Dr.

Leslie Bruce

University Hall room 435

800 N. State College Boulevard

Fullerton, CA 92831

Dear Dr. Bruce,

The purpose of this cover letter is to show how the following portfolio has satisfied the
six different student learning outcomes (SLOs) that were covered during the course of Scientific
Writing: English 363. I organized the cover letter starting with the scientific definition, the team
charter, review article summary, and this cover letter.

The definition of the word Alzheimer’s which I have written for The Encyclopedia of
Science and Technology satisfies Rhetorical Focus, Ethical Research, Organization and Focus,
and lastly Academic language and Design (SLO 1,2,5). It satisfied rhetorical focus because the
process of prewriting helped me focus on my audience. In this case the intended audience was
college students with minimal or no scientific knowledge. Taking into consideration the level of
scientific knowledge my audience has, I defined technical terms such as neurofibrillary tangles
and amyloid plaques. My definition satisfied ethical research because I cited credible sources
such as Alzheimer’s Association, National Center for Biotechnology Information, National
Institute of Health, and peer reviewed research to support my definition. Lastly I mastered
academic language and design because I informed my audience about the term Alzheimer’s
rather than making biased opinions. I achieved design by incorporating graphics to show the
point that I was making as well as bold headings to indicate the start of a new topic or sentence.

The team charter satisfied team collaboration (SLO 6). In the charter everyone wrote
about their personal goals, and then collaborated together to write about our main goals for the
review article and how we want to succeed as a team.

The Review Article Summary found in the Scholar’s Notebook satisfies rhetorical focus
and ethical research (SLO 1,2). It is a good example of informal out of class writing. Informal
writing allowed us to compose unpolished thoughts in a stress free environment without having
to edit it for others to read. Ethical research is an important part of this review article summary
because finding a reliable review summary allowed us to learn what a review summary is, how it
is formated, and how it differs from other research articles.

Finally this cover letter that I wrote is an example of persuasion and organization and
focus (SLO 3, 4). I used the skill of persuasion in this cover letter by providing examples of my
works and evidence proving why these works satisfied the Student Learning Outcomes. This
cover letter also exemplified organization and focus because in every paragraph I talk about one
work and give examples as to why that work was successful.

I hope that I was able to show you through this cover letter and my portfolio that I have
learned the skills needed to be a successful writer in the field of science. This semester has
helped me learn and practice new skills as well as fully developing the student learning outcomes
within my writing.

Sincerely,
Madeeha Sheriff