Nicholas Milem

Ms. Ingram
UWRT 1102
4/19/15
Final Portfolio Essay
Throughout this course my writing skills have improved, mainly through the involvement
of my writing being subject to review by multiple members of my class as well as being
reviewed by my instructor. Overall from the beginning of my work on my research topic all the
way towards the conclusion and the preparation of my e-portfolio, and subsequently my final
portfolio essay I have constantly been improving and revising my work after receiving feedback
upon it and after comparing my works to others, especially when the works are correlating with
my research topic. Each of the pieces of work involved in my e-portfolio have been selected
either by showing how my work has progressed, my writing in other course, and finally, but
most importantly, how my style and skill as a writer has improved since the beginning of the
year.
My ability to compile research and transfer this information into a coherent essay that can
convey my found information from my topic as well as address the argument at hand has grown
monumentally since the beginning of the course. Subsequently my writing skills in my other
courses have grown as a direct result from studying and improving on my writing techniques,

especially when dealing with projects that require independent research. One such project that
required a substantial amount of research and formulating raw date into a coherent essay that
conveys my point, the assignment labeled, Hunger Games Assignment is an excellent example
of applying what I have learned in this class to others. This assignment, for my liberal studies
2214 class involved the research and the study of food prices, as well as the ability to purchase
these foods on programs such as SNAP and EBT. The document contains my research gathered
from two respective points of data, as well as the net data derived from this research to base my
studies off of. This aspect of my progression in my writing career had a huge impact mainly due
to the process of having to revise my research and essentially restart my study to adapt to the
difficulties found. However once I began planning my menu and visiting the stores I had to
make necessary adjustments in order to fulfill the price boundaries set for the project., This
quote, from my direct work showcases the hurdles I faced when dealing with research that did
not go like I initially anticipated it would go. However, I had to step back, address the issue and
acknowledge what I needed to change in order to formulate my research into the argument I
needed to make. Where this piece of evidence may seem rather insignificant, it has provided me
with ample amount of opportunity to evaluate and learn from my mistake, further teaching
myself how to deal with problems, should they arise, in my research.
Another piece of my e-portfolio that has shown my progression as a writer, as well as a
part of the writing process is the artifact titled, Science Lecture. This artifact, an assignment
that seemed taboo to me actually proved beneficial to my writing. Essentially by placing myself

in the place of a particular person who would be making an argument for my topic it allows me
to get a first person perspective to my argument. At first I was skeptical of the nature of this
assignment, mainly for the fact of creating a fictional scenario in which I had to argue my point
in a way that is applicable to my research and in a way that a person that may be lacking
knowledge in my particular topic can understand and decipher the information presented. The
assignment as a whole was not necessarily a major one; however I do value it as an important
part of my education in this class and a good effort to get outside of my comfort zone. For
example, Our study was actually conducted with college students who labeled themselves as
stressed or under emotional anxiety; we had the subjects take an initial test, recording their
emotional state, along with an interview with a phycologist prior to the experiment. Half of the
group was told to remain on campus and live their daily lives for a weekend and the other was
taken on a camping trip in mountains. Upon their return they met with the phycologist again and
took the test to show that the ones that had gone camping had a significant change in mood and
emotional behavior. this passage shows an attempt to give a first person perspective of the
topic, and would eventually evolve into what I would adopt as my style for writing my research
paper.
Also important to my writing process is my outline I created at the beginning of the
semester in order to organize my paper and plan out how my research paper would be written
and how my research will be organized. Throughout my writing process, especially at the
beginning, I referred to this document to help throughout writing my paper as it proved a useful
tool to keep my thoughts and my research on track in order to keep my paper clear and concise.

Using an outline is an important part of my writing process, I have utilized widely for many
different articles and works in my writing career. However I chose this piece of my writing
process to be a part of my e-portfolio as it has proved an invaluable tool to me when formulating
the min part of this course, the research paper itself. The outlines purpose to lay out tentatively
how my research paper will be written, I have included my topic, my thesis statement, three
main arguments, as well as my conclusion. By essentially creating a map for me to follow when
writing my paper, my overall feat is simplified. Also by maintaining simplicity with my outline
as shown, Argument Point One: Uplifting Mood
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Discuss in greater detail the effects of nature on a humans emotional wellbeing, such as

people who regularly enjoy nature and spend time in it.

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Discuss the effects of nature studied on someone who does not regularly enjoy being

outside in nature. it allows me with room to adapt my outline, and subsequently my paper to
modify any changes or new findings in my research without too much hassle. What can be
argued as a simple beginning to drafting a paper has proved influential in my writing process.
The three column notes, a part of my research paper, is also very important to my writing
process, and overall the credibility of my research. This assignment was very different to me, as I
had done nothing like it before. However despite its newness to me I did find it helpful. By
connecting each individual piece of research to my topic and how it influences my paper allows
me to formulate a clearer, more concise, argument to support my topic and present my research

to my readers. Where it may take more time to complete than a general bibliography the benefits
are well worth the extra time taken to complete the three column notes.
The blog aspect of the course, taking an entire page of my e-portfolio has influenced my
writing; not as directly as my other artifacts, but more indirectly. The blog assignments, when
done correctly I found to stimulate my thinking and my comprehension of my research and in
turn my resulting paper in ways I would not normally do so. For instance blog number eight, a
blog requiring me to extrapolate what I want my readers to learn and gather from my research is
not a normal question I would personally ask about my writing in a day to day basis. This
opening statement from the blog, Personally I would want my readers to read my paper and
consider the knowledge I have presented and hopefully utilize it to their personal benefit, such as
pursuing a more involved lifestyle concerning nature., required myself to genuinely think about
my research I was doing and personally determine how I wanted it to influence my readers. This
personal attachment to my research influenced my writing by trying to appeal to my readers in a
way that I desire their lives to be impacted by my work.
The blog number four also influenced my writing early on by making me narrow down
my target group on which I will try to present my research to. This assignment, is critically
important to the process of writing a paper, and is one which I did not practice until this course.
By essentially targeting one particular group of people rather than a large population of people
have clear benefits for the paper and consequently the retention of knowledge by the audience.

Three such groups can be the scientists conducting the same, or similar research to my topic,

nature lovers reading more on the thing they are passionate about (nature), or the skeptics who
may be questioning the involvement of nature to provide positive effects on a humans emotions,
and may subsequently place the study and findings in the sect of alternative medicine and
disprove of the idea as a whole., This piece of my assignment shows my initial targeting of my
audience. Where I had selected three groups that could possibly be interested in the topic, rather
than my now one, I began thinking on how I could custom tailor my paper to my target audience
by presenting my information in a way that would be more applicable to the audience. A paper
written generally is not necessarily a bad thing, however by presenting raw information and data
generalizing my finding would prove more difficult than adapting my research to fit the needs
and the aptitude of a singular target audience rather than the population as a whole.
As in effort to justify my deserved grade for the course, I believe that I deserve a high b,
or even a low a, as a result of my work in the course. This assumption given by myself is a result
of my personal reflection on my work given and produced in the course. The reason I did not
pursue the argument of justifying my deserving of an a, is that I did not put as much effort as I
possibly could have into this course, or the preparing of my work. Subsequently my work
probably reflects this, however I do believe that my work is still fine pieces of research and I
have produced the amount of work deserving of a high b. Another reason why I dont believe my
efforts in the course deserve an a is my failure to complete some assignments on time, where
they may just be blogs, or various participation grades they were not completed on time,
therefore harming my grade. However I do believe in my works and their ability to earn a
respectable grade in the course.

Overall my writing has been modeled by this course in more ways than one. Whether it
was subjecting me to a different thought process concerning my writing and gathering
information, pushing me out of my comfort zone by placing myself into anothers shoes, or
having simple tools to help my writing process, I have grown as a writer, not only in the sense of
research but in the whole spectrum of different genres of writing.