Introduction
I am a United States Army personnel who is also a senior in the 2nd year post-University course. My ultimate goal in life is to receive a management degree (MBA) and then seek a retirement from the United States Army. I have been serving the United States Army for almost 8 years and now I aspire to lead a normal family man’s life after attaining my MBA and grabbing some suitable job in a managerial profile. As I have already lived a life of staying away from the family for most of the times during my US army service tenure, I am eagerly looking forward to a future which has adequate time for me and my family. My further dreams in life comprise of having a family of my own and a sweet house in Alabama. The family which I always aspire to is supposed to have me, my wife, and three children. The children ought to be two boys and one girl. This course is a crucial step in my academic career because it is an important phase of development of my communication skills, specifically written communication. I am very sure that all my learning and values gained via this syllabus will play a critical role in defining my success as a management professional later in my career. This essay aims at developing a portfolio of all my works done as assignments during the course and it also assess the various aspects of those works in determining how they turned up being my highest and least scoring assignments.
Comparing and contrasting my strengths in the two essays
The Patriot act, the assignment in which got the highest grade, is a well- structured argumentative essay. This work has a neatly schematized flow of arguments to explain how the act came into existence and how its implementation causes the desired impact. On the other hand, the assignment with the lowest grade, a Retrieved Reformation, has some minor flaws in explicating the logical flow of the narrative that needs to be described in it. There is also a literal flaw in the logical transitions of the ideas expressed in the essay and this leads to an emotional disconnect with the true fictional value of the reviewed work. Thus, the comparison of both of the works in the current portfolio can be evaluated on the basis of above-mentioned aspects.
Reflection on the first essay
I have received the lowest grade score of 165/200 for the assignment, a Retrieved Reformation. There are three reasons for which I have received this grade. Firstly, the work is merely using the summary of the actual narrative without using any logical interpretations (evident from the use of only story related sentences and no other insight). Secondly, the work has too much redundant use of pronouns which makes it a dull and stereotype summary with no reviews (evident from the use of too much ‘He’ for the protagonist). Finally, there was no logical transition in ideas from one part of the assignment to another (evident from poor sentence connection use).
The only evident strength in this work was the intended focus on summarizing the story, but this strength acted against the work because it made this assignment a mere summary and not a critical insight. This is evident from the way this assignment begins, “This an act of the law passed by the national congress”. I have learned that the narrative essay should be reviewed by using critical insights from the writer and not only by plainly summarizing the facts of the story. I have taken this fact for further improvement that the use of perfect logical transition of ideas from one sentence to another is an important aspect of the efficient writing.
Reflection on the second essay
I have received the lowest grade score of 200/200 in the assignment, The Patriot Act. There are three reasons for which I have received this grade. Firstly, the work uses a neatly schematized flow of arguments that are sequentially arranged to get the desired stand (evident from the beginning from the origin of the act and then the timeline of events followed it). Secondly, the work has a perfect logical transition of ideas and posed arguments (evident from the description of the core ideals behind the formation of act followed by the ways they were framed in it). Finally, there is use of adequate quotations and practical issues that came up with the implementation of the act (evident in the use of Robert Kennedy’s quote regarding freedom of speech).
The core strength of this work is the use of logical arguments regarding origin, implementation and concerned issues that came up for The Patriot act. This is evident from the way this assignment begins, “This is a story about a burglar turned businessman”. From this assignment, I have learnt that an argumentative essay should always have clear articulation of the posed arguments so as to clearly convey the writer’s stance. I have taken this fact for further improvement that a chronological (timeline based) transition of ideas from one sentence to another is very important aspect of the effective writing.
