Welcome to A Semester’s Worth Of Work! This is an online writing portfolio displaying the work of my work throughout the course of the semester. What you’ll find on this site is my best work that I’ve done over the course of the semester. You can find my work by using the menu bar at the top. My work includes a paper, oral presentation, a visual analysis paper, and an electronic project that I have done.
Throughout the semester of taking English 250, we were assigned many different types of assignments. Each of them was to help us grown stronger, as well as to prepare us for assignments like these in other classes in the future. In taking this class, I was able to see where my strengths and weaknesses of W.O.V.E. (Writing, Oral, Visual, Electronic) are. As well as figure out how to improve where I am lacking in those areas.
From the beginning of the semester to the end my work has improved. I went from not really confident in my writing skills, to becoming my comfortable with my writing. When it came to actually trying to figure out what I was gonna write about, I always create outlines. It helps me figure out what to write, as well as where I want to write everything. This helps me a lot when I have to create my drafts. Once I have my outline figured out, I start with the introduction of my draft. Then I will just go in order of what I am writing based on my outline until I finish writing the draft. When I revise my papers I will reread everything I wrote, which usually isn’t good the first time, and then I will fix the mistakes I catch or rewrite different parts that I no longer like. With the help of peers, they can catch the mistakes that I skip over or happen to miss because I’m looking at the paper so much. So I find it very helpful when I have a peer looking at my work.
Looking at the first the writing aspect of W.O.V.E. writing is one of my weakest areas. I have never been much of a writer. I don’t really work on writing in my free time, and due to that my writing doesn’t really improve all that much. It has, however, improved much more over the course of the semester. One example would be in assignment 2 where I didn’t at all properly sight any of the references I pulled from the article. I just forgot the correct way of doing it, but I was able to fix it within the next paper. Another example would just be my grammar. Due to my not really having an interest in writing, I never really cared to learn grammar better. Which actually ends up hurting me because I don’t catch my mistakes, which occur often in my papers. The next part is Oral. I would say I am decent at oral presentations. However, I know there are still different things I can do to improve. I know that sometimes I end up mumbling a little throughout my speeches or I don’t speak clearly enough. So those are two things that I need to focus on and try to fix that for the future. Otherwise, I feel like I can talk loud and clearly for the most part, as well as get my main point out to everybody who is listening.
Visuals is another section of W.O.V.E. Which is actually one of my stronger areas. Visuals relate a lot back to my major and what I do for a living, so I know how to both create them, and make them better at the same time. As well as find visuals that will help enhance a presentation or paper. Such as the visuals I included in my Ghost Throughout Time presentation. I used photos that would help support the topic I was trying to describe within each slide. Electronic is another part that I also feel strong in. I have created a few different online portfolios before so this isn’t my first one. I’m actually building another online graphic design portfolio for one of my other classes right now as well. This E-portfolio is an example of how I can create a user-friendly website that is both easy to follow and look at. As well as being simple and not overly complicated.
This semester I have learned a lot about my strengths and weaknesses. With the different types of assignments that we were given, I was able to learn and work on the different parts of W.O.V.E that I really needed help in.