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Dear Josh,

When I began this class, I was concerned about whether or not it would be good. I

thought that the online format might make the class less effective at teaching students how to

improve their writing. While this format posed some challenges for group work, I found that I

got a lot more out of this class than I have gotten out of most of the writing classes I have taken.

Looking back on my experiences in this class, there are many new writing strategies and

perspectives that I have learned that will be valuable to me for the rest of my life.

To begin, this class is the first time that I have really begun to understand that writing

style needs to be different and specific depending on the context. Certain activities in this class,

including the Janet Boyd reading, ​Murder! (Rhetorically Speaking), ​helped me understand that,

although my life experiences have given me some preliminary knowledge about writing

conventions, this prior exposure is not enough to effectively begin writing in a new genre.

Without an understanding of the literary practices that are conventional for the discipline that

you are trying to translate into, your work will not be readily accepted, and it will be judged for

flaws unrelated to its ideological content. I was actually able to implement this idea in the

chemistry lab that I took this quarter. On my first lab report I received a 77%, even though I had

put countless hours into the project. I emailed my teaching assistant in order to gain a greater

understanding of what I had done wrong. The email that I received back from my TA showed me

that I had not taken into account the conventions of the discipline and that I had lost many points

because of it. Because of this experience, I decided that for the first writing project in this class, I

would analyze the literary conventions of chemistry papers. This proved extremely beneficial to
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me, as I was able to gain a greater understanding of what was expected of me in my lab reports,

and all of my latter reports received much better marks.

Along with the idea of discipline specific rhetoric, this class taught me a great deal about

the revising process that I did not know before taking it. On top of learning how to more

effectively critique my peers’ papers, I learned important strategies for how to revise my own

paper. I used to believe that revision was only copy editing, but I have learned that revision

means making large, wholesale changes, to your paper. Only after these larger changes are made,

can you focus on the cohesion and coherence of your paper.

It is with this new revision mindset that I attacked the portfolio project for this class,

making larger changes that I have ever made to my previous papers. To begin my revision

process, I took out a piece of paper and wrote down what each paragraph of my first writing

project was talking about. I then spent a good amount of time looking at this list, jotting down

notes for ways to improve my paper. The main ideological change that I decided to make in my

paper was shifting from the idea of chemistry papers containing certain traits, to a new focus on

chemistry papers as goal-oriented pieces of literature. In this way, my paper went from an

analysis of literary characteristics, to an analysis of the motives behind the literary practices that

I had previously explored. I also attempted to expand more on the concepts behind why chemists

need to communicate with one another, rather than just how they communicate.

Along with these modifications, I made other large changes by removing unnecessary

material. In paragraph four of writing project one, for example, I took out the section talking

about my experiences in chemistry, which was unrelated to the goals of my paper. Following the

deletion of this and other parts of my paper, I attempted to group and combine similar paragraphs
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with one another, strengthening my argument by putting all of the related information in one

place.

In writing project two, I also decided to group my paragraphs together in a new way. I

attempted to use the first half of my analysis to speak about the chemistry literary practices and

ideas that I had translated, and the second half of the paper to discuss the rhetorical strategies of

children's books that I had utilized in order to create an effective translation. By rearranging my

paragraphs in this way, and moving them into their respective sections, I was able to simplify the

ideological flow of my paper, making it more appealing for readers.

Another change that I decided to make to my second writing project was the addition of

a new illustration of a scientific graph on page 11 of my translation. I decided to include this

graph because not only does it represent one of the main strategies chemists use to represent

data, but it also allows for the introduction of children to such graphical data representation

methods. I was also able to fit an analysis of this graphic into paragraph six of my second writing

project.

I decided to remove paragraph five from my second writing project in order to free up

room for further explanation of the other writerly choices that I made. Paragraph five spoke

about how my translation appealed to fantasy in order to fit into the childrens book discourse

community, but I deemed that point much less important than the further explanation of some of

the other practices that I had utilized in my translation.

Following all of the macro editing of my two writing projects, I spent a lot of time

working on the cohesion and coherence of my papers. Paragraph 5 of my first writing project, for

example, was incoherent as it did not stick to a single idea, and paragraph six was not cohesive
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or coherent, having very little flow from one idea to the next. I read through both of my papers,

finding problematic sections like these and attempting to relate one sentence to the next. Through

doing this editing, the cohesion of my paper was greatly improved. I also re-organized my

arguments so that my paragraphs stuck to one point, accomplishing my goal of coherence.

Finishing this revising process has taught me that it is essential to go back and analyze

any paper that you have written as a whole, rather than section by section. By noting what each

paragraph spoke about, I was able to rearrange my paragraphs in the most effective way, and

alter or take out ideas that did not help my argument. I have graduated from my old habit of only

copy editing my papers, and now I see the true aim of editing papers. Small grammatical changes

are only a small part of the editing process. The greatest editing advancements actually occur

through deliberate and thoughtful ideological and structural changes. Looking back, before this

class I did not know how to effectively revise, and with the tools that I have been taught, I am on

my way to developing my own revision strategies that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

This is the first time I have ever turned in a project that I did not feel was complete. The reason

why I feel this way is because the revision process I have learned has shown me that a paper is

never done, and there is always room for improvement. Honestly, I am not sure if I am happy

that I know this now, because now I will be much less satisfied with the papers I write in the

future. At the same time however, this dissatisfaction is what will push me to become the best

writer that I can be. Thank you so much for making this quarter so worthwhile despite the

unusual circumstances.

Sincerely,

Sam