Welcome to my blog! This eportfolio is built with the idea of showcasing the work that I have complete in the Engl 470 class at Longwood University.
A Little About Myself
I am a Junior at Longwood University, studying for my undergraduate degree in English with a concentration in Rhetoric and Professional writing. I do some freelance journalism for blastingnews.com and on the weekends commute to Richmond to work at a local Home Depot. When I first arrived at Longwood I was a business major but switched majors at the beginning of sophomore year and personally feel like the English program is a much better fit for me. While taking the professional writing course in particular I have felt like I have learned many more skills that will improve me as a person and as a prospective employee while pursuing this concentration.
Portfolio Content
Throughout this portfolio will be projects that were worked on by myself individually or in a group as assigned by the instructor. This includes things like the correspondence project, the brochure project, the press release, and finally the formal report.
The correspondence consist of two parts, the bad news and good or persuasive news letter. I found this assignment interesting for several reasons. The first being coming in to this course I had no prior knowledge about the finer points and inner working of delivering news in a professional manner and had never even given it a thought. While the good/bad letters are a simple place to start learning and practicing the methods of delivering information in a constructive matter is both enlightening and fun.
The brochure project is perhaps the project that I am most proud of to have had a hand in during this semester’s course. Not only was practicing those designs principles and receiving feedback upon them one of the more practical and applicable assignments given I am very pleased with the overall outcome of the brochure. It is not perfect but I feel is a solid foundation to build upon for future similar undertakings.
The next project, the press release, was an immensely timely and fruitful project. While completing the press release it taught some of the basics for news reporting which was helpful for at the time I had just started writing for online news media. The assignment was overall short but highly instructional and as its tied to the brochure project I am equally proud of it.
The formal report, the final project undertaken during the course was a behemoth. While it was a group project it is to date the longest written document I have authored. All that being said the skills acquired during completion and the knowledge of the basic structure of how to format a formal report is one of the most valuable things I have learned while attending Longwood University. The report, totaling over 20 pages took weeks to complete and many long meetings with my co-authors to finalize for submission. At times while frustrating it also turned into a passion to produce the best work possible and really understand the fundamentals of formatting such a document and what it would take to complete something similar in the future.