Matt's Portfolio
In terms of the writing process critical reflection is an intregual part as much as anything else. During my time in my 1103 writing class I devopled new techniques for writing through the activities and practing the concepts that were stressed in class. All of the concepts covered in class are releveant when writing, and I will continue to use them in the future. This page will provide a summary of my work through the semester by looking at and reflecting on how works that I created in class relate to either the composing process, critical reflection, or making connections. As I reflect on my work I will explain what was my intended purpose of the work and add opinion on how the work could be improved if needed. Rhetorical Knowledge was another concept taught in class which I reflected in detail on its own page here:
Composing Process
The composing process relates to how one goes about creating the text. Every step leading up to the final draft is a part of the composing process even brainstorming and editing. Reflection and evaluation are also parts of the composing process. It is important to practice the composing process to ensure that the final result is the best it can be.
The entry to the right is a word vomit that was done in class. A word vomit is when a writer writes uninterputed anything that comes to mind. In this particular word vomit I was trying to generate Ideas for my multimodal essay. The underlined portions of the entry are pieces of text that I deemed good starting places for my essay. I wrote "I think it might be interesting to submit myself to trying vaping and blog about my experience" While I didnt end up fufilling my curosities I took away that part of the reason I choose this topic was due to my interest in it. I would go to to make a draft that started off with why I choose vaping as my line of inquiry. Looking back on this I decided to scrap this idea because I wanted to have my essay be stritcally informative while appealing to multiple audiences. Talking about my interested would not have made for a compelling research paper.
The entry above contains my first incomplete draft of my digital essay. In this draft I cover the main topics that I implemented into my background information portion of my digital essay. I define vaping as " the act of using an e-cigarett or electronic smoking device." This concept perfectly ties into my background information section, but the execution is a little poor. Instead I would now say something along the lines of "Vaping known as using an electronic cigarette or electronic rig as a subsitute for smoking tobacco by vaporizing flavored liquid to create an inhalable vapor." This is similar to the sentence in the draft, but provide more information so the reader gets a better understanding of what the act of vaping is. I also mention on the second page "as a new product the regulation on selling the new electronic product are vague. " Again good writing concept, but poor execution. Instead I would mention statistic from the cdc to give better credibility to the statement. Its important to remember that no one writes perfect the first time, but by creating drafts and rewriting a better product can be made. In this sense composing process and critical reflection on one's own work go hand in hand. Reflecting on a draft to check whether or not the text conveys the message efficently ensures that the text meets the expectations of the writer.
The two entries above are both peer reviews for different research blogs. Peer review help in the editing process by providing outside opinions that can help better your content. The entry on the left contains a review from one of my first research blogs. I used the term "personal rigs", but did not explain the term which both of the reviews pointed out. Over time since I just coined the term personal rig in that blog I have replaced that term by saying refillable electronic smoking devices. By saying the latter phrase the previous confusion caused by "personal rig" no longer exist. The reviews on the left were reassuring since they both expressed that I created some form of intrigue for them. In the entry to the left my progress in writing is shown. The reviewer states that "All I would suggest is adding pictues and possibly rewording some repition." In terms of content the reviewer understood my point and learned something from the text I provided, which at the end of the day is the main goal of that blog that he reviewed. Thanks to both these reviews I was able to create a final version of each blog that turned out better and easier to read than the drafted version. By using these reviews as a source for improvements on my research blogs I made this a part of the composing process for those individual research blogs.
To read the research blogs click here:
Making Connections
In writing it is important to make connections to past experinces or reference outside events not only to prove relevance, but to show that the writing is created by you. Making connections is something I personally enjoy because it helps provide context to something through relation. At this point I would not say my ability to make connections has improved over the semester, but making connections in my text is always something I have done well and strive to do.
The entry to the right was my first assignment for the class. In it I was supposed to describe Writing Situations and how authorsunderstand them. In the entry I talk about how I came to learn about what writing for situations means. " When I wrote my first research paper for a non english class I got docked big time for writing my research paper like an essay." The research paper mention was a paper for my linux class in high school. In high school english teachers promote the use of fluff and using hooks to catch the readers attention. When I implemented these in my research paper my teacher told me that the people reading that research paper could care less about the crap, and only wanted to read the facts. That paper opened my eyes to writing situations, and thanks to that experince I am now able to make a more compelling arugement on why the writing situations are imporant. This is the purpose of making connections. Not to fill in words, but to generate a better arguement.
Other Reflections
The two entries above are both entries I made in class. The one on the left was written after having a session of class in the library where we learned how to make use of the resources available on campus that can provide use with text sources for the research that we did. I am grateful that there was a class session that was dedicated to the use of the library. Without that session I wouldnt have found a source that I used in my research, but also I wouldnt have the knowledge that I have now about the library. In that session we learned how to use the database and key words to find books that were relevant to our line of inquiries. The entry specifically basically talks about why I would choose to use the sources found in the library, but I think the experince that the entry was based from was more important. The entry on the right contains the genre notes that we went over in class. Understanding genre is part of being able to understand rhetorical knowledge. When writers write in a specific genre that text is usually formatted to meet the goal of that text's genre. For example we wrote a letter to something we loved. The genre for this text was a love letter. In this genre you would find the writer to include complements and explanations of their feelings towards the recipent. Being able to understand which genre to write to helps in choosing which syntax and diction should be used.