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About Me | Written | Oral | Visual | Electronic | Final Reflection
Introductory Statement
As I look back at salvaged writing assignments from previous years, I kindle mixed emotions. Containing ridiculous and incorrect procedures, my old compositions stoke laughter and at the same time make me cringe. My former writing approach was childish and had little structure. It seems that I wrote my essays with no purpose other than to situate meaningless words on paper. Today, after completion of several high school composition courses, English 150 and 250 here at Iowa State University, I now realize the art and seriousness of writing and communicating. In these classes, I demonstrated preparedness and exhibited high effort on a daily basis. Hard work and dedication was put into every assignment. I can no longer compose a straight forward and unexciting piece. Instead, I feel compelled to write an artful piece.
Throughout the courses of my 1st and 2nd semester at Iowa State University and taking English 150 and 250, I developed and learned several new skills. An ability that I acquired was the understanding and near mastery of MLA citing. Now I know how to cite information the correct way to avoid plagiarism and give credit where it is due. I have strengthened my editing and revision skills since the beginning of the semester. In this class, I learned and practiced ways for effectively communicating in several different formats. The first format was writing. I completed 4 major writing assignments. These assignments helped etch me into a more sophisticated writer, reader, and researcher. The next format was oral communication. In class, I was able to practice orally communicating with small groups and in front of the class. Another format was visual communication. For the fifth major assignment and a few minor assignments, I created PowerPoint presentations. These assignments showed my strength with visual communication. Although I am not very artistic, I believe communicating in the visual realm is one of my strong suits. By giving presentations, these assignments also gave me an opportunity to practice oral communication. The last format was electronic communication. Creating an ePortfolio website was our final assignment.
Though I have come a long way with my communication skills in the written, oral, visual, and electronic realms, there is still room for improvement. I am dedicated and excited to continue to learn and progress my skills. In the future, I will take English 314 and continue to practice and develop my skills in order to attain my goals.