Dear Neil,

Welcome to my writing portfolio! This portfolio contains my best work of the two

writing projects I have been working on throughout the quarter. In Writing Project One, I

translated an academic article, regarding academic burnout, to a recipe titled “Academic Burnout

in Adolescents.” This step by step recipe entails how students become burnt out due to

academics as well as how to overcome this burnout. In Writing Project Two, I wrote a script

detailing a discourse community of writers at a cocktail party. Throughout the cocktail party, the

writers discuss the main character’s most recent work on writer’s burnout and how to overcome

this. Both of these projects have made significant progress from their initial state and I am

excited to share them with you.

While writing WP1, I had a really hard time translating my academic article into a recipe.

It was so difficult for me that I was considering changing my genre because I felt like there was

no way I could do better. After turning in a rough first draft, I was very grateful for the useful

and informative feedback that I was given from my peers. For example, one of my peers

explained how I could write about a recipe on how to get academic burnout instead of

summarizing the experiment given in my academic article. This comment made me realize the

potential I had for my recipe translation and inspired me to not change my genre. Using the

advice given by my peers, I rewrote WP1 and this time excluded academic jargon making the

recipe more susceptible to a greater audience. After turning in my second draft of WP1, I was

given incredibly helpful feedback from the teacher revisions. For instance, I decided to make the

pictures in my recipe bigger so they were easier to understand and look at. I also realized how

vague my ingredient list was and split it into two parts making it a lot easier to read. Not only

that, but I made the measurement of each ingredient very precise based on how it would change
the behavior of a person. These formatting changes greatly enhanced my piece and made me

realize that writing is quite a long process. The main changes made in these final drafts included

excluding academic jargon and changing the format of the piece to make it more similar to my

chosen genre.

While writing WP2, I felt a lot more confident upon submitting my first and second draft.

In this project, I chose to write a script detailing the conversation held at a cocktail party. Since

the tone was conversational and informal, I had an easier time perfecting my work and creating

my drafts. During this process, I found that the teacher's feedback was very helpful and made me

realize the flaws in my draft that I had not seen before. For example, the order of the points

discussed in the conversation did not make sense logically and after reading the feedback I was

given it was easier to see the mistakes and fix them. I decided to open up the conversation with

everyone giving their personal definition of writer’s block because it would set the tone and

make it easier for the reader to understand the main point. Furthermore, I added personal

experiences to each of the characters in order to make the conversation more lively and

interesting. Finally, I added in a bit of bickering and friendly argument in order to make the piece

engaging. Adding emotion to the conversation made the piece more realistic and allowed for

more one on one interaction between the characters. Therefore the main changes made in these

final drafts include changing the order of events discussed, adding personal experiences, and

incorporating emotion.

During this quarter, I have grown immensely as a writer. One thing that has contributed to

this growth includes turning in multiple drafts of the same project and receiving helpful

feedback. Without this feedback I would have not been able to grow as a writer and understand

the flaws in my pieces. When I first began this class, I believed that the definition of writing was
a way to express one’s feelings and this could be seen through journaling. However as I

progressed through this class, I realized that writing is a process and in order to become a better

writer one must write/revise multiple drafts. In Ann Lamot’s article titled “Shitty First Drafts” I

learned that “writing is not rapturous” and “the only way to get anything written is to write really

shitty first drafts” (Lamot). I took this advice when writing my drafts for WP1 and it helped me

overcome writer’s block as well as be productive while writing. Not only that but it pushed me to

carefully revise my final drafts or as Lamot calls them “dental drafts” (Lamot). Moreover, in

order to become a better writer one must be able to accept critical feedback and use this to

improve their writing. In Lennie Irvin’s article titled “Changing Your Mindset about Revision”

he points out that it is important to receive feedback because it allows us to see the bigger picture

and provide an outside perspective. This outside perspective helps us identify the areas of

improvement. I used this form of revision quite often in both of my writing projects and it helped

me not only improve my drafts but grow as a writer.

As a writer, a few of my strengths include summarizing readings and taking critical

feedback into consideration. For example, when we were given assigned readings during this

quarter I would read the articles carefully and summarize what I was reading into a Google

Document. This allowed me to understand the main points of the article and effectively

participate in class. Similarly, while writing both WP1 and WP2, I heavily relied on critical

feedback in order to improve my writing projects. Having another person read my work helped

me detect the weak spots in my writing which was very useful while writing my final drafts.

On the other hand, a few weaknesses that I have as a writer is writing meaningful

feedback to my peers and accurately comprehending dense academic articles. Although I love

receiving feedback on my papers it was quite difficult for me to reciprocate this feedback. I had a
hard time finding flaws in other people’s writing and did not feel qualified to write adequate

responses to my peers. In order to overcome this I took the advice of Ron DePeter in his article

“How to Write Meaningful Peer Response Praise.” In this article he emphasizes that it is

important to ask follow up questions and to join the argument whether you agree or not. This

allows the writer to examine more perspectives of their piece and create a successful final draft.

After reading this article, I knew exactly what to look for in other people’s writing and it was a

lot easier to give meaningful feedback. Additionally, when first entering this class I had a

difficult time comprehending dense academic articles. I felt overwhelmed when the font was

small and the length of the article was never ending. In order to overcome this I took the advice

of Karen Rosenberg in her article on “Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly

Sources.” In her article Rosenberg writes that it is important to look out for the abstract,

introduction, and section headings. After reading the abstract, which gave an executive summary

encapsulating the main point, I found it easier to dive into the academic article because I already

knew what the piece was about.

If I had more time in the class I would try to read more academic articles in order to

enhance my reading comprehension. After taking this class I realized that reading dense articles

has helped me grow as a writer because it forces me to identify the main points. Another thing I

would do if I had more time in this class is to continue translating genres. Upon entering this

class I had an extremely hard time translating WP1. As mentioned earlier I found the feedback

very helpful and I believe it has helped me grow and become a better writer.

Altogether, this class has been extremely helpful and I feel much more confident as a

writer. I have taken away several key points this quarter including writing multiple drafts,

revising, and writing meaningful feedback to others. I enjoyed this course a lot and have learned
several new concepts pertaining to writing. Thank you so much for all of your helpful feedback

and making me a better writer. Have a wonderful spring break!

Sincerely,

Audrey Yoh
Works Cited

1. Lammot, Anne. “Shitty First Drafts.” Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and

Life, New York: Pantheon, 1994

2. Rosenberg, Karen. “Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources.” Writing

Spaces: Readings on Writing Volume 2, edited by Charles Lowe and Pavel, WAC

Clearinghouse, 2011

3. DePeter, Ron. “How to Write Meaningful Peer Response Praise.” Writing Spaces:

Readings on Writing Volume 3, Parlor Press, 2020

4. Irvin, Lennie. “Changing Your Mindset about Revision.” Writing Spaces, 2023,

writingspaces.org/changing-your-mindset-about-revision/.