10 December 2015

Dr. Leslie Bruce

Department of English, Comparative Literature, and Linguistics
California State University, Fullerton
P.O. Box 34080
Fullerton, CA 92834-9480
Dear Dr. Bruce,
This letters purpose is to illustrate my competence in the student learning outcomes
(SLOs) as listed in the course syllabus. To elaborate, for the first SLO of rhetorical focus, I
believe that my editorial shows that I can write both formally for a variety of audiences and
purposes. With that editorial, I was writing for the Los Angeles times which would dispersed my
writing to a variety of people. On page four when I talk about MPN, I describe what it stands for
and the meaning behind the numbers. Some readers may not have known what MPN means and
by describing it I am catering to all types of audiences by breaking down unfamiliar terms. As
for purpose, it was not only to inform them about the quality of Southern Californian beach
water, but to also persuade them not to go into the water as well. For the informal portion of that
SLO, I included the Rhetorical Triangle for the editorial from my Writers notebook. By taking a
look at it, you can see it was a very quick free write of my thoughts at the time and is informal
for the most part.
As for showing my prowess in Ethical Research, the revised version of the editorial is
included in this portfolio to do so. In the original copy, the format of my reference sheet was not
correct since I had not started it on a completely separate page. With that mistake fixed, the rest
of the document definitely shows that that I can cite sources correctly and ethically communicate
their information. Specifically on page three, when talking about the UCI study, I properly list all
the authors involved and then go on to mention them as Boem et al. I then proceed to use this
for the remainder of the paper just as Purdue Owl explains to do so.
The revised editorial also shows that I have mastered the third SLO, Persuasive
Arguments. The first submission of the editorial had a weak argument that lacked significance
whereas the revised version now persuades the reader much more effectively. On page six of my
revised editorial, I showed how dangerous it can be since the 1200 MPN/100mL exceeds the
safety limit of 235 MPN/100mL. In my original editorial, I lacked this significance which
showed I had not fully mastered this SLO. Because the third SLO involves carefully integrating
evaluative work into a persuasive argument, then through that revision it is then clear that I have
mastered SLO three.
Moving on to organization and focus, the included Rhetorical Triangle for the editorial
included in this portfolio illustrates my mastery of SLO four. Through this exercise, I organized,
focused, and communicated my thoughts such as what message I was trying to deliver as well as
what my purpose was for the assignment. The triangle also allowed me to clearly see what kind
of path I wanted to start on for my editorial as well.
Backtracking to the editorial, the design and language used demonstrates my competence
in regards to SLO five. All the graphs are placed in direct correspondence to where they are
mentioned in the text so the reader does not have to flip back and forth between pages. In
addition, there is an overall gender and culture-neutral tone to the paper. The language used was

not heavily masculine nor feminine and any culture would be able to read the paper and not feel
targeted. I mostly used one to describe people to do so.
Finally, for SLO six, my ability to collaborate with my peers is shown through the
attached image of our group chat on Facebook. Through that chat, we all assisted each other by
giving feedback on how to improve our papers. We mentioned things such as organizing their
ideas differently, not relying too much on one source, and writing more actively. As you can see
in the image, we were currently trying to give access to everyone on the same google doc to start
working on our cover letters.
I do hope that my reasoning falls in line with what is expected in terms of mastering each
SLO. Furthermore, I want to thank you for the time you have spent reviewing my work and hope
you enjoy what I have put together in this portfolio.

Sincerely,
Edgar Luna