Cover Letter

Throughout the semester I feel that my ability as a writer has improved significantly

compared to before when I took this course. My first essay which was a proposal, I was able to

display my abilities to inform my knowledge and my interest of my topic on how the death

penalty should be removed. Another form of work which I feel that I was able to accomplish

better than when I first began the semester was my annotated bibliographies as I would look

deeper into the source and question myself why it was a creditable source. Peer review was also

a task that allowed me to seek advice from my peers and receiving new perspectives. Overall the

class taught me lessons that would help me throughout not just in future writing materials but

also in ways such as communication amongst others.

In my proposal, which was probably one of the most interesting essays that I enjoyed

writing, it allowed me to focus on a specific topic and why it should be removed and what the

benefits would be because of it. In my proposal I wrote about how the death penalty should be

removed due to the vast amount of money that it is costing the tax payers. The paper displayed

my abilities of being able to inform my reader of a topic and persuade them to share my same

belief as there would be an upside to removing the death penalty. Although this was my first

essay, my research did begin to improve as I did begin to receive higher grades in my annotated

bibliographies.

Although I did not turn in my first annotated bibliography, I feel that it was a subject that

I was able to improve on as the semester went on. The reason that I was able to improve in my

annotated bibliographies was because of the feedback given to my teacher. I was beginning to

ask myself why the source I was reading would be a creditable source to trust and use their
knowledge for my benefit to make a valid argument. My last annotated bibliography displayed it

as I looked deeper into my source and how I can use their knowledge to help get my point across.

This particular skill also developed even more so during our class peer reviews.

During our peer reviews in class granted me the opportunity to look over some of my

classmates’ essays and see how knowledgeable they were on their topic. In doing so I was able to

receive tips from them as far as using more creditable sources to back up my argument. This is

probably one of the most important facts I learned in class as previously I felt that I would write

my essays mainly from my own experience or beliefs. It was a tool that I continued to pass onto

other classmates in other peer review opportunities. It is something that I have become quite

familiar in now that my siblings ask me to look over their essays as well.

There is no doubt that taking this course helped me become a better writer than I was

before and a better grader in the sense that I could look over my own essays and notice mistakes

that would go over my head before. Overall this portfolio shows various lessons that I will not

apply to future papers and work as well.