Dallon J.

Cooper

Portfolio Introduction & Analysis

In this paper I will show my progression as a writer throughout the semester. I will
first describe three concrete ways in which my writing has improved during the length of
the course. I will explain how I will apply this knowledge that I have learned in the class
to future classes in my collegiate career. I will then identify and discuss which writing
skills and concepts I would like to improve in my continued career at the University.
I will first describe three concrete ways in which my writing has improved
throughout the semester in this course. In the first part of the semester it felt like it was
more difficult to take articles and papers and group them together to form my own
paper. Having the Annotated Bibliography, the Synthesis #2, and the Contribution Paper
really helped my organizational skills for these papers. Another example would be just
how I feel like getting the feedback from one paper to the next really helps me know
who my audience is and the type of verbiage that I should try to use that way my papers
are tailored to a specific audience. Additionally, having the feedback from classmates
and from getting a second and third chance to look over my past work really helped me
see times where my grammar was a little off or where I might have been a little unclear
even though I thought I was being clear.
I have described three concrete ways in which my writing has improved
throughout the semester and now I will explain how I will attempt to apply this
knowledge that I have learned to future classes at the University. I will always try to
incorporate this knowledge into my future classes, the organization techniques,
targeting particular audiences, research skills, research tools that are at my disposal

Portfolio

etc. This class I feel like helps give young writers the basic tools to enter University level
writing with a head start, kind of like before you learn how to swim getting little arm
floats. The course really gives students a base to build on the further into their
coursework they get.
I have explained how I would apply the knowledge that I learned in this writing
class to future classes I might take at the University and now I will identify and discuss
the writing skills and concepts that I would like to progress while Im at the University.
One thing in my writing that I would really like to improve is my ability to interpret
arguments from complex philosophical papers that I have to read, that would be very
useful. Having the ability to understand there argument would be very beneficial to
being in my department. An additional piece that I would like to improve on is my ability
to form counter arguments and objections to arguments that I agree with. They say the
best way to argue for your point of view is to attempt to argue from the other side as
well and that is a skill that I would like to work on. Last, I would like to generally develop
my analytic skills in order to get to the level of analysis that is required for my major in
philosophy.
In conclusion, I have shown my progression as a writer throughout the semester.
I first described three concrete ways in which my writing has improved during the length
of the course. I explained how I will apply this knowledge that I have learned in the class
to future classes in my collegiate career. I then identified and discussed which writing
skills and concepts I would like to improve in my continued career at the University.