December 10, 2018

Dear Reader,

Welcome to my portfolio. Before you go on, I would like to discuss the importance of my work,
or in other words, what I have learned from it.

When asked about my goals for Writing 2 at the beginning of the quarter, I said one thing: to
improve my confidence in my writing abilities. I essentially wanted to develop the ability to
strongly approach a writing project without needing my hand held through the process by some
meticulous prompt. By being challenged with multiple writing prompts and discussing a variety
of academic pieces throughout the quarter, I was able to develop the necessary skills to improve
my writing and confidence in it.

In this writing class, we were provided with challenging prompts that elicit critical thinking.
Ironically, this freedom was a challenge to me, but one that forced me to become a better writer.
Prior to taking this writing class, I have had many experiences with writing. I was in the
International Baccalaureate program, a rigorous college preparatory program, that emphasized
essay-style assessments and examinations. Because of this background, I became so accustomed
to following specific prompts that I often found myself lost when working with broader prompts,
such as those from this class. For example, the aim for Writing Project 1 was to demonstrate how
a discourse community uses different genres and how those genres function within the
community. Although there are distinct criteria outlined by these types of prompts, they could be
approached in multiple ways. We were given an aim but had the freedom to choose our own
discourse community and genre to discuss. To answer the prompt, I was forced to be creative and
develop my own focused thesis. Ultimately, the challenges of these prompts forced me to
critically think and develop my own ideas and helped bring about confidence in my writing
abilities.

The class readings were another factor that reinforced my confidence because they taught me the
skills that I was able to apply to my own writing. In “Navigating Genres”, Kerry Dirk stated that
you have to consider the context, audience, purpose, genre of your writing (260). I learned that
the rhetorical effectiveness of my writing depends on how I address those factors. An example
you can look at is this paper I am writing now. I am writing in an academic setting and this paper
is an assignment for this course. Therefore, I can assume that the audience will consist of writing
instructors or students. My purpose is to describe what I have learned in the class as a whole and
I am to do so in the form of a letter addressed towards you, the instructor or student. With these
factors in mind, I can write in a way that effectively communicates with you and also satisfies
the conventions of the genre. In summary, by identifying the context, audience, purpose, and
genre of my writing, I learned how to develop a rhetorically effective paper with a clear identity
and focus.

Furthermore, in “What is ‘Academic’ Writing?” by L. Lennie Irvin, I learned to create a “mental

model” for visualizing a given prompt. Irvin stated that “whether students produced a successful
piece of writing depended largely upon their representation of the writing task” (3). For example,
before I started writing this cover letter, I studied the prompt and its criteria. I then came up with
a thesis and based on it, developed a structured outline that took note of what to discuss in each
paragraph to satisfy the criteria. Without an outline or model for this paper to begin with, I would
be left writing a disorganized blob of text that would not only have been difficult for me to write
but difficult for you to read as well. Hence, I learned the importance of having a clear
understanding and representation of my writing task before initiating because it facilitates my
writing process and the reader’s experience, thereby improving the overall effectiveness of my
writing.

Another way I like to contribute to the effectiveness of my writing is how I structure my

paragraphs, which I feel is one of my main strengths as a writer. Due to my writing background,
I have been taught to always include three main things in a body paragraph: a topic sentence,
evidence, and then an analysis. If you take a look at my Writing Project 1, you can see that I
structure each paragraph in this manner. I had a clear topic sentence, or argument, for each
paragraph, which was typically the first sentence. Then, I provided or cited evidence to support
the argument. Finally, I developed an analysis by discussing the importance or relevance of the
evidence to the argument. This is a style of writing that we further explored in Rebecca Jones’
academic article, “Finding the Good Argument OR Why Bother With Logic?”, where she
dissects the elements of an argument based on the ideas of philosopher Stephen Toulmin. She
shows that an argument includes a claim, data, and warrant: three components of an argument
synonymous with how I structure and write my paragraphs. I feel stronger as a writer when I use
a consistent structure by presenting an argument, evidence, and analysis for each paragraph.

On the other hand, I feel as if my most pronounced weakness is my use of syntax. As defined by
the New Oxford American Dictionary, syntax is the arrangement of words and phrases to create
well-formed sentences in a language. One of the last things we learned in this class is how to
form straightforward sentences over unnecessarily complex ones. We were taught to aim for
quality over quantity and understand the importance and effectiveness of the individual words in
a simpler sentence. Furthermore, we went over the difference between passive and active voice
and the advantages of using the latter. I was never really conscious of the use of active versus
passive voice in my writing—I just simply wrote and this is apparent in the earlier drafts of my
writing projects in this portfolio. And in trying to make my writing sound sophisticated, I found
myself using overly complex sentences which produced the opposite effect. The way I form my
sentences and my inconsistency with active and passive voice are weaknesses in my writing that
I would like to work and improve on over time.

With that being said, I guess that the most important thing that Writing 2 has taught me is that
you can never stop improving. I acquired skills that helped me become a more skilled and
confident writer, but I also learned that no matter how well you write, there are always ways to
make it better. This is why we work so hard as writers because technically, there are no final
drafts, only better ones. In conclusion, I hope that you appreciate the effort I put into these
projects.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Sincerely,
Ezekiel Tortal

Works Cited

Dirk, Kerry. “Navigating Genres.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing Volume 1. 2010.

Writing Spaces. http://writingspaces.org/essays.

Irvin, L. Lennie. “What is ‘Academic’ Writing?” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing Volume

1.

2010. Writing Spaces. http://writingspaces.org/essays.

Jones, Rebecca. “Finding the Good Argument OR Why Bother With Logic?” Writing Spaces:

Readings on Writing Volume 1. 2010. Writing Spaces. http://writingspaces.org/essays.