The main point of Understanding Rhetoric was that rhetoric is important in writing and conveying ideas. The author first introduced rhetoric by explaining why some people believe that rhetoric is bad. The negative ideas that people have today can be traced to Plato who was an Ancient Greek philosopher. Plato believed that rhetoric is bad because it is used to deceive people and distract people from important issues. I can understand why Plato believed this because rhetoric is used in order to persuade people. By using rhetoric, people can be persuaded into doing bad things. Aristotle, on the other hand, believed that rhetoric can be used for good. He believed it can be used to educate people to become good people. I agree with Aristotle because today, rhetoric has been used in order to make people better. For example, the use of rhetoric in advertisements in America against smoking and drinking have persuaded many people to not engage in those activities. Many kids and adults have stopped smoking or drinking because of the negative effects that ads talk about. Another point that the authors emphasized was the importance of ethos, pathos, and logos. Ethos is the credibility of the speaker or writer. Pathos is the use of emotion and logos is the use of logic. Using ethos, pathos and logos are really important in persuading the audience. I once watched a video on Facebook on how to sell anything. The video said that people buy stuff based on emotions and justify it with logic. Consumers will also buy products if the sellers are credible, usually from well-known brands. After reading this comic I realized that sellers use ethos, pathos, and logos in order to persuade consumers into buying things.

The main point of When Your Grades Are Based on Labor and Labor Log is to describe a different way of grading assignments. Assignments would be graded based on the time and effort that students put instead of mistakes. The author’s main point is that this grading system will help students become better writers. I like this grading system because it allows students to try new things without having the risk of receiving a bad grade. Also, students will receive a good grade as long as they work hard. I remember a lot of times I would work really long on an assignment only to receive a bad grade.