Rhetorical Analysis

Writing a rhetorical analysis from King Benjamin's speech was definitely an interesting experience for me. First off, I've never really applied literary devices to the scriptures before, so it was a new adventure to critique and analyze the use of King Benjamin's syntax, imagery, and word choice. As I read the speech with the mindset of looking for devices that emphasized ethos, pathos, and logos, my annotations filled up the page and I had to restrain myself from highliting just about everything. There was so much good material to use. Nevertheless, with so much good material, there was a lot of information to cut down and organize. That was probably the most difficult thing of the whole process to organize my thoughts.

I also found that sometimes the points you find most engaging don't always have the most material to write about, so it's a matter of picking and choosing which points carry the best of both worlds--a point and a good argument. After finalizing the details of the organizational process, the rest of the paper was much easier to write. Don't get me wrong, there was definitely quite a few prayers for inspiration, but it all worked out in the end.

I also went into this paper with the mindset that I was just going to sit down for hours to think and write for the whole day, but realistically I should've known that my attention span can't last that long for hours at a time. When I went to take a break, however, it proved to be quite helpful as I'd go and play the piano, then come back to write and suddenly words and ideas would come to mind. It was very interesting to me that I had been suffering from severe writer's block, and then a half hour of piano playing could formulate paragraphs and bursts of enlightenment.

Altogether, the experience proved to me a lesson of learning "to not run faster than I have strength," as well as a beneficial writing and analytical experience. It only reinforced to me of how influential the scriptures really are. Every word was divinely chosen and inspired to evoke ethos, logos, and pathos within in the reader to come unto Jesus Christ. No wonder it is the most correct of any book on earth.