Dear portfolio reader, 

For most of my life, writing has never been something that I’ve excelled at. It hadn’t been until recently that I’d given writing more thought and made an effort to improve upon my writing skills. This course was no exception, and I feel as though this course created an environment where I improved the most, both as a reader and a writer. Through the application of the course’s learning outcomes and feedback on my writing, I’ve demonstrated a significant amount of improvement in my writing that I feel merits an A in the course. 

Rhetorical Concepts

Prior to this course, my writing was consistently the same: the same format, the same style, the same word choice, etc. I had no sense of differentiating between different writing assignments and what style of writing they entailed. I never bothered with the idea of writing to a different audience because I knew that only my teacher would be reading my essay, so I never saw a reason to adhere to that. However, in this course, I knew that wouldn’t suffice and I would have to grow as a writer and apply these concepts to my writing. For this class, we had to write two essays from completely different genres, and at first I had no idea how to even approach writing in two different styles. I owe my success to the weekly readings we had, as they exposed me to the idea of genres within writing and the features each entails. For example, my personal narrative essay featured a style which was more informal, using everyday speech that I use combined with imagery. An example from my essay would be “I was trying to contain my embarrassment and I think I might’ve gotten as red as a tomato because I glanced over at my friend and I instantly knew that he had deducted that the paper was mine”. 

On the contrary, my academic research essay was more formal in style, detaching my emotions from the writing to give it a more informative, scholarly feel. An example from this essay would be “With this in mind, the implications that linguistic barriers have on the Hispanic community…will be discussed in an effort to determine what can be done to mitigate their effects”. Through this essay, I was able to effectively incorporate a new style of writing and grow my experience as a writer. Thus, learning how to apply my writing in different contexts and applications has greatly opened my understanding of the writing process.

Processes 

Prior to this course, the writing process was very different for me. I would procrastinate and then spew out all of my thoughts and ideas onto the page for an hour or two, check the grammar, and turn it in. Of course, this resulted in less than desirable papers but it worked in the past so I never decided to change the formula. With this class however, I was introduced to an effective way of organizing the writing process. The whole idea of a “shitty first draft” blew me away. As a student, I thought that instructors would always expect the students to write these carefully thought out and polished papers, even as a rough draft. I was relieved to find out that even the most well-known writers often have trouble on their own rough drafts and that a perfect first draft is something that many never experience. 

The whole idea of spacing out the writing process into multiple drafts which are then given feedback made the whole process more enjoyable and less stressful. It gave me more time to think critically about what I was writing and on the feedback I received to create essays that I would be confident in. Seeing as how academic research papers at this scale were a new topic for me, I also had to learn about the writing process for that. Through the readings and resources provided by this class, I was able to get a good understanding of how it worked and planned out a 2-3 week plan to work on the paper. I had never imagined that I would spend so much time researching rather than writing, but I came to enjoy the researching portion of the process quite a lot. And having been made aware of the resources available to research, I hope to continue researching more topics outside of this class in the future. 

Knowledge of Conventions

I was able to improve my understanding of writing greatly through this learning concept. Through my exposure to different genres of writing and the purpose that each served, I understood that the style of language and tone each used to communicate with their intended audience varied greatly; I had to learn how to apply these different styles to each of my essays. For example, my personal narrative essay was a story about an experience that I had, so with it came a more casual tone that I would use in my everyday life. The language I incorporated into this writing to an audience expecting something informal was filled with humor, similes, and exaggerations to create something more personal. On the other hand, the academic research essay’s audience would be someone in academia, prompting a more formal tone and use of language. Because of this, I learned that I should avoid any interjection of strong emotional commentary from myself, and keep a level of professionalism as I wrote. 

Research

Prior to this class, I had never conducted any primary research of my own or been exposed to peer-reviewed articles in academic journals. Any prior research for me consisted of going on Google and clicking through the top results until I found something that I liked. Honestly, I was a little intimidated when I read the syllabus and realized I would have to be creating research myself. However, I decided to challenge myself and try to experience something new. I read more about the process of researching through course readings and a few other readings outside of class and got to work on gathering sources from the UC Davis Library. I learned how to properly cite these sources as well. I had never encountered an article with multiple authors like the ones I used in my essays this year. So when I made my first draft, I was made aware through feedback that my in-text citations were incorrect, and I was able to learn how to properly cite them. 

I read about what creating your own primary research entails, and what methods you can use to create primary research. While I would have enjoyed creating a survey and seeing the results of students across UC Davis, time constraints limited me to an interview with a family member, but I was still able to get insight from their experiences into my research topic. Overall, research was a fun topic to learn and something I know will be useful in my future writing and experiences. 

Metacognition 

Because the writing process was spread out over the weeks, I was given ample time to reflect upon my writing and the feedback that I received throughout the process. Constant reflection through the process of writing, at multiple given times, allowed me to have new and fresh ideas throughout the process that allowed me to improve my writing overall. Before this class, the only reflection I did was on the feedback I’d get on my rough draft from my instructor, and then I’d make some changes and submit my final draft for grading. But because this process was spread out over multiple drafts with various sources of feedback, I was able to think critically about my writing and break out of the old habits that I had. One of the major forms of reflection that I made in this class was that of the organization of my essays, specifically that of the academic research paper. I originally struggled with how to organize it, how long each section should be, and when and where I would incorporate my citations and main ideas. I had come up with various ideas before finally settling on a layout that I found pleasing as my first outline for the essay. Through this process, I realized that reflection on my work was a crucial part of the process as it was when I really dissected my own writing and was made aware of what parts I could improve and what parts I was doing great. 

Future Contexts

If I had more time, I would improve upon my primary research. I would’ve liked to have created a survey for Hispanic students at UC Davis to see how language may have affected their experiences in healthcare. I think it would be interesting to see how those around me have been affected by this issue. I would’ve also liked to have interviewed at least one other person to have more sources of insight into the topic. 

For future writing projects, I feel as if the entirety of this course will be useful. My writing improved in all aspects through the readings and assignments this class had to offer and I feel that I can further apply these concepts to further assignments. One example will be my personal statement essay that I will have to write within the next year or two for my dental school application. I think the knowledge that I now have of genres and conventions of writing will allow me to dissect what the essay is really about and write something that will surely give the admissions committee a great idea of who I am. 

As for what I believe I should continue working on in the future, it would definitely have to be the use of different literary devices. As most of my writing experience has been getting straight to the point, I don’t have too much experience with the use of imagery, similes, or metaphors that give writing a deeper meaning. So I would like to continue improving upon that aspect if I can. 

Lastly, I thank you for your time and hope you enjoy my personal narrative and academic research essays.

Sincerely,

Marco Jimenez