A Letter from the Editor

To my fellow bloggers and rhetoricians alike-

At the beginning of the semester, my class made a list of wishful goals we as students had hoped to accomplish over the time spent in class and through the work we would complete. Goals of growth and confidence as a writer and editor were the admiration of most, and I can say with confidence that those goals were met and far exceeded for myself. With each unit and assignment, I was challenged as a rhetorician and a student to perform to my highest ability and to push my work to be the best it could be. It is my hope that this portfolio will be a reflection of all that I have learned and accomplished.

When designing my portfolio, I knew that I wanted to organize my work into sections. I felt as though it made the most sense to have my assignments grouped together as they were on the syllabus; in my opinion, it would also showcase how each worked together if they were functioning under the same subgroup. This is where the titles of "Scientific and Technical Writing", "Political Rhetoric and Public Policy", and "Daily Persuasions" came from. They were the different themes we gave each part of the semester in class, ultimately ending in our cornerstone project, the Wikipedia article. 

After deciding this is how I would organize  my homepage, I decided it would be most visually appealing and user friendly to keep the page as simple and easy to navigate as possible. Cluttering the toolbar with different page tabs and assignments looked messy and unprofessional. I got lost trying to navigate my own page that way and it is for that reason I decided to only link my assignments to each title page. It made them easy to locate and reference, as well as cleaned up the overall look of the portfolio. 

I am pleased with how the design of my portfolio turned out and with the edits I chose to make. I truly took the comments and suggestions given to me to heart, and tried to read my own work with the unbiased transparency we worked for in editing the work of others. Though some were more significant than others, these edits  were an attempt to strengthen each piece showcased in the portfolio. 

In choosing the work I would include in each section, I wanted to create a carousel of progress, a visualization of where I started as a writer and where I ultimately ended in the class. This chronological decision  helped me select work from each unit of study to edit and then showcase as my best in each field. Though at one point, each assignment stood and functioned independently, it was really interesting to see how much improved they became after being edited to work within these groups. The blogs included introduced us to each theme, while the short assignments elaborated and complicated these ideals and the larger project capitalized on them. The arrangement and assignments helped to create a kind of stasis pattern for the portfolio; working from a foundation definitions upwards towards theory and claims of change. Fahnstock and Secor rooted their theory of stasis in creating and developing an argument, and though this portfolio is not an argument entirely, it does function to defend the work I have accomplished this semester and advocate for the growth and maturity reached as a writer. Each assignment is used to build off of one another, from inside each section and to connect to work in others. I think this exemplifies the kind of working and thinking we had done all semester. 

I wouldn't have been able or prepared for the demands and responsibility of this class in any earlier semester of my time as an undergraduate. This allowed me to foster a focus for this class and gave me the opportunity to grow the most this semester. As you navigate through each section and assignment, I hope that my portfolio is able to function well together and expand upon these ideas of discovery in a new and creative way. 

Sincerely

Jenn Gaudreau