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Matt Coombs
Professor Cris Longhurst
English 1010
Apr 13, 2015
Reflective Cover Letter
Let me first thank you for choosing to view my portfolio. In my portfolio I have included
pieces that I feel demonstrate the skills that I have gained in my time at Salt Lake Community
College.
This particular section of my portfolio represents how English 1010 has helped me to
advance my writing skills. With my time in English 1010 I have gained a better understanding
of: effective communication, the use of different writing styles, correct grammar, and using peer
responses to strengthen my papers.
While in this class I have learned about genres, and I have gained strategies and
confidence that will help me to succeed with my future writing assignments.

When writing my reflective narrative I learned that in order to be an affective writer you
must not only know the purpose of which you are writing, but you need to know the
audience to which you are writing to.

Writing the formal summary I learned how to be an affective reader, and how to pick the
most important parts of a texted in order to better understand the text in its entirety.

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While writing my rhetorical analysis I learned how to properly analyze a source also
learned how to evaluate not only the author and their credentials, but the research as a
whole.
The papers that best show the skills I have gained during this class are the rough draft and

the final draft of my Rhetorical Analysis. In my rough draft I seemed to have dismissed the
purpose of the assignment. I basically just summarize the article, and I only praised what the
authors did. I did not have an affective thesis, and I primarily just gave examples of what the
authors did to get there points across, instead of giving my own thoughts on how the piece was
written.
The final draft however, with the help of peer feedback and a true analysis of my own
piece I saw many of the flaws and figured out the purpose of the assignment. I then changed my
thesis and very briefly summarized the article. Plus I added my thoughts of how the authors used
logos, ethos and pathos to communicate with the audience affectively. Also while reanalyzing
the authors article I saw certain things that the authors could have gone without in their piece.
I can clearly see how learning these strategies and gaining the skills I have from this class
will help me in my future classes. I have a required writing assignment in all of my classes in
which I have already used some of the skills I learned in my Accounting class. I appreciate the
opportunity I have had to gain knowledge of proper writing techniques, and I intend to use these
techniques in many of my future endeavors.

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