March 18, 2018

Dear Reader,

Throughout the quarter my view on writing has completely changed. In the beginning I believed
that all writing was the same: an introduction with a thesis, five body paragraphs that give
evidence for the thesis, and a conclusion that restates the whole essay. However, this view was
quickly changed through learning about discourse communities and their respective genres.
Since each community has a different purpose, genre, and audience for their writing,
understanding the community dynamic is essential in understanding the literary choices of the
authors. In this way, I realized that not all writing is the same, and that there are a multitude of
decisions made by the author that the reader is unaware of.

Knowledge of genres was especially important in writing project two where every decision in
the translation had to have a reason. First, understanding the common characteristics of the
genres was vital in understanding what information was important in the primary source. For
example, headers and bolded scripts in the article pointed me to significant information.
Secondly, it was helpful in identifying what was expected in the translation piece. For instance,
by knowing that poems are commonly broken into stanzas and lines provided me a framework to
base mine from. I used similar techniques in a paper I had to write for my Greek Mythology
class on the how a hero’s journey is depicted in a movie. I had to extract the important ideas
from the movie and then write an essay comparing it to criteria. Using my knowledge of movies
and what I knew my TA expected of me, I could write an effective essay for the prompt.

Throughout this course I have seen myself grow as a writer every step of the way. Processes that
I used to disregard or make up as I wrote, now have a clear purpose and instructions. For
example, brainstorming was always difficult because I was editing myself before I could fully
form the idea. With the two-step technique explained in “Teaching Thinking by Teaching
Writing” I could get over this dilemma. The article explains, “since creative and critical thinking
are opposite and involve mental states that conflict with each other, it helps most people to learn
to work on them separately moving back and forth between them.” (Elbow) Therefore I learned
to breakdown my process into creating ideas, then editing them. I extended this idea to my whole
writing process by focusing on sections at a time, which expedited my writing, produced good
ideas, and created constructive revisions.

Additionally, I have learned that addressing an audience is one of the most important factors in
writing a good piece of literary work. In the activity where we wrote about the murder in four
different styles exposed this idea. For example, when writing as a newspaper reporter the
audience is the public so the piece must be informational but uplifting. On the other hand, when
writing as a detective it is for other detectives so it contains short-hand style, detailed
information. Although they started with the same information the result was completely
different. This caused me to grow as a writer because I now change the way I present
information depending on the preferences of the audience. My stylistic choices such as sentence
length, word choice, and literary devices all depend on this larger factor rather than just personal
preference. Along with that comes a difference in length, structure, organization, and design of
the piece hinging on the discourse community the audience is a part of. Therefore, the
determination of the audience and understanding what they are looking for has helped organize
my writing.

As a writer I never learned how to revise an essay, often turning in the first draft I wrote.
Through this class we have revised our projects many times and it has exposed me to the idea
that an essay can always improve. However, I did not know where to start because it was hard to
identify what should be edited. Handouts like “Revision Strategies” that clearly organize how to
“evaluate what and where you can add, delete, substitute or rearrange for greater clarity, grace,
color, and power.” (Browning) made this process easier. By going through the steps and
recognizing the problems I could see great improvement in my final works. Other handouts like
“How to be Concise” fixed smaller problems like word choice by advising to cut “meaningless
or redundant words, unnecessary adjectives or adverbs, circumlocutious phrases, and things your
readers can infer.” These handouts defined rough patches in my papers that I often disregard as
significant enough to edit. The skill of being able to go back through my work and improve, not
just the large organizational problems but also the smaller details will improve all my work to
come.

Through the writing and revising processes my strengths and weaknesses as a writer have been
revealed. I would consider proper use of citations and evidence to be one of my strengths. For
example, in writing project one I state, “This drawback is stated by Mrs. Faccani when asked
about the lack of scientific evidence in Greek Mythology, “The fragmentary nature and partial
number of the ancient texts that we possess call for caution whenever we want to assume
something from one text alone…” Therefore, it is crucial that many pieces must be referenced at
once and cross-analyzed so that a generalization can be made from a collective standpoint.” This
is a strong use of a citation because: First, the quote is relevant to the argument and provides
needed information from an expert source. Secondly, it is introduced with clear background
information and the context from where it came. Lastly, it flows nicely in the paragraph with an
analysis of why it is important is in the sentence that follows. This analysis is the most important
part and wraps the citation and its support of the thesis.

I think that my introductory paragraphs are my biggest weaknesses because they have many parts
that must be executed well. To start, taking the reader from a large idea to what you are talking
about as a smooth transition is difficult. Next, the thesis- the most important sentence in the
essay- must be written concisely. And lastly, the balance between too much and too little
information on what is going to be argued is a constant struggle. To improve my introductions I
took the paragraph in sections and addressed one part at a time. The first couple sentences I
focused on using creativity to direct and hook the reader into the essay. For the thesis, I used
activities in class to determine if it was specific enough. I also reevaluated it after writing the
essay to ensure it was still supported by my argument. For the information at the end, I focused
on a roadmap style which mentions the ideas but prevented me from going too in depth. For
example in writing project I wrote “among these methods are citations and an interpretative
analysis which strengthen argumentation of scholarly articles by providing clear, concise
evidence and defend the logic of their claims. Scholars use these devices due to the field's lack of
ability to physically test claims, and limited sources of literature to provide evidence.”
If I had time to work on the portfolio more I would have focused on the sentence structure of
writing project one. In that essay I use passive voice often and evaluating if in each situation was
required or not would have improved the flow of my paper. Additionally, I would have liked to
focus on transitions not only between paragraphs but between sentences. Lastly, I would have
figured out a way to demonstrate to organizational decisions in writing project two. Since in
those paragraphs I have no examples for the ideas that I am addressing.

Sincerely,

Jenna Brown
 Works Cited
Browning, Randi. “Revision Strategies.”

Elbow, Peter. “Teaching Thinking by Teaching Writing.”

“How to Write More Concisely.” Change, Vol. 15, No. 6 (Sep., 1983), pp. 37-40. JSTOR,

doi:40164191