RA Reflection

I would probably give myself a B to a B+ if i had to grade my paper.  Looking through the rubric, i think i did some things well like addressing the audience and doing more analysis than summary.  There were, however, several things i also needed to do better.  I should have gone deeper with my analysis, but i found it hard to really dig in to this article.  If i were to change something, i think i would actually just pick a whole new article.  I picked it originally because it was long and i figured there would be a lot to analyze in it.  In reality though, the author was pretty repetitive with his points and kept attacking the same group of people.  As i said previously, my biggest struggle was digging into the article and getting good analysis from the things that the author said.  My biggest strength was probably being able to see who the author was directing his comments toward throughout the article.  Overall, it was a hard paper for me to write, but i think i learned a lot about analyzing other's writing.

Presidential Debate

1.  Red Herring:  President Obama was complaining about Romney's tax plan, then said that we need to invest in education instead.
2.  Diction:  Romney used the term "trickle down government" to describe our government's regulation.
3.  Overstatement:  Obama overstates the money that Romney plans on spending to scare people into supporting his plans.
4.  Straw Person:  Romney says obama did nothing to raise local energy, but that it happened in spite of his policies.  Then he went on to say how he would implement plans to improve energy even more.
5.  Imagery:  Obama talks about specific things to be done with saved tax money such as buying a new car or paying for a child's college.
6.  Analogy:  Romney said Obama and democrats keep trying to give their ideas which are false and he compares it to his five boys trying to convince him of something he knew was false by repeating it.
7.  Tone:  Romney brought out a very serious tone when he said that he saw a poll refuting the poll that Obama was quoting, and that he saw other polls that were saying Obama would raise taxes.
8.  Hand Gestures:  Obama was very charismatic with his hand gestures throughout the debate.
9.  Eye Contact:  Romney was very direct with his eye contact both at the camera and at Obama, whereas Obama had a hard time looking Romney in the eyes.
10.  Irony:  Despite the protection of the secret service Obama still managaed to get his butt kicked at the debate last week.  :)