My name is Rachel Young, and this is a portfolio of some of my proudest work.

Portfolios are more than a collection of a person’s documents. They are a culmination of their proudest works. They aren’t such simple documents. They show a person’s growth and abilities.

Over the past semester, I have experienced a lot of growth as a writer. As a student, I had always considered myself adept at the art of writing; my ability to express myself through the written word had earned me to scores on all of the standardized tests, and I was fully satisfied. Not until my studies in my Advanced Writing and Editing course did I realize that composition fulfills a higher purpose- that of persuasion. This presented me and my writing skills with a dilemma. I could express myself in an eloquent manner, but when my writing served an actually purpose (rather than simply satisfying my inner hunger to write) I hesitated. How could I possibly use my writing to persuade? Would my diction and word choice be enough to effect the way another person thought? Soon in the semester, with the proper guidance, I would realize that this goal was realistic for a student like me.

                Writing for a public audience is a very nuanced and specific type of composition. All the decisions that seem to be simple assumptions are anything but- rather, they are calculated and purposeful. Acknowledging this fact was important for me in my transition from lackadaisical, entertaining writing to compositions for an elevated purpose. When writing for a business, it is critical to understanding how these small changes can affect an audience- in either a positive or negative manner.  Simply the layout or tone of your writing could cause certain people to lose interest and severely limit the amount of people who would obtain the message. This is bad for a business, unless the aforementioned ‘limited effect’ is desirable. These diminutive distinctions actually make a vast difference in the eyes of the audience, who may not even know they are being affected. 

A subject about which a writer is required to compose will often be one that the writer is unacquainted with. How do you make your audience genuinely care about a topic, that the author barely knows themselves? Jimmie M. Killingsworth, an English professor at Texas A&M University, understands this dilemma and has worked to help others overcome this. There must be at least one thing about a topic that the audience can relate to, and often that relation is ‘time’. Focusing on the fact that problems/issues being addressed are immediate and call for quick action is an effective way to make an audience move to action- for it is not something they can be laissez-faire about. Killingworth’s idea of time had helped me realize why I cared about topics that had recent events in the news, or why some companies went to great lengths to connect their cause to a current event. When an audience can see a problem come to life, it extends a paper’s argument into another dimension. Learning how this was a turning point in my understanding of composing for a public audience.

I had many revelations such as that, but understanding theories is just one small part of composing. The readings that I was given helped me to understand the inner workings of rhetoric- how words affect and audience and why- but my real expertise came from practicing the theories in real time. The opportunities to prove myself- that I could take one a writing task delegated to me by a superior- was offered multiple times during the semester. I took these opportunities as a challenge, to utilize my knowledge to create pieces that no longer resembled the work of my younger years, but represented myself as a creative and insightful writer.  All of these pieces now reside here, in my portfolio. 

To change my writing was to change the entire way my brain thought. I was fortunate enough to be able to distinguish three trends in my new compositions, which I used as categories listed near the top of this page. One of these sections explored the value of stases; which are, in the simplest of terms, the question that is answered by a text (questions of fact, definition, value, or questions of policy). Stases, as one of the most significant discoveries I had during the semester, merited their own category. Building upon the idea of stases, I focused on the collaboration of public arguments. Focusing on political debates and corporate texts helped me understand the rhetorical effectiveness of (sometimes jarring) techniques. Being able to write is nothing without being able to read analytically, which helped me see the reasons and situations behind certain rhetorical decisions. Finally, the culmination of my work resulted in a study of editing and collaboration. This combined many of my previous discoveries, but also showed me that not one person is flawless. Even work that I perceive as a beautiful and flawless could only be made better by the addition of multiple points of view. To view any texts that explore these topics, feel free to click around the aforementioned links.

My Advanced Writing and Editing class has made me feel more secure in my ability to write for people other than myself. Hopefully, in my future I will be able to use this newfound ability to further something that I truly believe in.