General Reflection:

I received an F for the first attempt of this major essay.

It was a shock for me, but I found it was also a chance for me to seriously reconsider my analysis. I realized that I totally misinterpreted the assignment. I thought it asked us to write about our original ideas about the sources, and using the rhetorical analysis instead of writing about them. After I found what I did wrong for the assignment, I talked to Prof. Mary. My second attempt of the essay was on the right track.

The nature of this mistake is I didn’t realize the relationships among minor assignments, in class activities and the major assignment. I should have noticed that the Toulmin worksheet and the in class analyzation were preparations for the major assignment.

Moreover, although the second attempt was generally on the right track, I messed up the definition of warrant and backing. Thus, when I revised the essay for the portfolio, I reentered the introductions of Toulmin analysis and corrected the mistakes.

Writing and revising this essay taught me how to correctly interpret an assignment and the importance of understanding the major concepts. I also realize that participating in the discussions more actively can make me notice my misunderstanding earlier.

Responses to Prof Mary’s comments:

Good title, but in MLA we capitalize most words in a title, like this:

Is Trump’s Government Attacking LGBTQ?

Also, you could indicate that this is an analysis of two news articles, perhaps with a subtitle.

I appropriately capitalized most of the words, and add a subtitle of “Toulmin Analysis of Fake and Real News” to make my title more descriptive.

?? Do you mean it’s written in formal rhetoric?

Actually, when I reread this sentence of my essay, I found it both confusing and unnecessary, so that I deleted it.

Good acknowledegment of your source, but only the name is necessary, like this:

(Garcia).

I corrected all in-text citations following this instruction.

What do you mean by “a proper warrant?” You may want to reconsider the discussion of warrants. Remember that Toulmin claims that warrants are present in all arguments, so how can a source lack a warrant, proper or otherwise?

Confusing. Earlier you said the source lacks a warrant, and here you say it has one, but you don’t identify it.

Okay, here you get a little closer to identifying a warrant.

Actually, I found I made a serious mistake of mixing the definitions of backing and warrant here. As I read the guidance of Toulmin analysis from Purdue Owl again, I substantially revised most of the analysis of the fake news article

What is the function of this word in your sentence? Do you need it? http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts

I found the “basically” here was a redundant word and didn’t make sense. Something can be “fake” or not, but can’t be “basically fake.” It’s just as none sense as “it’s so true.”

Do you mean “feminists?” “Feminism” is the philosophy. “Feminist” is the person.

I changed it to “feminists.”

Your question is not grammatically clear. I think you are saying that the LGBTQ community is forcing Trump’s government to attack them. Is that right? If so, it is problematic because of victim blaming. It is the bully’s haven: “He made me do it.” “She was asking for it.”

I didn’t mean that the LGBTQ community was forcing Trump’s government to act against them. I wanted to say that fake news article made people firmly believe that Trump’s government was radically attacking the LGBTQ, while it didn’t. I clarify my point through changing the final question to: “Is Trump’s government actually attacking the LGBTQ, or is fake news articles convincing people that the government is attacking the LGBTQ while they are not?”

Compliments: 

Good identification of main claim and discussion of qualifier.

good discussion of support, or grounds.

good discussion of rebuttal.

Thank you, these are what I should keep doing.

Extra Changes:

After I realized that I misidentified warrants and backings for the analysis of the fake news article, I substantially changed the structures of those paragraphs. As the commented rubric points out, my organization of the essay can be improved. Thus, I changed from discussing the rhetorical elements of each quotation separately to analyzing the argument of the fake news as a whole.

Moreover, based on what I learned through writing the research paper, I added signal words to clarify the boundaries.