The blog in which I am analyzing here comes from http://onemarinesview.com/. This blog site is written by a soldier in the Marine Corps, who calls himself Maj Pain. The title of the particular blog I am analyzing is "You failed - but then what did you do?" My analysis is to answer the following four questions and because I like doing things the easy way, I am just going to list the question with my answer as derived from the blog.
1. What is the author trying to do? The author's purpose of this blog is to convince the readers that when you make a mistake in life or do something wrong that it is important to not dwell on that mistake. The thing to do is learn from it and then progress from the mistake and improve. There is also good emphasis on excepting that we are all imperfect and that we should accept our mistakes as learning opportunities and not become consumed by our flaws.
2. What specific tools/strategies are they using? The author uses his tone to express his sincerity in what he is writing and tries to make the tone becoming strong enough to convince you of his point. With that he adds in a number of metaphorical examples and also gives some personal experience to prove his point of view.
3. What does this tool make the audience think/feel/believe in? Again with the tone of his writing, you get the feeling that he is passionate about this particular subject and that he really wants to get his point across. The metaphors he uses also are of the type that are easy to understand and show good practical reasoning to support his point of view.
4. Why does the author need the audience to think/feel/believe in this? The author, being a military leader, understands how vital it is for people to learn from their mistakes. His experience has taught him how to become more effective by learning from his mistakes and I'm sure he has seen what becomes of someone who dwells on mistakes. Because of his position as a leader of fighting men, he is making this argument to help improve his men, and any others who may read it, to become stronger and make their respective units stronger as well.
I agree with this blog that your analyzing because you really can’t let your mistakes drag you down. In a modern example we can look at some of the BYU football players who for some reason have a sort of mental block that makes them make the same mistakes and dwell on them. I know that when I make a mistake I dwell on it for a long time before releasing it.
ReplyDeleteKirk,
ReplyDeleteI think this will be a great post to analyze--nice choice. While the article itself is making a great point, be sure to analyze the piece from a holistic point of view; he's making some great rhetorical moves here, but some of his wording and punc./grammar could be better--things you might want to consider. But looks great so far!
-cbh