My Writing Portfolio

Naomi Boerner

MY Polished P1 Paper

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Artifacts That Helped Me

My transcript of "Topic to Research Proposal P1" discussion post

I posted the following:

Research question - What job opportunities exist to repair damage made by American industries for people who are Environment and Society majors?
Title for project – “Repairing Necessary Evils” I chose this title because the necessary evil of industry is negatively impacting the climate, for example: GMOs, micro plastics, or the increase in carbon dioxide. I want to be a positive force in repairing the necessary but unfortunate destruction of our environment to let business grow and flourish along with the planet.
The purpose of this project is to find jobs that help reconstruct the destruction left by industries. I chose this theme because so much of American day to day life is aiding to the continual erosion of our planet. I am focusing on my topic of replenishing what industry has taken away from our natural environment. I will be researching current industries like Mosaic that have programs in place and evaluating their effectiveness. I will also look at industry that don’t have environmental programs in place and see the affect it has had on their surrounding environment. Questions I will be using to guide my research are the following: What is stopping all industries from using environmental programs? What can society do to change the current way industries deal with the environment?
I am researching job opportunities that exist to repair damage from American industries because issues like climate change are on the rise and growing exponentially. If we don’t take action on reducing carbon emissions and land destruction, we will face unprecedented events in the environment. An example of this would be the phenomenon of all the earth ice melting due to increased ocean temperatures. I hope to learn the reasons behind why industries do or don’t opt in for environmental programs as well as finding possible positions for that I could be part of to repair damage to the environment.
I expect to face the challenge of counteracting the necessary evils of day to day industry. Actions like driving cars and using fertilizer is on one hand needed to sustain human population growth and can not be taken away. My challenge will be to find equal ways to replenish damaged areas. I also will have trouble reaching out to big corporations like Mosaic and might have to opt for connecting with a local segment of the company.

Artifacts That Helped Me

My transcript of "Source Dialect" discussion post

I posted the following:

1) The first perspective I found was in the discourse community of Mosaic, more specifically the environmental sector. In that community they believe that although the phosphate mining disrupts the land it is necessary to be able to get fertilizer that can help feed the world. Member's of the community are ecologists and environmental specialists. They mostly work in reclaiming the phosphate mined late and working with the company to attain permits. These members believe the bad out weighs the good. The members communicate through the company by working with their peers. They also all share a common goal of fixing the disturbed land.

2) Another perspective I found were fro the scientists outside of the mosaic company who were working on other resources to add to the reclaimed land to help aid to the growth. Although these scientists are all independent of each other they are all in the same discourse community. These scientists believe it is their duty to repair the land from phosphate mining. This community connects by writing blog posts or creating websites that other scientists can use to help their research. Different from the Mosaic workers above, these independent scientists are not as fond of phosphate mining company's and are trying to help to make sure the land gets restored.

3) I hope to add an unbiased perspective in my paper by researching both perspectives and coming to my own conclusion about phosphate mining and how I want to contribute to the industry. My goal is to let the audience of the paper coming to their own conclusion about their perspective on phosphate mining and understand the opportunities that are available.

My Reflection

Throughout taking ENC 2135 I have learned and grown tremendous amounts as a writer. I learned how to use new resources like the FSU Reading Writing center and how to reach out to other students and learn from each other. These are valuable skills I will take with me to future classes. Most importantly however I learned how to properly compose three different pieces of work, an investigative field essay, a rhetorical analysis, and a multigenre persuasive campaign.

When creating my first paper which was an investigative field essay, I chose to write about land reclamation jobs from phosphate mines in central Florida. The genre of this paper was a research paper. I used ethos in this paper by including two different interviews, one being from a Mosaic lobbyist and the other a former high-ranking employee at Mosaic. I think these two perspectives were important in writing my paper because both individuals helped provide information to opportunities at Mosaic that were around land reclamation. This paper was challenging for me to write because I had difficulty organizing my thoughts in a way that made sense. I ended up structuring the paper with each paragraph focusing on a different opportunity for land reclamation from phosphate mines.

When writing my second paper the rhetorical analysis I compared two completely different genres. In this paper I compared the rhetorical appeals of a chaotic documentary called Tiger King with a serious academic journal about tigers in zoos. I had a lot of fun writing about the different uses of visuals from Joe Exotic. Admittedly, I did struggle with keeping a clear focus on the rhetorical appeals because I focused to much on writing about the show. With a large amount of revisions I found I didn't have the understanding of ethos and logos that I thought I had. With more research i was able to get myself back on track . In this paper I even added a visual of Joe Exotic himself in the paper so readers could have a better understanding of the genre I was writing about.

Lastly, was my multigenre persuasive campaign. In this assignment I created a Wix website where I showed my different uses of genre. I also wrote a rationale explaining why I chose the genres I did. My assignment was around the issue of red tide in Florida and how it affected my two main audiences fishermen, and property owners. I used a lot of visuals, one being a poster that I thought could hang around businesses. I had fun using my creativity to compose different genres. Additional to the poster, I created a podcast transcript and a blog. The visuals I used created a strong use of pathos throughout the campaign by urging reader to understand why red tide was happening.

Being a freshman at FSU this class ENC2135 has prepared me for other writing assignments I may have in other classes. I am grateful for this class because it pushed me out of my comfort zone by writing different styles of paper. I have become a more confident writer and a writer who understands how to successfully compose and revise future papers.