Lou Sylvia Johnson

Reflective Essay
The senior exit portfolio Im submitting is comprised of seven pieces
that I completed for English classes over the last eighteen months: four
are primarily research-style papers and three are more technical-style
writing projects. Pursuing a degree in Advanced English Composition
and Rhetoric includes taking numerous literature classes, so the
number of rhetorical pieces I was able to submit is somewhat limited.
Several of the pieces in my portfolio are rhetorical-type documents
that use persuasive rhetoric, and one paper is a biography of a
rhetorician. Im submitting these specific pieces in my portfolio
because they demonstrate the range of works and classes that English
rhetoric majors encompass and also demonstrate that a concentration
in rhetoric consist of more than writing long essay-style papers. My
selections consist of a proposal written for English 4320 English
Seminar: Advanced Composition and Rhetoric, a visual documentary
made for English 3090 Expository Writing, a research business paper
written for English 3130 Business Writing, a website and a brochure
designed and written for English 3110 Technical Writing, a biography
written for English 2150 Introduction to Rhetoric and Advanced
Composition, and a literary analysis-style paper written for English
3995 Feminist Literary Criticism. Six pieces have been uploaded into
my efolio but the documentary was not able to be uploaded. The
documentary is on a CD and has been given to Dr. Lopez. Playing the
documentary requires Windows Media Player. Most of the newest
versions of Microsoft Windows have the Windows Media Player
program. If for any reason you are unable to view the Pine Lake
documentary for English 3090 please let me know. Also, when viewing
the GSU restaurant websites homepage the GSU campus map should
appear after going into a different link then returning back to the
homepage.
I chose to submit my proposal, written for 4320 English Seminar,
because it is very detailed oriented and required not only research for
the information used in the report but also research in the type of
proposal that I needed to use for what I wanted to propose. My
proposal is an unsolicited business proposal. I decided to use the
format of a formal unsolicited business proposal because it is the
industry norm for the type of proposal I decided to write. I had written
smaller proposals in English 3110 Technical Writing and 3130 Business
Writing but my English Seminar proposal was a much larger and more
indebt proposal. The final report submitted to my professor was put in
plastic comb binding with a clear front covering and dark-colored

backing. Because the proposal is now being sent as a Microsoft Word

document, I took the page numbering out of the document because my
word-processing program will not allow me to number pages
separately and page one would have started on the letter of
transmittal instead of the correct page Proposed Recommended
Changes to help Reduce Mortgage Fraud. If I had additional time I
would have asked a larger number of real estate appraisers presently
performing real estate appraisals in the State of Georgia to complete
my survey. Although I believe my proposal is persuasive and would be
read, I think my proposal would have greater power with a well-known
appraisal organization or hundreds of Georgia real estate appraisers
backing my proposal. The strong points in my proposal are the use of
persuasion in the document, the vast amounts of research in the
document, my qualifications and years of experience in the appraisal
field, and the type of proposal I decided to submit.
The three collaborative projects that I am submitting consist of a
documentary, a website, and a business writing project called Lexus
Copyshop. The students who worked with me on these collaborative
projects were hardworking students and very cooperative.
My English 3090 Expository Writing documentary project was a collaborative
project that Stacy Martin and I made using digital media. Although I have a
bachelors degree in broadcast journalism, I had not used digital media, so the
idea of producing a documentary project using digital media was exciting (but the
actual process of editing the documentary was not so exciting, at times). The
entire documentary project consisted of a proposal about the community we
wanted to talk about, the documentary, and after the documentary was finished,
a reflection paper about the work we performed putting our documentary project
together. Originally, I was approved to do my documentary on my daughter, a
gymnast, along with other gymnasts, and the life of gymnasts, but she pulled
muscles in her hand the same weekend I was suppose to shoot the video. Since
I once lived near the City of Pine Lake, I thought it would be a good idea to work
together with Stacy Martin on her Pine Lake documentary. Our individual video
consisted of the part of the documentary we would be working on. Because I
was someone who lived next to but not in Pine Lake, I would give my perspective
of Pine Lake as someone who knew that Pine Lake existed but never actually
went into the City of Pine Lake. The strong points in the documentary are that
both Stacy and I were familiar with Pine Lake (Stacy actually lived in the City of
Pine Lake) and I was somewhat familiar with the camera equipment and had the
movie maker program needed for the project on my laptop computer. The
weaker parts of our project were also the least exciting parts of putting together
our documentary: some of the primary historical pictorial information that an exmayor of Pine Lake was suppose to let us use in our documentary was not
available until a week after our documentary project was turned in, and none of
our computers had the slot to plug in the firewire from the video camera (firewire

is a device used to transfer the video from the camera to the computer), so we
had to use the limited number of computers, which had slots to plug in firewire,
on the Georgia State campus to finish our project. Our lack of time to add
additional historical data into our documentary lead to a lack of Pine Lakes
history in our documentary, and the inability to download the video directly into
our computer, because of the firewire problems, hindered thorough editing of our
documentary.
Lexus Copyshop, a project researched and written for English 3130
Business Writing, was a collaborative paper written with three other
students: Kay Ware, Stephen Ousley, and Allison Boyd. Our group
worked great together because, although difficult, we all wanted to
make an A on this project and we were all willing to put a vast
amount of effort in this project. The Lexus Copyshop project is a
research and business-style document that involves copyright issues.
Our group equally split up the work for researching and writing this
project and then met numerous times checking, editing, and rechecking what we would be putting in the different documents. The
final project consisted of a research and recommendation
memorandum about copyright concerns and issues (sent to the owner
of Lexus Copyshop), a written policy for the company on copyright
issues, and a statement of belief and policy. The Lexus Copyshop
project was accomplished because we all had excellent ideas about
how we should put the project together, we uniformly decided what
documents would be included in our project, and we all were equally
responsible for doing our part for each document. The minor problem
we had with this project was we were unsure, at the beginning of the
project, what the instructor wanted us to do. But after consulting with
the instructor, through meetings and emails, it became clearer what
should be included in the documents.
The last collaborative project being submitted is a Georgia State
University restaurant website that was designed and written for English
3110 Technical Writing. Im very proud of this project because when I
was first told in class and read in the syllabus that we would be
designing a website I was a bit apprehensive and worried. But once
the project began and we were taught what the site should consist of
and how to use the software, I was amazed at what we accomplished.
The other students who were part of this project were Sofia Safina,
Joshua Myers and another student named Andrea. Again, similar to the
Lexus Copyshop project, we divided the website project into sections
and were each assigned a page to design. The gist of our website is to
inform and show students, faculty, and staff, at Georgia State
University, local restaurants where lunch between 12:00 noon and
12:45 p.m. could be obtained and the location of each restaurant. We
all agreed what each webpage should contain and how each webpage

should look. I designed the webpage that contains the restaurants in

the northwest section near buildings 15 and 20. The main page of the
website was designed by the whole group. The entire project consisted
of a written project plan about what our website would encompass, a
user test, a finished website, and a final reflective-type paper about
our website and group-work processes.
My brochure is a documentation project that was written and designed
in English 3110 Technical writing. The brochure was added to my
portfolio because it is a technical visual-type document that
demonstrates the array of works completed in my English classes. The
brochure was my idea for the documentation project. The audience for
my brochure is people interested in searching on the internet for real
estate listings in a specific subdivision. The entire documentation
project consisted of an email proposal, the brochure, a survey that
included a usability test, and then a written assessment to the
instructor. The survey was used to determine what information was
needed in the brochure; additionally, people who performed the survey
also used the brochure and performed the tasks in the brochure, so I
could determine the effectiveness of the instructions in the brochure.
The two remaining projects in my portfolio are research papers. I
wrote a biography on Thomas Sheridan for English 2150 History of
Rhetoric. This was primarily a research-style paper on a rhetorician
but while researching Thomas Sheridan I also learned how English
composition, voice and diction classes, and speech departments were
formed. The research paper written for English 3995 Feminist Literary
Theory was also a research-style paper but also consisted of the
analysis of feminist theory throughout the paper. Because theory is
generally a hypothesis, the class and this paper consisted of many
persuasive type theories.
The strengths of my portfolio are demonstrated by my diversity in
writing and researching skills. Because I am primarily a technical
writer in my present occupation, the brochure, website, proposal, and
Copyshop project show additional skills acquired in research, writing,
persuasion, and design of technical-style projects. Most of my portfolio
also demonstrates that Im able to use some type of rhetoric in order
to persuade my audience to use my information or believe my
information. The collaborative projects in my portfolio also show that
Im able to work in groups to complete a project or assignment. The
weakest part of my portfolio is my lack of creating writing classes.
English 3090 Expository Writing demonstrates some creating writing,
which comprises the documentary project along with several creating
writing papers written for the class; however, it is the only creating
writing class I have taken.

An English degree in Advanced Composition and Rhetoric will be my

second Bachelors degree. This additional degree will assist me in my
current occupation, which primarily consists of writing technical-style
documents, and I hope an English degree in Advanced Composition
and Rhetoric will help me get admitted into Graduate school in the
future. Whether for my present occupation, for Graduate school, or for
everyday use, all the English classes Ive taken have enlightened,
enhanced, and improved my English composition and rhetoric skills.