Jonah Yonker

Steffen Guenzel
Honors Composition II
4/26/16
In Honors Composition II, I feel that I achieved the course outcomes. I now have a much stronger
understanding of what rhetoric is, and the sheer number of situations that can be viewed as rhetorical. I
learned that in academic writing, not every piece needs to be ground-breaking. I learned that evidence
and sourcing are paramount at every step of writing, and that value statements hold very little water when
it comes to academic writing. Through collaboration, I learned that having a wide variety of people look at
your writing can be hugely beneficial, and when they have to do similar writing their input becomes even
more valuable. I realized that I tend to automatically look for lower-order concerns when editing someone
elses paper, and that I have to train myself to focus on higher-order concerns when that is what is asked
of me. I also came to the realization that I need to take breaks between editing different peoples papers,
because I get confused as to whether or not theyve already included their sources when editing papers
back-to-back. I learned various techniques involving rhetoric that I can use to strengthen my arguments,
such as looking at the context of a given situation, and the niche I could fill with an argument. I learned
that the kairotic moment is very important to any argument, as well as being able to reference outside
sources. I discovered that in academic writing, sourcing is paramount, and that every claim one makes
needs to be backed up with evidence. That being said, the evidence does not necessarily need to be from
ones own experimentation, and citing loads of outside sources is perfectly acceptable.
With regards to my critical thinking, reading, research, and writing skills, I had learned in other
classes to be wary of advertisements and to be skeptical of sources. In this class, however, we really
explored the nature of bias, and how even the most seemingly neutral of sources have elements of bias in
them. I learned how to critically evaluate sources in many ways, and to note how their biases affect what
they write. I still need to work on explaining the relevancy of any issues I write about, as well as explaining
the credibility of any sources I cite. One weak point I noticed with my research paper was that beyond
stating the occupation of my sources, I didnt really go into detail as to why they were credible. I wasnt
sure exactly what elements made them credible, and I need to do a better job in the future at exploring
the background of my sources in order to select the best ones possible. I will be able to use the concepts
I learned about rhetorical situations, evaluating sources, and developing persuasive arguments in both my
writing and my speaking beyond this class. Much of what we learned in this class applies to arguments in
general, rather than just written papers. I learned how to take into consideration the rhetorical situation in
any given argument, and how to use that to my advantage when constructing my own argument. Kairotic

moments in particular will be of great use to me, because I have never really considered the timeliness of
an argument before when constructing one.
Overall, my writing presented in my e-portfolio exemplifies the fact that I have achieved the
course goals for this class. I have developed flexible strategies for writing, having completed various
pieces in different genres, such as blog posts, a critical analysis, a research paper, discussion posts, and
other pieces. I have made great strides in sourcing my pieces, I am not confident in pulling sources from a
wide variety of genres and locations to aid in my arguments when writing. I have demonstrated mastery
over the research process, as is evidenced by the research paper I put together. I knew very little about
the subject I chose to write about going into the paper, and now I feel that I have demonstrated a working
understanding of each concept. I have even gone so far as to make recommendations about how to
protect against the various methods of attack that I researched, again showing that I understand how to
conduct fruitful research. My portfolio displays thoughtful awareness of my writing strategies in that it
contains a wide variety of genres that showcase the different strategies I use when approaching different
genres. For example, when it comes to rhetorical analysis, I try to follow a point-quote structure, making a
claim about the author within the context of the work that I am analyzing, and then supporting that claim
with quotations and examples.
My work will continue in college as I study computer science and cybersecurity at UCF, and in my
career when I go into the field of cybersecurity. I plan on applying to the FBI cybersecurity division in order
to stop criminals from conducting cyberattacks. I benefitted from collaboration with my peers greatly, they
kept me in check with regards to overuse of technical terms, and their insight into how I could improve my
work proved invaluable throughout the writing process.