Reflection (format got messed up)

Melanie Solarez
Professor Jolly
ENG 102
6 February 2007

Letter to Cosmo!

When doing this assignment I found that choosing a topic was the most difficult. Although this is my favorite magazine, and you can write in about virtually anything, a lot of it is extremely sexual so it would not be “school-appropriate”.
I had a specific motivation when I wrote this letter and that is that I am single and trying to put myself back out there. In the letter itself it states that I was in a long-term relationship so I never needed to worry about the hassle of trying to prepare myself for that first date. Sure I think that it is extremely important to always look your best but there is something different about being on a first date. Especially since I had not been on a first date for awhile I think that these tips are quite helpful. Like I said in the letter, you would think that most of them would be common sense but you would be surprised about how many of those little quirks that I had forgotten.
The purpose of my letter was simply to thank the editor for putting in such a useful article. I felt sort of odd at first when I was writing the letter because it sounds like I am a woman in my thirties who has just gotten a divorce or something and I am only 18! Even though I am reasonably young I think that many girls my age have been in exclusive relationships for quite some time and I think it is easy to forget some things about going on that first date.
The audience for the letter is basically the editor and maybe the rest of the Cosmo women all over the world! I tried to come off friendly just to let them know that I appreciated the article and I also briefly went in to one of my personal experiences. I figured that I couldn’t just simply write thanks, I had to state why I was thankful. Also, most of the letters to the editor seemed quite short so I tried to keep mine brief as well.
When it came to ethos, pathos, and logos, I think that my letter mostly consisted of ethos and pathos. I used ethos in telling of my personal experience and I used pathos almost the same way. When reading about my personal experience, I think some girls would stop and empathize with me about how hard it is getting back out there.
Out of all the rhetorical situations and appeals, the most important to me were motivation, purpose, audience, ethos, and pathos. I do believe that the rest are important as well but just not when it comes to my letter to the editor.