Danes 1
Reflective Portfolio
David Danes
Dr. Whitmore
COMP 105
16 December 2015
Throughout the course of this class, I have learned a lot of things that will help
me exponentially in my everyday life, not just school. I learned how to analyze different
styles of writing as well as research a topic and write a whole research paper about it.
Every single one of these skills will help me as a progress as a student and as a worker.
I can now put my thoughts on paper and convey or sell myself to others which will help
me immensely with finding a job once I am out of school or even finding an internship in
the very near future. Having my peers look over what I have written and criticize it really
helped me notice my mistakes and how to fix them and not make them again. Writing
has always been one of my weakest subjects but now I feel pretty confident in my skills
as a writer. I feel as if this class will be one of the most useful classes I will take
throughout my time at the university.
Outcome 1: Approach Writing as a Process
Before this class, I did not look over what I wrote at all, in fact, most of the time, I
did it all from beginning to end the night before it was due and hoped for the best. A lot
of my teachers in high school would make us write a rough draft for points on our essay,
however, it was never graded for how good it was and you could completely change
your essay in the final draft and nobody would ever know. So that’s what I did. In
college, I realized that that is not how things are supposed to be done if you want to get
a good grade. I found out that the writing process was one of the most effective ways to
write the best possible piece you could. First, I would write a rough draft, not one that
had nothing to do with my final, but one that would be edited by my peers in order to
make my final product better. Peer revision and editing was one of the most helpful
things ever. All of my little mistakes, or sometimes even big mistakes, would be found
simply by someone else’s perspective on my writing. The editor would then write down
what I did right, so I knew exactly what to continue doing, and what I did wrong, so I
knew what I had to change in my writing in the future. I believe this process helps and
works with both formal and informal writing. The writing process is one of the most
valuable things I learned and performed in this course. From the article analysis paper,
to the research paper, it improved my grade exponentially.
Outcome 2: Effective Revision and Feedback
Throughout the course of the semester, I was able to revise many of my peer’s
essays and give them feedback about what they need to change. This ranges from
grammar and spelling, to even a whole paragraph making no sense and them having to
reword it. As the semester progressed, I got better and better at doing this, which in the
long run helped me become a better writer. At the end of the semester, I was able to
revise one of my previous papers for a better grade. I chose to revise my Ad Analysis.
Reading through it, I could not believe some of the stuff I was writing and doing. It all
just seemed so poorly written. Half of it didn’t even make sense to me. I wrote and
analyzed only the things that I saw in the ad rather than the deeper meaning behind it
all and someone who didn’t know what the ad was about would have no clue what I was
saying. While revising it, I made it substantially better and more enjoyable to read. I
even watched the ad over again to make sure everything I was saying was correct. It
was so much easier to revise and edit when I had forgotten my train of thought while
writing it. Also, I looked at how my first writing assignment compared to my last. The
difference was substantial. This really showed me how effective revision really was.
Outcome 3: Rhetoric
Throughout the semester, I became better and better at applying rhetoric to my
writing. It was not an overnight thing. One of the biggest differences between my article
analysis and my music video analysis or ad analysis is that I wrote directed at a specific
audience more in my later writings. In my article analysis, I wrote much more
generalized towards no specific audience. In my music video analysis, I wrote more
towards the people that would listen to the song, One Man Can Change the World. With
the ad analysis, I wrote more about the purpose of the ad. Obviously, the purpose of the
ad was to get people to purchase their product. However, it was more than that. I wrote
about the appeal to pathos, logos, and ethos and how that affected what people
purchased and what they didn’t. I wrote about how they tried to make the viewer feel
important and how if they bought the product they are helping, in my case, the
Budweiser dog and other animals stay safe from wolves on the farm. Rhetoric is a very
useful thing to apply to the writing process. It is absolutely a necessity to appeal to your
reader’s emotions or to use some sort of logic in your writing to make it credible and to
convince people to believe and think about something like you do.
Outcome 4: Reading Critically
In the beginning of the semester, I could read, and I could mostly understand
what it is I was reading. However, as I learned in this course, I did not fully understand
what it was that I was reading and the purpose of it. I now know that you cannot just
read something and understand what it is all about. This class made it so much easier
to find the main argument of a reading in order to be ready for a discussion that could
be said about the article. This will really help me in the future allowing me to discuss
what I have read with my peers or even professors to a larger extent.
Outcome 5: Controlling Aspects of Writing
Depending on the style of writing, I use a different voice, tone, and style. If the
writing is more informal, I tend to write as if I’m talking to one of my peers. However, if
the writing is formal, I act and write as if I am speaking or reading this in front of my
manager or professor. In my Research Essay, I wrote, “Raising the minimum wage has
so much potential to do well in Michigan”. This is an example of how I would write in a
formal setting. However, if this was an informal setting, I would have most likely wrote
something more along the lines of “Raising the minimum wage in Michigan will make
Michigan a better place to live”. There is a large difference between my formal and
informal writing. If I am speaking to my peers I do not need to sound like a scholar.
However, when I am speaking to my professor, or my boss, I want to sound as smart
and educated as possible in order to make a good impression on them. Also, in formal
writing, I use more statistics and facts in order to convey my point to my readers, while
in informal writing, I try to appeal more to ethos.
Conclusion:
Overall, COMP 105 made me a greater writer and reader. It taught me what
rhetoric was a how to apply it to my everyday writing. It also taught me many life skills
that I will be using for many years to come such as analyzing what I read or watch and
conveying my analysis into an essay. This course did not only help me this semester,
but will continue to help me as a progress as a student and in the workforce. Professor
Whitmore is one of my most favorite professors I have ever had throughout my career
as a student. I learned so much from this class. Thank you for helping me grow as a
writing and person.