A Letter to Professor & Portfolio Review Committee, Essay Example

Writing can be a very difficult task for anyone, even to the most skilled writers that have made a career producing excellent literary works.  It can be a daunting task for any writer, but for many students, it helps to begin with the inclusion and analysis of the Writing Process to properly help to provide structure and organization in any literary work.  Our class has engaged in a number of projects that have each taught me to realize the importance of the Writing Process and become aware of my own specific style and steps that I take to create any work.  The projects within my portfolio clearly show the advancements I have made over the course of my writing career and the importance of evaluation and revision as necessary components of the Writing Process.

First of all, it is important to express the Writing Process as it pertains to my own specific writing style.  The Writing Process includes the phases of planning, translation and reviewing.  Each phase is crucial for the author to efficiently communicate his or her ideas from the mind to the written page for us all to see.  Upon understanding the steps of the Writing Process, it is important to analyze how the steps are applied to my own writing style and to offer any examination or conclusion on changes that should be made to write more effectively.  Within this process, I have learned that the planning phase is probably my least efficient stage in the Writing Process.  While I am able to quickly produce works that are rich in content, they can often be unorganized or scatter-brained simply because I did not engage in brainstorming or creating an outline to properly plan out the work.  It is through understanding the Writing Process, that I have been able to acknowledge the importance of planning and implementing each step in the process.

My advancement through writing can clearly be shown through the essay-style rhetorical analysis that was assigned for a previously written paper.  Through this analysis, the rhetorical elements that I have used throughout my writing became very clear.  Ethos and pathos are quite common in my writing style because of the importance that emotions and logic play in convincing the truth of an argument.  By utilizing the rhetorical analysis for my previous writing, I discovered that there were problems with the organization of the paper as well as the complete logic in some of the arguments.  In many cases, the use of emotional examples clouded the logic of the paper and this can often be a common fallacy within many author’s works.  Again, my utilizing the Writing Process more effectively, I will be able to plan out the arguments within my writing in order to effectively communicate them to the audience.

Many of my mistakes within my portfolio and writing have stemmed from a lack of revision or evaluation from outside sources.  Writers often tend to be very biased in their opinions of their own writing, and their effectiveness within their writing style as well.  I am no exception because I am often so proud of the work that I have written that I neglect to have someone critique or evaluate the work, which is a valuable step in the Writing Process.  From the assignment where we were asked to compare and contrast the values and writing conventions of two majors in a genre of our own choice, I experienced this conflict first hand.  The actual writing was never an issue for me, and usually is not very difficult.  I am able to produce strong written arguments and descriptive works without much effort in the first draft.  Ideas and concepts flow through me fairly easily, which makes the task of writing much less problematic for me than for some of my peers.  Unfortunately, within this assignment I had a difficult time accepting criticism and suggestions for the project.  Pride often gets in the way of an author’s work and restricts the amount of creativity and strength of argument that the work can have.  Within this project, I was able to have my work critiqued, which is a valuable part of the Writing Process.  However, the portion of this step that is not often discussed is that the writer must be willing to implement the suggestions of others in order to strengthen his or her own work.  I was not willing to accept all of the suggestions, and this impacted the strength of my assignment.  Still, I believe it was a quality work, but I mention this because it is an important lesson that I and many other writers must learn in order to effectively uses the Writing Process to strengthen our writing abilities.

While most collegiate writing assignments are based on formal written papers, this course has assigned another project with an alternative writing style to teach us how to write memos outside of college in our selected field.  As a professional, college papers are very seldom the format that we will use to communicate information to administrators, customers, or fellow co-workers.  Instead, the research project that includes an annotated bibliography, two rhetorical analysis memos and one results memo was crucial in introducing me to a new style of writing.  The written style and format of a memo is much different than an academic paper in word-choice, organization and visual layout.  This was a very strong learning experience for me because it forced me to think outside of being a student and producing the mental outline of an academic paper.  Instead, I began to think as a career professional attempting to take the knowledge I have gained through the rhetorical analyses to explain both the analyses and the results.  Our project forced me to not only create a brief outline of the necessary information, but also think about the writing style and most effective ways to communicate to the audience in a professional way.  Still, I did not utilize the critique stage of the Writing Process as effectively as possible.  I was able to have a peer review the work and made a few changes, but overall I spent very little effort trying to perfect the work I had written.

My writing style is somewhat different from many of my peers and writing professionals within my desired field.  I believe that my portfolio accurately shows the progress that has been made in advancing my writing style.  Through light planning, many of my works appears to be very well organized and communicated within the first draft.  Still, I must make improvements in the evaluation and revision stages on the Writing Process to take the quality drafts I produce the first time around, and then use the suggestions to create a second and final draft of the work.  Many of my works will continue to utilize rhetorical strategies, such as ethos and logos, to effectively state my arguments.  Although these two writing strategies may conflict at times, it is important for me to show emotion and valuable logic in all of my writing for all types of audiences that may read the work.  Finally, the Writing Process can be very effective when it is used correctly.  Throughout reviewing my portfolio, it will become clear that the projects have helped bring my writing ability to another level and I have made small strides in using the Writing Process to effectively communicate information.  While I still have a long way to go, as do many writers, I will continue to seek advancing my work, writing style, and ability to argue and communicate in the best ways possible.

Thank you for your time in reviewing my portfolio.  I trust you will see the strides I have made through my work.  I believe I am very well prepared for my writing intensive course and through the projects I have been assigned, I am now able to communicate in the professional fields as well.

Sincerely,

Your Name