Dear Dr. K,

I glad that I finally get to write a narrative paper, one thing I’ve missed while being in this class. I’ve learned a lot about argumentative papers-- how to identify claims, assumptions, etc. I was aggravated at the beginning of the semester with this class because of all the new writing styles I was being introduced to. However, I’m glad I was encouraged to step out of the fundamental style of writing narrative papers, though I still feel it is my best kind of writing.

At the beginning of the semester, I was writing my papers in narrative form and simply just summing up what an article was about. Eventually, after getting a numerous amount of Us on my papers, I began focusing on why an editor or author wrote the things he/she wrote, where their reasoning came from, where the claim(s) came from, how djd they make their approach, what issues inspired their work, and how accountable was the credibility of the sources in their work? I learned that there is so much more to writing a paper than just telling what it’s about. I’m a bit traumatized in some ways because every time I read something or watch a television show I end up analyzing the undercover work of the book or movie production. I began asking the question how, when, where, why, what inspired this, why is it important and so on.

Approaching the end of this semester I began to notice that papers became easier. I began to write more critically and learned how to approach an argumentative paper in more than one way—Rogerian, Classical, etc. I now understand why there are so many different persuasion strategies. It reminds me of when I want money from my father and I automatically turn into "Daddy’s little girl" in order to get at least a dollar, but when I ask my brother or grandma for money, I just ask for the money. Unlike my daddy, I have to beat around the bush and add a little more to the story! So, I realize that I have to take different approaches to persuasion when dealing with large audiences.

Some strategies I took when writing my portfolio papers were approaching my claims more critically, giving more concrete examples about my topic, and finding more sources to back up my claims. In my first paper ‘Trend Setter" I had to clarify some of my examples. For instance, I used De Morgan’s Law as an example to show how slang is a short cut way of conversing, but the word choice I used did not interest my audience, particularly because everyone is not familiar with math terminology. To clarify my example, I used other words that my professor and audience could understand. I also had to expand on some ideas and explain them thoroughly. In my paper I stated a sentence "This expression of slang is not made up to be a secret code for carjacking, robbery, or murder, it’s simply a short cut way of communicating." This sentence was originally a conclusion sentence for a paragraph, but I ended up expanding on the idea-- giving more details and reasons on why I feel slang is beneficial in being a short cut. Even though the paper was okay I still had to make a few expansions and developing 0 ideas, grammatical changes and revision of subject verb agreement in order to make my thesis clearer.

Paper number three, which I included in my portfolio, is about cheating in schools. My main problem with this paper was my misconception of the meaning of fallacy and claim. Our assignment was to read an article in the newspaper and argue the fallacy of the paper- the weaknesses of how the claim was approached, and how it went about, negatively or positively, in convincing the audience. The first change I made was to get the understanding of the difference between a fallacy and a claim. After I did that I pointed out some opinions in the article that were weak in convincing reasons why cheating hurts all students, not just the cheaters. I also pointed out some bad comparisons that took away from the author’s point of view. The only chief change I made with this paper was to critically argue against the fallacies of the article and express a new strategy that should have been used in presenting the claim.

In paper number five I really did not have to make many changes, except for revising a few grammatical errors. I put a lot of hard work in this paper, and the hard work paid off. I took my audience in consideration before I decided which type of argument I was going to use. I found many sources to support my claim about why animals are being killed more than before. I used better word choice, and I also created a lengthy paper without having to ramble and maize up unnecessary details. There is not really too much I have to say about paper five because it was a great paper. I guess this paper is truly an example of how much improvement I made dining the course of this semester.

I hope in future classes, I will continue to use the techniques I learned in this class to my advantage on other papers.

Sincerely,

Maggie Simpson