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Arun Bose

UWRT-1102-041

Professor Ingram

Final Portfolio Essay

Organization

When I was exploring the example portfolios for ideas and

inspiration to design my portfolio, I was faced with vibrant

backgrounds, music and playlists, and personal pictures. While there is

certainly nothing wrong with any of these things, I figured out pretty

quickly that that was not how I wanted my portfolio to look. I wanted

something simple, concise, and minimalist. I personally felt like

extremely vibrant and busy portfolio designs were distracting from the

content they were meant to display, which I saw as counterproductive.

While my portfolio may be at risk of appearing boring or dull,

my main objective was to make an easy-to-navigate and clear portfolio

which I feel like I accomplished. I had all of the required elements of

the portfolio separated into tabs and subsections on the left-hand side

of the screen. I thought that choosing a layout that had the tabs

constantly on screen made navigation extremely user friendly,

however, I also decided to add a button that directs the user to the

next page in order to simplify navigation even further.

Process Works
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The multi-genre project was one of my favorite projects that I

have been assigned in quite some time and I think that it contained

some of my best work (the timeline in particular I am very proud of).

This made the reflection a relatively easy task to complete and I aside

from a few details that required revision, I think that my original draft

was relatively well written. However, my original draft completely

overlooked the five modes of communication, as well as my use of

ethos. After our conference I made sure to revise these details (among

others) for my polished product. Another aspect of my paper that

required revision, as you pointed out in our conference, was that I

failed to introduce any of the people that I cited. I made sure to revise

this for my final paper and sentences such as For example, Nickolay

Lamm conducted a study where he analyzed Billboard Top 100 hits of

the past 50 years and created graphs to illustrate how lyrics have

changed over time became For example, Nickolay Lamm, a

researcher with The Thought Catalog that specializes in creating

unique graphical representations of data, conducted a study where he

analyzed Billboard Top 100 hits of the past 50 years and created

graphs to illustrate how lyrics have changed overtime however he

failed to address what has caused lyrics to change (Lamm).

I struggled with the annotated bibliography assignment more

than I can describe; I had never been tasked with making an annotated

bibliography before and I had never even heard of an annotated

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bibliography before. The whole multi-genre

project stretched me out of my comfort zone; as

students we grow used to the seemingly never-

ending cycle of procrastinate, research, write

essay, repeat, and I spent close to an hour

staring at the assignment sheet before even

knowing where to begin. Not to mention, all of

my citations were incorrect. For years I have simply been using citation

makers to make my bibliographies for me so I could avoid the

headache of trying to remember MLA citations. This has been working

for me however, no other professor has brought it to my attention that

MLA formatting has changed. Because of this, I had to change

complicated citations from looking like the upper citation, to simple

citations that look like the lower citation.

The last process work that I chose to include was my final

portfolio outline. Normally, I tend to dive straight in to assignments

with very little planning or outlining beforehand. However, since I

personally do not own a laptop, whenever we worked on projects in

class I had to find ways to be productive using pencil and paper.

Feedback Artifacts

The midterm essay in itself was not a terribly difficult task for me

to complete, however the round table proved to be quite a challenge

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for me. Much like the annotated bibliography, this assignment forced

me to stretch my comfort zone considerably in the fact that I had

never been asked to complete an assignment like this before. While I

have certainly had to consider opposing positions to create counter

arguments for argumentative papers, I had never been asked to think

of several different perspectives at one time. For my topic in particular,

being that it is by no means a widely debated subject, I struggled

simply to figure out who might be discussing it at all.

Your class was far from the first class that required me to edit the

paper of one of my peers, however your class was the first that

encouraged us to be genuinely constructive in doing so. In most

classes, peer revision implies awkwardly pushing desks together into

a circle with classmates who you have never spoken with before and

pretending that everyones essay was perfect in order to avoid being

the only student trying to actually do the work. However, when

reviewing Tommys paper I would like to think that I was able to offer a

helpful outside perspective and offer some genuine criticism. For

example, in his initial draft he wrote, Lastly I could ask the questions

that could go against why soccer has not grown such as what about

the sport seems boring to the American People? and we work shopped

this sentence to make it clearer and less confusing to the reader.

Writers Notebook Artifacts

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My notes for the fourth blog post were another example of my

attempts to stay productive in a class session that required a laptop. At

the top of the paper I tried to condense my thesis into a simpler

question so that I could try to figure out the more pressing question:

Who is asking this question? Below this I did my best to form a table

and figure out the different perspectives of the different members of

the table.

To be perfectly honest, I do not remember at all why I wrote all

of it at the bottom of the paper nor do I remember what question I

was trying to answer. However, I feel like this warm-up was the first

time I had ever tried to formally write out my thesis statement and this

was also when I first realized that I might have issues finding a concise

target audience.

Wild Card Artifact

When we first began looking over the assignment sheet for the

final portfolio as a class, I had a small heart attack as I had very

carelessly cleaned out my backpack and notebook just the weekend

before and I had gotten rid of a lot of my work for this class that would

be helpful for this assignment. However, I was beyond relieved when I

found that I had kept the multi-modal handout and that it would be

applicable to be my wild card artifact. Prior to discussing the modes of

communication in this class, I had certainly thought about the

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linguistic, visual, and aural modes (though I do not think I had ever

referred to them as modes) but I was completely ignorant to the

gestural and spatial modes. While I did not employ these modes as

much as I could have in my multi genre project, I will certainly make a

more conscious effort to use them for other assignments in the future.

Makeup Artifact

Since I was in elementary school, one of my biggest

shortcomings as a student is my carelessness. I get caught up with

whatever else I have going on in my life and often find myself

completely forgetting to complete assignments that I had no excuse

not to complete. All of that aside, I have now completed my third blog

post and included it as my makeup artifact.

Key Concepts

If I remember correctly, the three key concepts that I believe that

I struggled with at the beginning of the semester were rhetorical

knowledge, critical reflection, and incorporating quotations. While I

still certainly do not have a perfect grasp of these three subjects by

any means, I would definitely say that I have grown them. Rhetorically

I have always struggled with incorporating and establishing ethos

within my writing. The multi-genre reflection (as well as the conference

where we discussed it) really helped my understand how to establish

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ethos in my writing and I confident that I am going to need to employ

this in my writing in the future. Not to mention that up until this class, I

had never even heard of kairos; while I still do not have as firm a grasp

on kairos as I do on logos, ethos, and pathos, from now on I will

certainly be more aware of the importance of timing within writing. As I

stated earlier, I had never done any sort of serious peer reflection

before and this class really helped me learn how to give meaningful,

constructive feedback, which I think will certainly help me in critical

reflection. Incorporating quotations will likely always be something that

I struggle with, however it is an important aspect of writing. The

amount of emphasis that was placed upon quotations in this class

game me practice making quotations fluid within my writing and also

ensured that I am familiar with how to properly make a citation within

my writing.

My Grade

In the end, it all comes down to the overarching question, what

grade do I deserve? I would very much like to think that my portfolio

will earn me an A. I think that my portfolio itself is complete and

thoughtfully arranged, I discussed my engagement with three key

concepts in the section above this, and I think that I adequately

displayed my engagement in the course as well as with my peers.