Friday, April 27, 2012

Final Portfolio Cover Letter


Toccarra McEachern
Professor Melissa Tetterton
English 1200-078
26 April 2012
The Road to Riches
            For my final portfolio I chose to revise project two which was my blog on premarital sex and abstinence.  I chose to revise this work because it was the project that I took for granted.  I waited until the last minute to do it, and I figured it would be easy to do in a short amount of time.  I was wrong, so I found myself rushing to complete it to the best of my ability in the last few days.  Because of this, I feel as though there was a lot of editing and revising that needed to  be done on top of the mistakes that were pointed out. 
            A major issue that needed to be fixed in this project was my proofreading.  When reading through these blogs one can tell that it was rushed through, and it had many mistakes that a freshman college student should not be making.  I went through and corrected all my proofreading mistakes such as adding periods, changing certain words in some sentences, and I found ways to make each blog flow better.  Proofreading would not be necessary to include in this letter if it was not serious, but as embarrassing as it is to say, my works were very poorly edited.  Editing a paper makes it easier to read, allows the information to be processed easier in the reader’s mind, and helps the overall flow of the paper.
            A second issue that I needed to revise was pointed out to me.  It was the fact that I needed to take a stance in my blog posts and show why and how I am taking that position.  In my blogs I gave a lot of useful information, but at times I did not put my own views into the works to add to the conversation. I did not give the “I say” to the “they say” when needed.  Revising this and taking a stance gives the conversation more meaning, detail, and support because it would not make sense to just write on a controversial topic but not take a side in how you as a writer feel about it.     
            I also went through my annotated bibliography and added the relevance of the sources to my paper.   I had not done this the first time because I did not know whether I could write it in first person for that part of the annotation, but since I now do, I went back and corrected it.  The relevance is important to the annotation because one needs to know how this sources benefits the paper.
            From this my English 1100 class I learned to think in different ways that I was not accustomed to think before I came to college.  I had to think and read beyond what was obvious to the naked eye.  English 1200 has added on to this by not only making me think outside of the box, but to also take a stand about how I feel and what I have to say about the situation, issue, or topic.  This class has also made me a better research paper writer because before this class I had never understood how to use and cite works from online databases or how to correctly construct a research paper.  I feel like a completely different student than what I felt before taking these two English courses, but that is a good thing because I feel more prepared and informed for future writing classes. 

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