Dear reader,
Before this course, I wasn’t much of a writer. I knew I was decent in it, but generally just did the amount of work I needed to pass my classes. I found it pretty difficult to write on topics I wasn’t interested in, this resulted in plenty of procrastination, though never to the point of failure. My attitude towards writing hasn’t changed all that much. I’m still decent, maybe a bit better, and I still procrastinate a lot. I haven’t changed my process all that much, if it works, don’t fix it. When considering the papers in my portfolio, I feel that my use of descriptive language in my letter to an official was most successful. Especially near the end of that paper, I feel like I effectively conveyed my idea of a kind of “worst case scenario” to the reader. I was also pretty successful at using ethos, logos, and pathos earlier in the letter to convince them. When it comes to revisions, I would like to focus on my manifesto. I feel I didn’t really tie together all my points very well, probably change up the concluding sentences and explanations to be more coherent and consistent with my overall message. The midterm was pretty beneficial. Having to go back and flesh out my previous free-writes was an interesting challenge, not only in a revising sense, but also in revisiting my old thoughts and seeing how my thinking has changed. Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with my work. I think a strength of mine is my use of evidence. I tend to structure my writing around it and can connect it to the overall point I’m trying to make effectively. I’m also pretty effective at using tone and language when I want to convey a certain image to the reader. A weakness of mine would have to be clarity, I feel on some of my assignments I wasn’t very clear on my main point. Looking back, I feel like Writing and Rhetoric really challenged me to be more confident in my writing, and to look at my work through a more rhetorical and persuasive lens. I still don’t think of myself as much of a writer, but I feel more capable of producing high quality work, and am ready to move forward with my writing.
sincerely, Edward O.