Cover Letter

I would first like to thank you for spending your precious time on reading my selected works for the portfolio. What the class revolve around this semester is writing, I have learned many useful writing skills such as paragraph development, topic sentence and other strategies.

Through a semester’s study, I realize that I am undergoing some changes. I was not very confident in my ability to write before. But after the advanced writing course, I feel it easier to express my ideas in my second language. And further more, the statements I make are better organized and the sentences are more in coherence. . I have been able to develop better thesis statements than I have in past writing classes. And I have been better skilled to demonstrate my thesis with quotations and my own words. Although it is far from being good, I believe it is a good first try. During the development of my essay draft, I spare no effort to look into the story written by Krishnan Varma for deeper meaning.

The submissions are presented in the order of Reading Log, Final Timed-Writing, Essay Draft One, Essay Draft Two, Essay Draft Three and Cover Letter. Reading Log is a first expression of my feeling of the story of “The Grass-Eater”. And it is the reason why I choose this story to work on.

The first problem I meet is the thesis statement. My thesis proposal has been modified for many times as the thesis is neither specific nor strong enough. Mr. Corio’s comments on my draft two help me realize that my thesis statement is not strong enough, so I trimmed it in a more “assertive” way with the same meaning. Although there are many matters coming forth during the analysis of the thesis statement, I persist with my thesis from the beginning and it is quite a triumph to me.

“Draft One” is rough draft of my essay and it is just a combination of dribs and drabs of my idea. After the first peer-review, I took some advice of my partners. The changes can be seen in “Draft Two”. The structure of my essay has been changed somewhat. I have reorganized my arrangement of paragraphs and made some modifications about the quotations. For example, the order of paragraphs in the introduction part has been reversed as it is more in coherence. As introducing quotes plays a major role in helping the reader understand ideas and comments, I try my best to make the citations as exact as possible and make more explanation of my thesis statement in my own words. Since “Draft Three” is the final version of my essay, I paid much attention to the spelling mistakes and other minor grammatical errors. Furthermore, I enrich my demonstration with some religion evidence.

Through the Academic Writing Course, I learn the proper way to write an essay. And I deeply feel that a good paper will not be the first draft. Every time I read my essay, I will find some minor errors in it. However, anything can not be perfect. What I can do is to polish it for perfection. After all, I must thank my instructor Mr. Corio and my partners in the peer group, they gave me very useful and specific suggestions during the essay development.

Thank you for reading my papers on the portfolio, I hope that you will enjoy the reading. All comments either agreements or disagreements are welcome.

30.5.07 17:17