Dear Matt,

In this cover letter, I will talk about what I learned this quarter and my process of revising
WP1 and WP3.
In this class, by writing WP1, WP2 and WP3, I learned that the three keys for writing in a
specific genre are purpose, audience and context. By revising WP1 and WP3, I learned how to use
evidence efficiently. The connection between evidence and the argument is very important because
the analysis is the thing that makes an article convincible. Another thing I learned is the importance
of thesis statement. Thesis statement is the main idea of an article. So, a clear thesis statement is
necessary to make your readers easier to follow you.
I decided to revise my WP1 and WP3. WP1 is the first WP I wrote in this class. At that time,
I did not have a good understanding of genres, purpose, audience and context. So, there are a lot
of things can be revised to make my WP1 better. WP3 is the last WP in this class, so that it shows
my understanding of what we have learned during this quarter. So, I would like to revise WP3 to
see if I have a deep understanding of the course.
In my WP1, first of all, I changed my thesis statement. At first, I do not have a real thesis
statement. My original thesis statement is that the three key features of a genre are its purpose,
audience and context. However, this thesis statement, as you pointed out in the feedback, was not
arguable. Therefore, I changed the thesis statement to that among the three key features, purpose
is the most important one. In this way, my thesis statement became arguable. And then, in the
following paragraphs, I explained why the purpose is the most important feature of a genre. Second,
I also changed the way I use evidence. At the beginning, I just posted the two texts from two genres.
When I revised my WP1, I realized that it is not an effective way to analyze the texts. In this way,
I split the texts into sentences, and then I analyzed them sentence by sentence. In this way, my
analysis became much clearer and it also makes my article more convincible.
In my WP3, I also made changes to my thesis statement. My original thesis statement is that I
changed audience, vocabularies and tones to make the text into another genre. Later, I realized that
I made all these changes only because audience and the audience determines the vocabularies and
tones I use in the text. So, I changed my thesis statement to this, and in the following paragraphs,
I explained that since the audience changed from adults to children, and children are not patient or

educated, so I need to change the vocabularies from complicated ones to simple ones and I also
need to change the tone to a storytelling tone.
Your feedback about my thesis statement is the most helpful thing to me. For example, during
the peer editing session of WP1, no one said that there was something wrong with my thesis
statement. Fortunately, you pointed out that my thesis statement was wrong because it was not
arguable. This is very helpful to me because thesis statement is the foundation of an article. If you
did not point out this, my article will not have a proper thesis statement.
If I have more time, I will try to make my childrens book better. Now, my story is too dull
and flat. I will make the story have some repetitions. For example, I will write that the little prince
goes to find the Grandpa Dentist several times, and each time the little prince will get a tip of
advice from Grandpa Dentist. Therefore, the story will have some repetitions, so that it is more
possible for children to remember.
Before I took this class, I am far away from a native writer. After taking this class, I feel like
I have learned a lot about college writing, and I have more confidence in my writing skills now. In
the future, when I approach writing projects, I will always consider purpose, audience and context.
In addition, I will always have an arguable thesis statement for my articles.
Sincerely,
Jing Lan