Huang 1

Shunyou Huang
English 5M
December 13, 2017
Rhetorical analysis
The Heavy Assignment
This research based assignment was given by Mr. Williams, a government teacher from
high school, who instructed us to have a debate. The debate topic was: whether our former
president, Barrack Obama had done enough to fight ISIS? This required research on the
background of the United States actions for counterterrorism. I obtained various types of
information from U.S. Department of Defense including: statistics of money spending to fight
ISIS, types of weapons, and the death of ISIS leaders. Additionally, I gathered statistics from
National Priorities Project to support years of discretionary spending towards terrorism. By
forming a conclusion from the sources, I argued that Obama had done enough to fight ISIS with
three reasons: a huge spending of money, deposited U.S. troops to Middle East, and smart tactics
and leaderships that led to the ultimate success of diminishing ISIS. Ultimately, the debate was a
set up for term paper.
The context of the term paper assignment was one essential assignment for my class,
which weighs about three hundred points. The heavy grading was the force for me to attempt this
assignment. On the other side, the year of 2016 and 2017 were presidential election. Former
president Barrack Obama resigned from office and the new president Donald Trump moved into
the White House. This was a great chance to evaluate Obamas action during his two terms.
Within Obamas years, counterterrorism was a continuation of task that is now passing to Trump.
By researching on fighting terrorism, we were able to identify how much of the nations wealth
is put into fighting ISIS and its effect on citizens living in United States.
I had restrictions in my writing. These are constraints in rhetorical situation. It limits
the response to problems in the situation (Grant-Davie 348). We were required to use an
academic voice. For example, instead of writing so much money put on fighting ISIS, I would
change to there is a vast amount of spending into counterterrorism. This makes my paper to be
more formal. Although the paper was an argumentative assignment, we were mandated to use
impersonal style. Personal pronouns like I, we, and us were not allowed. It was a
challenge, since the writing was opinionated. On the other side, I had to write a length of six
pages or longer, which was difficult for the lack of research. In order to make arguments
effective, I needed to use various supporting details (facts); these details consist of new
knowledge that I had never learned, so I had to cite every original source. Because Obama was in
office for eight years, there were issues of organizing sources in time, to display changes in
methods of counterterrorism. As the matter of fact, once we had chosen our stand, we could not
switch our sides; luckily, there were a variety of sources showing how U.S. is fighting terrorism.
The purpose of the term paper is to prove writers argument through discussion and
analysis of research and analysis of gathered data. By having my own argument, I was motivated
to convince my statement is legit. Having motives are imperative for the term paper because I am
composing a text that is dependent on my purpose.
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The audience for the term paper was intended for Mr. Williams to read because he was
the primary grader, as well as my peers who gave suggestions to writing. Most importantly, this
imperative assignment was to show my readiness in college. There will be many similar writings
in college, so Mr. Williams made sure we are well prepared. For general audiences, I wanted to
convince my point to them when they reading the paper, such as my classmates.
Writing in Business
The students chosen major for this section is business management with the
concentration in MIS (Management Information System). There will be an expected amount of
writings in the business field through various formats. For example, students need to write emails,
reports, memos, presentations, and business plans. All formats involve professionalism; therefore,
writers have to strictly review their sentences to be free of errors and grammar mistakes.
Students should keep in mind of their messages. In the busy business world, no one would sit in
a chair for an hour to read your messages or reports. To make communication clean and clear,
writers have to organize ideas into logical sense and be direct to point. Often, messages contain
an abundance of extra information, which is making a difficulty to get the purpose across. One
way to avoid wordiness is to delete any spare words that are unnecessary. The point in business
writing is to communicate, negotiate, and to persuade. Students must directly speak their
message in writing instead of being vague and have no intentions of what they are trying to say.
In business, the motivation of writing is when employees want to communicate with their
co-workers, clients, or someone relating to work. Messages should have sent with purpose. For
example, if a group is planning on a project and each is assigned on different parts, then
everyone should be communicating to make sure there is no overlapping of information. When
writing in business format, students need to avoid being too personal. This will show their
professionalism.

Discussion
The term paper on arguing Obama had done enough to fight ISIS does not fit into
business writing because of wordiness, lack of negotiation, and not being concise. Because
businesspersons and professional writers report information to busy partners and clients, they
value concise language, clear organization, and visual aids like graphs and charts (Melzer 153).
This means that message needs to be delivered directly. As for the term paper, it is built upon an
opinionated statement supported by many details. This claim needs to convince readers not just
in few words, but many pages. In this sense, there will be an abundance of information transfer
to readers, instead of sending a message to them. Readers are overloaded with unneeded facts.
Since businesspersons have various connections with the company, clients, and faculty.
Even one of the employee commented, anything I email to a co-worker has the potential to be
seen by upper management If an order I am working on is from a high-level customer, I
assume that anything I email, external or internal, is likely to be passed on to my boss or above
(Melzer 154). If there is a lack of negotiation, texts being sent are useless. The need of
negotiation is required in all levels of business. Employees are expected to communicate clearly
and be mindful of this message will have a chance to send around. The term paper on the other
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side has too much information for readers to digest. Because the variety of sources, it is difficult
for audience to track what the student is trying to negotiate.
In the business world, writers should be mind of dictions and sentences. Writing clearly
and concisely requires specific attention to word choice and sentence structure (Melzer 155).
One word can slightly change the meaning of ones message. Because of the length of term
paper, it is not concise at all. Readers will lose the message as they are reading because the
author tries to explicitly discuss the content of evidence and relates to one of the criteria. This
will be difficult since the author might as well align to the given information and loose track of
their argument. This will cause readers to lose track also.
One interesting similarity that business writing and the term paper have are readers, or
audience. All writings are intended for audiences. There is a message that is directly sent to
readers. On the other side, a difference can be extracted from the writings is authority. For
example, there is a large quantity of source used for term paper; this caused the author to be
overwhelmed with information and started to paraphrase without acknowledging it.
The Term paper does not fit in business writing because of length, context, and
conciseness. Term paper is very informative with length, while business writing is precise with
direct message being sent to readers. There are many ways to be coherent with business writing.
Writers need to acknowledge the fact that they are negotiating with their readers by presenting a
direct message. In addition of being precise, writers have to keep in mind of who their audiences
are and always have to show professionalism. Students should confidently convey their message
with an adequate understanding in business. This will help by using terms relating to the major to
sound more authentic. Business writing should contain a clear, concise message sent directly to
receivers.