In this ePortfolio, I have covered four of the major assignments I completed in English 470 which were the correspondence packet, the brochure, the press release, and the formal report. I also discussed how they related to the six course outcomes. The six course outcomes are:
- Analyze and produce writing genres commonly found in the professional world.
- Create professional documents that use plain English (clear, concise, and grammatically correct).
- Conduct research to create content for a variety of professional documents
- Create professional documents that use design – standard formats, layout, use of graphics, etc.
- Practice oral communication skills to present content effectively (enhanced with multimedia tools).
- Participate productively in collaborative projects.
Applying each of these outcomes to the major assignments allowed me to strengthen my professional writing skills and practice genres of writing that are important no matter what field one goes into. In the field of speech-language pathology specifically, these assignments helped me practice skills and types of writing I will need to do all the time to be a successful speech-language pathologist (SLP). For example, I utilized plain English, which is part of outcome two, in each of these four assignments. As an SLP, I’ll have to put all documents I write into plain English because they will be shared with families and everyone who works with my clients. I will also have to use outcome six very often when I collaborate with other professionals who work with my client such as doctors, nurses, teachers, aides, physical therapists, occupational therapists, reading specialists, and many more. Overall, I used critical thinking skills with these four assignments to analyze how to create successful documents and how to communicate professionally, which will help me communicate in any workplace I choose.