking in front of
the audience, does not use a prescriptive language. It is written in a more personal way,
trying to describe the declarations of the speaker as good as possible. Citations were
used in order to engage with the discourse community; in this specific case, citations
were a used to reflect important ideas discussed at the speech. Finally, to write my first
column of the course, I had to analyze the situation of the cultural journalism in Spain,
which addresses the fact that in Arts and Humanities we need to write about how the
social forces shape the texts. Fortunately, Mr.Puigtubella explained to the audience
which was the situation of this field.
Nevertheless, there is need to consider that Journalism can be understood in a
different way in the United States and in Catalonia has to be considered. The course that
I took during the studies at Spain was useful because it was the only lesson were I felt
that an interactive model of education was carried out and I got to know what
journalism is. Currently though, journalism is my current major. Therefore, I will have
the opportunity to practice more and improve my writing skills in the near future. In my
opinion, it is not only important to defend an argument; the originality of the writing is
crucial to being a good journalist.