MEGHAN DEMPSEY

This portfolio includes a collection of my work that I am most proud of and that I feel is an accurate reflection of my progression throughout this course. I have decided to include an entry from my annotated bibliography, my complete rhetorical analysis paper, the video I produced as a part of major project three, one of my best critical responses and a few other bits and pieces that I found or created throughout my research process.

The entry from my annotated bibliography is representative of the first step I took in this course: finding information about my topic. It is also the assignment that allowed me to narrow my focus to how added sugars can negatively impact our health, something that I have been interested in since I first became interested in nutrition. The rhetorical analysis represents the second step in my progression: analyzing my sources to build my knowledge and understanding of the subject. My video is a reflection of all of my learning throughout the course. It presents my opinions and ideas about the dangers of added sugars in a way that I hope will influence the viewer to raise her awareness about the subject and hopefully change her diet too. It also approaches the topic of the dangers of dietary sugar in a way that is not often used within this community. I believe that this was a wise choice as it will allow my message to reach a wider audience than a research paper would have been able to. Finally, my critical response demonstrates my ability to respond to texts outside of the discipline of nutrition and allowed me to appreciate the differences in the ways that information is presented across discourse communities. For example, writing within the discipline of rhetoric and composition focuses much more on ideas, concepts and strategies as opposed to the much more study and fact based writing of nutrition. This is because the focus of rhetoric and composition is human communication which is much harder to study scientifically than the effects of individual nutrients.

In addition to being a reflection of my progression throughout the course, these pieces are also reflective of what I feel to be my biggest accomplishment throughout the course: becoming comfortable with the drafting process. Before taking this course I was not particularly comfortable with creating multiple drafts for a single assignment because I always felt that it had to be perfect the first time. The emphasis that was placed on the drafting process in this class, however, really helped me to become more comfortable creating multiple drafts for each piece. Although the drafts of each piece are not included in this portfolio, each required two or three and each end product is vastly different from its first draft. My ideas had become more fully developed, supporting examples stronger, and the overall flow of the product much better.