To whom it may concern,

Throughout the Spring semester, my writing skills have improved because I learned more about analyzing the rhetoric in readings we had and connecting it to our main topic, of unheard voices. My primary takeaways from the class were that most situations can be considered an unheard voice and it just depends on how you view the situation and what makes that particular voice “unheard.” I also learned how there are many unheard voices every day, and people around the world sometimes do not fight for their voices or are fighting, but not being heard.

 I wish we could have covered more on how to rhetorically analyze pictures because our first assignment had a portion where we analyzed a picture, but I did not understand how to fully analyze it or how to make it flow with the rest of my writing. We did have a creative assignment for paper 3 which was to analyze an art piece from the museum on campus, and this allowed me to practice more on my skills of rhetorically analyzing a drawing. 

I understand how writing is important for being able to be concise and get your ideas on a topic down. Knowing how to grammatically correct your paper helps because then you can clearly state your argument. I improved on comma usage and knowing how to fix the paper grammatically after receiving corrections. 

I learned how to correctly format a paper in MLA format, which is important for any class that requires parenthetical citations. Also, knowing the basics of formatting a paper can improve your writing because moving on as a biology major, I will have to write reports and do my research. When writing research papers, it is important to know how to correctly format a paper and cite people because otherwise it can be considered plagiarism, without giving credit to others. Also, giving credit to other authors who are published and have done their research builds credibility into your paper because it shows how you did all that research.

 I learned how to use the database from SUNY New Paltz which is important when obtaining information from a credible source like an academic journal, paper, or newspaper article. These will be valuable moving forward because writing allows you to expand your thoughts, and when I go to graduate school, I should be familiar with knowing how to do all of these steps when I have my thesis to write. I think I improved a lot in all these areas because in the fall semester, I did not use the database and I wasn’t as used to knowing how to format the citations in writing. I have become used to using the New Paltz database which is a reliable source and has helped me find more information on a topic I did not know about.

I think the writing process is really helpful because when I receive revisions from a peer it was helpful and allowed me to improve a lot more. I learned how to expand more on what I was writing on because a few times, I would get stuck on knowing what to say or how to incorporate that specific part into my paper, and when I get feedback, it helps. I think my writing has improved a lot because rather than being stuck on knowing what to write about, I can brainstorm and outline what I want to explain. The writing process is easier when you have researched a topic because then you are well rounded and you can explore a lot more content in your paper.

My strength in writing is having the appropriate quotes needed for explaining my points. Having the quotes allows me to work around and know what I will be explaining in those paragraphs and build around it. When doing first drafts, I understand it is not perfect but it should be a way to get down your ideas. I think to be able to revise my essay is key because I should be able to do it on my own first before receiving more edits. That is why my favorite step in the writing process is revising because I can fix my draft and improve a lot on what I am trying to say. Many of the essays that I wrote for class had drafts that lacked clear meaning because my writing was all over the place, and receiving edit suggestions improved my writing. I feel successful knowing that I have improved a lot more on having more structure through the entire essay, knowing conventions, and being able to think critically when explaining quotes. I have grown a lot in these areas because when I revise my work, I find it easy to reword sentences and move them around to make the entire essay sound a lot more clearer. 

Through these hard times with the coronavirus pandemic, my transition from a classroom setting to an online learning experience has pushed me a lot more to stay focused on my work to meet deadlines for every class. In the beginning, when we first transitioned online, I found this learning experience to be a lot more calming because I could work in the comfort of my home. However, it became a lot more stressful when I did not know how to use these online video conferences. Even though I was able to adapt to learning online, I had other responsibilities at home which made it stressful, but I was able to meet all my deadlines. Overall, I think everyone has become stressed because of what is going on in the world and it has become difficult for most people to concentrate on school or work because of these hard times. I understand other families may have it a lot more difficult, recently my friend from high school lost both his parents and it has me thinking a lot about the many families who also lost relatives and who are left in this predicament.  

I, Daniela, attest that the works submitted in this portfolio maintain academic integrity and do not violate the plagiarism statement from the SUNY New Paltz Faculty Handbook. I understand that any breach of academic integrity may result in failure for the assignment and/or course, and that the instructor maintains the right to report such cases.