November 26, 2015

Dr. Leslie Bruce

Department of English, Comparative Literature, and Linguistics
California State University, Fullerton
P.O. Box 34080
Fullerton, CA 92834-9480
Dear Dr. Bruce:
The purpose of the documents being presented is to demonstrate what I consider my best works
as an academic writer by following the student learning objectives (SLOs). In the portfolio, I will
be showing my revised editorial, my group chat, and my peer review of a classmates editorial.
The order that this cover letter will be presented is in the order of SLOs.
For SLO number one, rhetorical focus, I am going to use my editorial to help indicate my
understanding of this SLO. Being able to understand who your audience will be before you type
up your paper is very important, because you will need to adjust your words and concepts so that
your readers understand what you are talking about. My editorial targets the general population
that reads the L.A. Times and those who might be interested in the California drought crises. This
was important for me to identify in my paper because then I knew that I needed to identify
certain words for my audience such as spring brooks in paragraph seven. In an informal
setting, I have highlighted words and sentences from my Facebook group chat that I wouldnt
use when writing formally. I might use slang words or even use sentence fragments in the chat.
Weaknesses I have within this SLO are that I sometimes dont clarify all words or concepts that
need to be defined for my readers to understand. Another part I need to work on is the purpose of
the paper. I need to be more concise in my purpose so that the readers know what type of paper
they are reading.
My revised editorial will be used as well for ethical research to express my understanding of
proper citation which will represent SLO number two for this class. When gathering resources
for any paper that you write it is extremely important that you cite these sources to avoid
plagiarism. Being a Kinesiology student my style of citing is APA format. Throughout my
editorial, I cite my sources using parenthetical citation and conclude the paper with an
alphabetical reference list. When attempting to paraphrase sentences in my original editorial, I
made the mistake of improperly citing sources. In the fourth paragraph of my revised editorial,
you can also see an example of the updated citations.
Furthermore, the third SLO is persuasive arguments, and it is presented in both my revised
editorial and this cover letter. The editorial in the portfolio demonstrates that I am able to look at
both sides of the argument and address their voices. In paragraph five, I discuss the benefits of
raising Shasta dam, and in the following paragraph, I rebuttal with the negative impacts that
raising the dam could have. Although persuasion is used in my editorial, I believe this cover
letter does a better job of showcasing my persuasiveness. I try to prove to you that I have grown

throughout the semester by addressing the mistakes I have made in order to show you that I
understand them. I go on to improve and fix these mistakes, such as citing, so that they become
my strengths.
The next SLO is organization and focus. The revised editorial I have presented in my portfolio
will help demonstrate my knowledge of organization and focus. You will see my use of
organization and focus in paragraph five of my revised editorial. I start off with a good topic
sentence addressing the opposition while I also talk about what will be presented I the paragraph.
The paragraph is unified because I talk about the details and benefits of the dam and how it will
affect people and other species. I finish off this paragraph with a transitional sentence to
introduce that the benefits that I just mentioned wont counter the negatives that I will be
discussing in the next paragraph. Although this paragraph demonstrates my ability to organize
and focus a single idea, I still need to improve upon applying this ability to the whole paper itself
so that it has a smoother flow
Academic language and design is the fifth SLO for the class and is evident in my revised
editorial and this cover letter. My persuasive paper contains a simple design in which the readers
will be able to follow. During the first draft of this letter, my classmate informed me that I could
use improvement on my diction and syntax. I have made these improvements by choosing
different words with the same meaning in order to break up repetition. Respect for gender
differences can be seen in the second paragraph of my revised editorial. When referring to the
beaver in this paragraph, I do not refer to it as only a he. I refer to the beaver as they to show
respect to gender differences.
Lastly, we have the collaboration SLO that is about the assessment of a writers work. I have
provided both my peer review of a classmates editorial as well as my edited editorial to prove my
understanding of this SLO. In my peer review I provide my classmate with a good amount of
information on what needs to be improved such as minor spelling errors and the inclusion of a
reference list. In my paper I have formatted my reference list properly because original it was
incorrect. I corrected my citing in my revised editorial by adding in quotation marks in the
appropriate locations. Another thing I corrected in my editorial was the correct use of citing by
the use of quotation marks in the first paragraph of my revised editorial. Both my teacher and
classmate have noticed my use of run-on sentences therefore I have corrected them accordingly.
From,
Vincent Guerena