Cover Letter for Portfolio

Troy Patterson
Dani Bowlden
Cover letter

    Dear Committee,
The pieces of writing I chose to include in my portfolio were, my annotated bibliography, rhetorical analysis, and my research paper. I chose these pieces because they represent all of the improvements that I have made in my writing this year in English 101. I have never felt that I was a good writer, until now. During high school many of my papers were written quickly just before they were due and I didn't achieve all that I could in the paper, usually getting B’s on the paper. I made a promise to myself that in college, things weren't going to work that way anymore. On the first major writing assignment, the rhetorical analysis, I spent a couple of days collecting all of my thoughts on the paper then editing it until I felt I had met all of the requirements and had a quality paper. After turning in the initial draft, I realized that spending more time on the paper had paid off because of the feedback I received. There were improvements that could be made but it was a very good start. Because of this I learned a lesson for the rest of my college career; spending more time on my papers will get me a better grade. I believe my portfolio should earn an A for its grade because of the time and effort that I put into each of the assignments which developed them into quality papers as well as developed my writing skills.
    As the semester progressed, so have my writing skills. I learned what my strengths and weaknesses were and with each assignment I improved on my weaknesses. I learned that when I made a claim, it wasn't good enough to leave it at that. I had to find reliable sources that could back up what I was saying and cite them correctly. On my annotated bibliography I had improvements to make that were easy enough to correct and I was commended for my efforts.
    I decided to use my researched argument paper, writing assignment three, because I feel it was a stronger piece than writing assignment four and because I feel very strongly about the topics it is concerned with. My introduction on the first draft was not terrible but it wasn't the best either. I summarized a scene from the movie, “Man on Fire”, that exemplified the topics that my paper was going to be concerned about. I needed to revise my thesis because it wasn't very clear and I needed a better map of where I was going with my paper. In my conclusion I also parts to work on like explaining how the movie portrays the problem of veterans not having enough support when they return and what this entails. Afters looking at the peer reviews, I revised both of these parts of the paper and got excellent feedback from other peers.
    After this semester, I believe I am a proficient writer though I know that I have a lot to learn and a lot that I can improve upon. Going forward, I'm going to expand my knowledge on proper citations in different formants and different papers. I also want to improve my ability to edit and revise my own papers to improve efficiency all around. I also want to develop my ability to be more concise so the message I want to get across is received faster.

Happy Readings!
Troy Patterson