Ian Brogan
Miss Probst
Composition 101
20 November 2013
Introduction
When it comes to writing, I never really excelled at meeting the requirements on the length of a paper. But for what I could not do in quantity, I tried for in quality which in my eyes is more important to a good papers foundations. This Portfolio is no different from the other papers I’ve written. Even now I am just trying to get down all the thoughts I have while still keeping them concise and to the point. This Portfolio’s main focus is on my time in this class and all that I have taken from it, in knowledge and experience. Although I have only been in this class for one semester, I can honestly say that I have learned thing that were a review, but more importantly, things that will help me to improve upon my writing in the future years to come. For instance, I have learned to take peers suggestions with a grain of salt. If I get too hung up about what they think when they do their peer review, I won’t be able to write anything down. At the same time, I should take their opinion with respect and use it for what I can. If there happens to be good advice in the review, all the better to help improve upon my writing. I have also learned that a paper is always in need of editing. No matter how long or how good a paper may be, there is always some room from revision. Granted, you do not have all the time in the world to make your paper the best, but that is not the goal. The goal is to make your paper the best it can be in the time that you have. One of the worst things I’ve come across in this class is the brick wall called procrastination. On the many occasions of trying to write a paper, I’ve found myself in the same situation of not knowing what to write next. My advice to anyone reading this portfolio is the simple fact that inspiration is not searching for you, you are searching for the inspiration. The more you wait, the more time you’ve wasted. The quicker you find it, the less headaches you’ll have.

Audience & Genre Genre is a helpful way to keep my papers organized while at the same time is a category that can confine my paper to a single subject or style. The reason I say it can confine a paper is because having a set genre is far more limiting when writing a paper versus writing whatever I want. Having said that, I can also appreciate the help that a genre can bring to a paper. While a genre is more confine to a single subject, it does not necessarily make it harder to write. That in itself can help to make a good concise paper. The fact of having a single subject/focus on my writing helps me makes it so that I can target the best way to construct the paper from the set guidelines of the genre compared to having no genre where it would take me a while to come to a decision on how to write my paper. Similar things could also be said about how the audience affects my writing, in the sense that it all depends on the type of audience. Audience concerns me whenever I write a paper. I can honestly say this could possibly be the greatest factor when I am thinking of what and how to write something. For each type of audience, there is also a certain rhetorical tool to use for them to get the best response possible. For instance, when I am trying to make a paper the can appeal to an audience, I know is very sympathetic, I will nine out of ten times use a pathos approach to appeal to their emotions. On the other hand, if the audience were to be one who was searching for factual evidence to back up the writing, I would then use a logos approach to demonstrate to them the legitimacy of my paper. And the last rhetorical tool is ethos (credibility). I focus using ethos on an audience that is looking for quotes and someone to back up my paper. Out of all the genres I have written, I can say without a doubt that the most difficult one to write would be an argumentative essay. The reason I say an argumentative essay is because it can incorporate all of the