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Reflective Essay
I have completed work that I am very proud of as an undergraduate English major
at Georgia State University. I have learned about some of our world’s first philosophers
and rhetoricians, about the structure and power of language, about the learning process,
and about myself as a writer. My time here has taught me more than I could ever
adequately express, but the pieces in this portfolio are intended to exhibit some of the
valuable skills I have acquired through my study in rhetoric and composition that I hope
to be able to use in my career and throughout my life.
The essay “Education vs. Conformity” was written in my English 3100
Twentieth-Century Composition Theory and Practice course as my midterm paper. I
chose it for my portfolio because it is a good example of my essay writing style. It is
intended to provide a study of how standardized testing is contributing to the declining
writing abilities of American students. The topic holds personal significance for me as a
writer, editor, and student and because I am interested in the reasons for this problem and
possible solutions.
I believe I proved my thesis that too many high schools do not adequately prepare
students for the academic discourse that will be expected of them in college and that this
is a result of the overall preference for conformity as opposed to individual expression.
For future versions of this essay, I would like to expand the scope to include
socioeconomic factors and statistics, but I really like how my passion for this issue is
apparent throughout the paper.
One of the pieces I am most pleased with is a report that I wrote for my English
3110 Technical Writing class as part of a documentation project. The initial steps of the
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project were to submit a proposal and then a subsequent set of original instructions. The
report is intended to serve as an assessment of my instruction-writing process; it assists
the instructor, Dr. Lopez, in evaluating my instructions by providing her with my
decision-making rationale.
I chose to write instructions for novice and intermediate digital camera users, and
I began my report by providing a detailed description of my target audience. I also
documented my reasoning for the scope of the instructions. I then outlined my design and
layout decisions for the instructions. Next, I discussed my usability testing and how the
users I tested fit in my target audience. I provided a fairly detailed summation of their
responses to testing and the changes I made as a result. I was pleased with my decision to
summarize the usability testing responses since there was a lot of similarity between
responses, but to also categorize them with headings. This made it easier for the
instructor to comprehend and analyze my results.
The main challenge I faced while writing this report was deciding the most
effective method of organization and format of content. If I were to change an aspect of
the report, I would probably add headings to the entire report for this same reason. The
thing I liked most about the report was how well it achieved the goal of communicating
my process informatively yet concisely. Report writing is a valuable skill and requires
keen editorial sensibilities; one of the most important things I learned while writing this
report was to omit any information that is irrelevant to the audience.
A genre in which audience is extremely important and that I enjoyed learning
about during my studies is writing for the world wide web. One of the websites I created
for my English 3120 Electronic Writing and Publishing class was a portfolio very similar
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to my graduation portfolio, but it is intended to display my skills and abilities for
potential employers. I chose the piece for this portfolio because of the other websites I
created it has the most relevance to the achievement of my future goals, it is the only one
that I created by myself (the others were group projects), and I am very proud of it since
it was chosen by my professor Dr. Bowie to be used as an example in her future classes.
My portfolio consisted of a biography page, web and print versions of my resumé,
and an artifacts/assessment section. At the suggestion of Dr. Bowie I will probably add
my own summaries of the classes I have taken to the Education section of my web
resumé. I wrote the content and developed the design, navigation, and color scheme with
professionalism and ease of usability in mind. I look forward to being able to update this
website and use it in my future job searches.
For my English 3140 Journal Editing class one of our major projects was to edit
and revise a section of a raw manuscript. I have included my original notes for that
project that contain observations and suggestions as to possible ways to proceed with the
manuscript. The reason I include it here is that this piece is one of the few writing
assignments we had—most of our work was actual editing work, which is the field that I
would like to pursue a career in. I enjoyed taking the manuscript and devising ways to
improve it and make it the best that it could be. I don’t think I would do anything
differently since it is a recording of my initial thoughts before any actual editing was
done to it.
Another experience I had that was related to editing was the great opportunity I
had to be involved with the publication of a book through an English 4200 Special Topics
course led by Dr. Singer. As a member of the editorial board for First Essays: A Peer
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Approach to Freshman Composition I got the chance to be involved in several of the
decision-making processes for its publication. The class was composed of graduate and
undergraduate students, and one of my responsibilities as an undergrad was to write a
peer perspective for two of the freshman essays.
The piece I included in my portfolio is a response to a student’s argumentative
essay entitled “A Call to Safety.” I focused on the paper’s use of ethos, pathos, and logos
because the author used them effectively and because the introduction to the section of
the book that this essay was included in also focused on these types of appeals. By doing
this I hoped to provide continuity throughout the section. The audience for this piece is
first-year composition students and is intended to point out practical examples of
effective argumentative writing.
My last advanced rhetoric and composition class is my Senior Seminar, English
4320 with Dr. Lopez. As of this writing the chief assignment we have completed is our
Major Project Proposal. I found this proposal fairly easy to write due in large part to
having written them for English 3110 and English 3120. It is a proposal for an etiquettethemed website aimed at teenagers ages 15–19. I incorporated headings since I knew they
worked well for organization. It includes justification for the website, a list of final
deliverables, as well as a timeline. I think I would also include any possible constraints
for future versions.
I have included pieces in my portfolio that represent my ability to organize my
writing, to research topics, and to write for a variety of purposes and audiences. During
my time at Georgia State University and through my rhetoric-based courses, I have
learned how to reason logically and effectively and how to communicate that reasoning
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in my writing. This is invaluable skill is one that I feel sure will benefit me as well as my
community in the future.