Preface for Final Portfolio

::SIGH:: That is what comes to mind when I think of English. I can remember from an early age I always had trouble with English. I struggled with writing, punctuation, spelling, and everything in between. I am a black and white kind of girl, I prefer exact directions that when followed leads you to the same exact conclusion every time. When I'm forced to be creative I find myself at a loss for words. I describe myself as: cynical, a perfectionist, analytical, all with a slight case of ADD and OCD. So when you mix all my attributes together, one could imagine how difficult it is to even pick a topic! And once the topic was picked and the paper writing commenced, I found the biggest problem I had was; just like everything is jumbled and unorganized in my brain, everything on my paper was the same. I frequented the writing center, the most consistent problem my tutor saw was my inability to start and finish a paragraph on the same topic. After writing the four assigned papers I believe I became more aware of common problems with my papers and was able to improve my writing from one assignment to the next.
The first paper was a rhetorical analysis. First of all, I had absolutely no clue what this was or how to go about it. After some professor feedback and researching was done I kind of got the hang of it. I frequented the writing center and annoyed all the people I could think of who were good at writing, that is how I got the base for my paper. Only after analyzing over and over again did I finally understand the whole picture! I wrote my paper based on Garrison Keillor’s article about “Save Our National Sense of Humor”. The hardest thing for me in regards to this assignment was deciding who the intended audience was. Discovering this is what made this paper a good paper, in my opinion.
The article “President Obama has not betrayed the Gay Community” written by Chris Geidner is the topic of paper two, an argument response paper. This was an interesting paper from start to finish. I am aware of some things going on with our newest president, as well as the latest with the LGBT community. After writing this paper I feel that I am more knowledgeable on both of these topics. I feel I very adequately responded to Geidner’s argument and if it was published I believe that many people after reading, would side with me. To me that is a successful argument. I believe this paper had better flow and was a little better organized than the first, however, it still required a couple trips to the writing center. I work shopped this paper as well and got some very good feedback on it.
The third paper was our argument paper. I had a lot of trouble picking a topic and after pulling out hair (not literally) I decided on arguing the legalization of prostitution. I am a non judgmental person – if you wanna sell your body to nasty people then go right ahead. I am a firm believer in “you can be whoever you want to be,” that’s all a part of being a U.S. citizen – at least that’s my interpretation. With this paper I had a little bit of difficulty with starting and ending paragraphs on the same topic however I think after a lot of hard work, and of course writing center visits, this is one of my strongest papers. I believe I effectively argued my stance and conceded to the opposition, all while being tasteful!
Finally, to finish out the class we wrote a research paper. This was probably the easiest paper for me to write and required the least amount of assistance from the writing center. I believe that I was successful with this paper in many ways. Not only was it well written, but it was well researched. As a whole I definitely feel the assignment was fulfilled.
So with all of that being said, I believe my final portfolio shows great improvement from paper one through paper four. There is also great improvement from draft to final version. I believe I walked away with a greater understanding of writing, and honestly I hope I never ever have to use it again! I still dislike English and feel it is my worst subject, sorry Professor Bolaski! Maybe I’m just too hard on myself.