Final portfolios, WRT 205-226, S03
Rebecca Moore Howard
Office: 239A HB Crouse
Office hours: By appointment
Telephone: 443-1083
E-mail: rehoward@syr.edu
Home page http://wrt-howard.syr.edu
Final portfolios
For your last assignment in WRT 205-226, you will revise one (or more, if you wish) of your three reports for the course.
Choose a report on which you can make substantial improvements in both prose style and research. If you can do your best work on prose style in one report and research in another, choose both.
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Your revisions should focus on (1) improving the research and (2) on improving the style. To decide on what revisions to make, take the following into account:
- What do you know now about research that you didn't know when you first submitted the report that you've chosen to revise?
- What do you think the report could accomplish if more thoroughly researched?
- What comments on prose style do you receive from your instructors?
- What issues in prose style do you most want to address in your work?
- What do you know about prose style now that you didn't know when you first submitted the report that you've chosen to revise?
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Write out your answers to each of these questions. If there are other questions that you consider important for your revising, add them and answer them.
A. Revising research
- Review the work you did on the Arnett or de Genova case. What do you know now about research that you didn't know before?
- Review the work that your classmates did on the Arnett and de Genova cases. What research techniques did they use that you would like to adopt for your revision of the report you've chosen to revise?
- Review chapters 46 and 47 of the Longman Companion, 2nd ed. (chapters 42 & 43 in the 1st ed.). What techniques are described there that you might employ in revising the research for the report you've chosen to revise?
- Review all three of your graded reports for this course. What suggestions have I made for improving your research techniques?
- Whose help (teacher, tutor, librarian, or others) will you need to make improvements to your research?
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B. Revising prose style
- Review all your graded papers, from this course and others. What issues of style do your readers mark on your papers? (For this project, we'll use the word style in its largest sense, to include editing (grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.) and rhetoric (organization, transitions, etc.).
- Think about your own composing process and your sense of yourself as a writer. What do you want to improve on?
- Review the preliminary revising list that the class generated for you on April 17. How many of these issues do you want to take up?
- Review the advice on your report that you received from classmates on April 22, 24, and 29. How much of this advice do you want to follow?
- When you've compiled a preliminary revising list for prose style, consult the pertinent sections of the Longman Companion. How well can you apply the instruction there to the revision of your own work?
- Whose help (teacher, tutor, librarian, or others) will you need to make improvements to your prose style?
Class instruction on April 22, 24, and 29 will focus on three prose style issues that we identified in class on April 17 as common concerns for many class members: commas, organization, and sentence style. Some class members may not have these as revising issues for the portfolio, and those who do will probably have some additional issues, as well.
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- A title page that includes your name, the date, the course name, and my name.
- Your revising list.
- An reflective explanation (a page or two might be all you'll need, but more is okay) of what revisions you have made and why. Be sure to mention whom you've consulted as you've done your revisions--me, classmates, roommates, librarians, tutors, family--whoever.
- Your revised report(s).
- The graded draft(s) of your report(s) before revision.
- Any other materials that you think would help me in reading your portfolio.
Provide labeled tabs so that I can navigate easily through the various parts of your portfolio.
Clamp or bind your portfolio. Don't submit it as loose pages or as pages inserted into the pockets of a folder. (A folder with clamps or brads is fine, though.)
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Give the hard-copy portfolio to my secretary by May 8, 2003. No electronic submissions.
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I won't be grading the quality of the revised text you submit. Rather, I'll be evaluating how well you can analyze your own work and how well you can revise it; I'll be grading your revising process. I'll evaluate your portfolio according to the following criteria:
- How comprehensively you have surveyed your instructors' comments on your prose style.
- How independently you have analyzed your prose style; i.e., are you merely looking to "correct" "mistakes" that I noted when I graded the report that you've chosen to revise, or are you taking charge of your writing and practicing your revising skills on this text?
- How judiciously you have chosen issues in prose style for revision.
- How well you have revised your prose style according to your own revising list.
- How comprehensively you have applied the research techniques taught in this course, particularly those addressed in the research on the Arnett and de Genova cases, to a re-visioning of the report you have chosen to revise.
- How well you can explain the revisions you have made and your reasons for them. I'm looking not so much for a catalogue of each change, but for your ability to identify and describe large issues in your writing, and your ability to locate specific instances of those issues in the text you are revising.
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If you turn in your portfolio with an envelope large enough to hold it, addressed to you, I'll mail it to you when I've graded it.
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Questions? Email me!
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http://wrt-howard.syr.edu/Syllabi/205S03.FinalPF.html