Hi, I'm Melissa
I created this weebly as a portfolio for my class, ENGL 280: The Journalistic Essay. If you would like to read some of my work outside of class, I have a blog about hard rock and metal: http://metalosophy.wordpress.com/.
Midterm
The two posts from my journalism blog that I included are "Understanding the Vocabulary of Carpentry" and "Book Club 2: The Intelligence of Plumbing". I chose to include these two because you can see how my writing improved in my post about carpentry from my post about plumbing. In my post on the carpentry chapter, I chose specific details to praise or criticize and came up with a better post title.
The first article I have included is my profile on my roommate Kelly: "Just Another Ordinary Kinkster". I revised it by trying to show more of Kelly's story in connection to the kink community rather than write an educating aticle. In order to do this, I asked Kelly to go more in depth about certain aspects of her kink life and removed a paragraph that was mostly education based.
I have also included my "Talk of the Campus" article: "A Welcome Controversy?". The revision I made was to include more details on how the decision about the controversy was made. The other change I made was to give a little more background on who was challenging the tradition.
So far, my writing has improved in that I now write more about people than things. This makes my articles more interesting to read. Before this class, that tended to be my main problem. That being said, I think there is room for improvement. As a writer I think I am good at being open to writing about anything and have the ability to choose interesting subjects.
Final
The two posts I chose this time were "Serving in Florida Reaction" and "Bringing it All Together". I chose Serving in Florida because unlike my other posts it had to do with a different reading besides Book Club. I was able to make connections to the material that I was reading and analyze the method in which Ehrenreich gathered her information. I chose "Bringing it All Together" because it is exactly what it sounds like. I talked about the ending of The Mind At Work and was able to give reasons for why I prefered the end half of the book.
I wrote my first feature article on my sister Serena who is a makeup mistress for her high school drama club. The changes I made to this feature included visuals of her work to give the reader an idea of what I was discussing. I also made her age clearer so that the reader could get a better idea of what Serena is like and understand what level she is working at.
My second feature piece was on a local metal band, My Missing Half. The changes I made were to include pictures of the band members so that readers could put a face to the names. I also altered my wording in some situations to make certain details understandable to readers who may not have experience with musicians or local music.
This semester, my writing has improved in much the same way I mentioned in my introduction for the midterm. Additionally, I have tried to make my articles more accessible to audiences with different levels of experience as I did with the My Missing Half feature. At the same time I do not focus to heavily on educating the reader as I had done with my profile on my roommate Kelly. As a writer I think I have an ability to focus on different interesting subjects. I enjoy this because I get to learn about things I'm curious about and I in turn inform my readers.
Midterm
The two posts from my journalism blog that I included are "Understanding the Vocabulary of Carpentry" and "Book Club 2: The Intelligence of Plumbing". I chose to include these two because you can see how my writing improved in my post about carpentry from my post about plumbing. In my post on the carpentry chapter, I chose specific details to praise or criticize and came up with a better post title.
The first article I have included is my profile on my roommate Kelly: "Just Another Ordinary Kinkster". I revised it by trying to show more of Kelly's story in connection to the kink community rather than write an educating aticle. In order to do this, I asked Kelly to go more in depth about certain aspects of her kink life and removed a paragraph that was mostly education based.
I have also included my "Talk of the Campus" article: "A Welcome Controversy?". The revision I made was to include more details on how the decision about the controversy was made. The other change I made was to give a little more background on who was challenging the tradition.
So far, my writing has improved in that I now write more about people than things. This makes my articles more interesting to read. Before this class, that tended to be my main problem. That being said, I think there is room for improvement. As a writer I think I am good at being open to writing about anything and have the ability to choose interesting subjects.
Final
The two posts I chose this time were "Serving in Florida Reaction" and "Bringing it All Together". I chose Serving in Florida because unlike my other posts it had to do with a different reading besides Book Club. I was able to make connections to the material that I was reading and analyze the method in which Ehrenreich gathered her information. I chose "Bringing it All Together" because it is exactly what it sounds like. I talked about the ending of The Mind At Work and was able to give reasons for why I prefered the end half of the book.
I wrote my first feature article on my sister Serena who is a makeup mistress for her high school drama club. The changes I made to this feature included visuals of her work to give the reader an idea of what I was discussing. I also made her age clearer so that the reader could get a better idea of what Serena is like and understand what level she is working at.
My second feature piece was on a local metal band, My Missing Half. The changes I made were to include pictures of the band members so that readers could put a face to the names. I also altered my wording in some situations to make certain details understandable to readers who may not have experience with musicians or local music.
This semester, my writing has improved in much the same way I mentioned in my introduction for the midterm. Additionally, I have tried to make my articles more accessible to audiences with different levels of experience as I did with the My Missing Half feature. At the same time I do not focus to heavily on educating the reader as I had done with my profile on my roommate Kelly. As a writer I think I have an ability to focus on different interesting subjects. I enjoy this because I get to learn about things I'm curious about and I in turn inform my readers.
