Good Essay About Portfolio

Portfolios are meant to be the collective grand total of all the work that you have accomplished. It’s meant to be something that is presented to professors, colleges, bosses, or prospective clients as a means of letting them have visual evidence of the work that you are capable of. While this is obviously highly beneficial to them, it is also of great value to oneself as you are able to look at your work and truly inspect it and find those solid pieces that you believe exemplify the best work that you have done thus far. It offers a moment to teach yourself and to grow as an individual. Looking at a handful of aspects, one can really breakdown their strengths and their weaknesses and allow for mass amounts of improvement.
After noticing the patterns in my work I was able to reread my pieces and really acknowledge what I’ve learned. Firstly, organization is key to ensuring that things flow smoothly from one point to the next. Second, being direct is helpful and saves time. Third, research on a topic is helpful as it makes you more knowledgeable, but it also requires more work when it comes time to citing and giving credit. Reading for both comprehension and understanding are vital! Proofreading more than one time can save you from making very basic errors. Simply spellchecking something, doesn’t make it perfect.
As a whole I think my writing has greatly improved. I’m more aware of sentence structure and how too many words can simply be extraneous and unnecessary. I like to believe that my vocabulary has increased exponentially. I believe that I am better able to format my writing so that there is a logical flow from one idea to the next. I read things differently now, which is in turn reflected in my writing. I’m more direct, more succinct, and I write with much less clutter.
Looking at my pieces, I believe that I selected rather unique works. With “Study Abroad” I really wanted to place emphasis on all the positive aspects that come from students who engage in the program. I have always felt that the best way to learn anything about another country is to immerse yourself in their people, their food, their ideals, and their entire culture. “Online Dating” was an interesting piece because I had a friend who had a horrendous ordeal with it, and it really opened my eyes to all of the very real dangers that are out there. Online dating is so commonplace and every single person on the planet as access to it. While there are honest people out there, there are just as many who lie about everything that they are. “Advertising” was my favorite piece because I think I was able to be the most direct with the different aspects I was looking for. I was able to hone in and focus directly on the key elements that were things that I am affected by. I felt that, odds are, if they affected me in a certain way, they were bound to affect others similarly. Having said that, I do believe that “Advertising” is my strongest piece as I was so focused and very articulate and provided solid evidence to make my points. My weakest was perhaps “Online Dating” only because while there may be a lot of words in the paper, I don’t believe that the information flows as well as it should. I also feel I could go through and edit out a large amount of it to make it more compact and impactful.
The peer reviews were something that I both love and hate. I truly enjoy reading through my peer reviews because I love being able to take in and consider what other people think my strengths and weaknesses are. I’m able to focus on the ones that I agree with and really try to build upon them. However, I dislike having to do them for others, because I always know that much of the thoughts I am providing are purely my own thoughts and opinions. I don’t like the idea that I’m trying to force what I think is right on someone else. But I do believe that when used properly, I was able to benefit from them and help my writing and reading comprehension.
I came into the class wanting to really learn something and I believe that I have. I met all the class expectations and did my best to exceed them. My goal was to not simply settle for bare basic assignments, but to turn in works that surpassed what I believed was expected of me. Going forward, with these new skills and my increased vocabulary, I plan on tackling new classes and future writing assignments head on with confidence and clarity.