Retrospective Analysis

At the beginning of the quarter, the only essay I knew how to write was the standard five paragraph one that I learned in high school. Now I know that essays can go way beyond that and it is called critical inquiry writing. Critical inquiry writing involves some key parts. The important parts about it would be being able to write a paper that involves critical inquiry questions (CIQ’s), an evolved thesis, claims and warrants, different cohesion strategies, rhetorical strategies, “they say” and “I say”, lexical density, and a conclusion that leaves the possibility for there to be another paper written in response to the critical inquiry essay. CIQ’s allow us something to base our thesis off of when writing a paper. These are our purposeful questions we ask so that we can discuss and argue them further throughout our paper. An evolved thesis is the argument claim. It gives the readers something to follow along with as the writer develops their ideas and answers to the CIQ’s. Claims are statements that can be argued, substantiated, or supported by evidence. Warrants serve as the link between claims and evidence to back the claim. The different cohesion strategies would be lexical, semantic, relational, and meta-discursive cohesion. All of these strategies ultimately help with the flow of the paper when it comes to word choice and transitions. Rhetorical strategies would be ethos, pathos and logos. Ethos implies the ethics, credibility, voice and values of the author. Pathos is the audience’s emotions in response to reading a piece of writing that compels what they are feeling. Logos is what is said or written and focuses mostly on the writer’s logic in creating a piece of writing. “They say” is usually what others talk about, a thinking problem or question, or an anecdote. “I say” is my own take on the conversation. It is my claim and thesis and critical inquiry questions. Lexical density is helpful to use because you are packing more information into much smaller grammatical units. In other words, you are writing about more material in fewer words. Finally, a conclusion needs to have an evolved thesis and earned insight, and a new perspective or CIQ. The reader should be able to write an essay response to the paper after reading the conclusion, because the conclusion ties everything together.

In parts of my essay, I try to use all of these important factors of critical inquiry writing to the best of my ability. Throughout my essay, I incorporate “they say” and “I say” by talking about what bullying means and how I believe it should be stopped. Then I take sources and use those to explain how to help bullying come to an end. I also use claims and warrants as often as I can. This allows me to state my point, and then back it up with evidence from numerous readings we have done in class. I also use other sources I have found on my own and explain how I got to that area of thought. Similarly, I use a thesis that I can begin to evolve throughout my essay. As I evolve my thesis, new ideas and thoughts come to mind, allowing me to expand my ideas and writing in order to make the essay full and growing instead of stagnant. I use the rhetorical strategy pathos in my introduction paragraph of my essay when I talk about Phoebe Prince; how she committed suicide because she was bullied so harshly. This is designed to pull the readers in and want to continue to read more. It is also a part of my “I say” because of how I use this hook to start the reader off. All of my CIQ’s are answered and expounded on throughout the course of my essay. I do this by using different pieces of essays we have read in class throughout the quarter and then also information I have sought out on my own. I use this as evidence to support the claims that I make about bullying in my essay. I use lexical density in my abstract before I begin my full essay. The point of this is to give away the most important parts and ending of my essay in 150 words or less so that someone who is about to read my essay is reading it for the right reasons. If someone were to read my paper all the way through and did not need to know anything I discussed, then it would be a waste of time. This is why abstracts and lexical density are important; you can cut straight to the main points. My conclusion comes full circle to close out my discussion. However, it ends in such a way that allows the reader to keep thinking about the issue and the argument, and then hopefully be able to write an essay in response to mine.

At least three significant revisions I have made on my essay would be, adding more solid claims and warrants, changing my CIQ’s, and using more ethos, pathos and logos throughout my paper. With reading and discussing so often in class, there have been numerous ideas flying around, which have enabled me as a writer to write deeper. This has been very helpful because when ideas collide, a larger idea or picture comes from that. I have added or changed numerous claims in my paper to make them more arguable. The evidence to support these claims support them well, and then the warrants explain how I got there. When it came to my CIQ’s originally, they were very broad and did not have a whole lot too them. However, after realizing what my main points and arguments were and the source I used the most about affinity spaces, I changed them to be more specific. Now, they are the same questions, but more explicit to affinity spaces in relation to bullying in schools. At the start of writing my essay, I barely had any ethos, pathos or logos. After making more revisions to my claims and warrants and my CIQ’s, I was able to see how I could use these rhetorical strategies to their full extent. I used ethos by having an open mind about my stance on bullying, but also I was credible because of the sources I used and how I explained them. I used pathos in a way that will hopefully stir up emotion inside the reader to want to do something about bullying as well. Finally, I used logos in my writing to be logical about my arguments and the way I was writing. I made ideas more clear and made my essay flow altogether so that the reader will have an easier time following along and navigating through my paper.

I have come a long way as a writer which is clearly shown through all the changes I have made to my essay. Learning everything I need to know about critical inquiry writing has given me a great tool for any future papers I will need to write. It has given me many options to how I have written and revised my essay, and has also been a great challenge to me. All in all, I feel that I still have room to grow, but am now a stronger writer than I was at the beginning of the quarter.