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Dr.

Leslie Bruce
Humanities Room 526
800 N. State College Boulevard
Fullerton, CA 92831

Dear Dr. Bruce,

The reason I chose to enroll in scientific writing over English 301 was because I felt that my

experience in scientific writing were limited to lab reports. My purpose for writing this letter is to

showcase a portion of my work and the ways in which it satisfies the various student learning

outcomes outlined for this course. The assignments that will be discussed are: Definition of catalyst,

my freewriting conference homework, annotated article entry in my scholars notebook, and this

cover letter.

Scientific writing is done with a variety of audiences in mind. This cover letter partially satisfies the

rhetorical focus SLO because I am writing formally to you in an attempt to persuade you of the ways

in which my work this semester fulfills all SLO requirements. A good example of my non-formal

writing is the freewriting exercise I was assigned for my first conference. This exercise was done

with me as the audience so I could set a loose outline for the review paper. This set of work shows I

am able to write formally, informally, for a variety of audiences, and for various purposes.

Plagiarism is not acceptable in any writing and that is why we learned how to conduct ethical

research. My original definition assignment contained some citation errors but upon revision Ive

identified and corrected them using the proper American Psychological Association format for my

reference. Proper in text citation is also used. The American Chemical Society format for citations is

used in my annotated article and shows that I am able to cite correctly in styles other than

APA.
Persuasion is an important tool in scientific writing. This cover letter demonstrates my ability to write

a persuasive argument. Each body paragraph evaluates how a particular assignment fulfills an SLO.

Specific examples referenced and found within each text; such as me referencing my citation

improvements.

This semester I also worked to organize my thoughts to effectively communicate myself in writing. I

applied many tools we learned in my definition assignment. I employed one sentence definitions and

partitioning so the reader could learn what a catalyst is and how it works.

This semester, I show the most improvement in academic language and design. The original

definition assignment lacked whitespace and some figures had no captions and some werent

referenced in-text. The revised assignment implements these elements making the definition easier

to understand. I also show my sensitivity to gender and culture because I wrote the readers of The

Encyclopedia of Science and Technology who are an audience with various genders and cultures.

Collaboration is an important tool we used this semester. My annotated article my ability to

collaborate with others. My partner and I worked together to analyze and synthesize the articles

purpose in a sentence and then we answered the questions outlined in the prompt.

This semester was challenging but a lot was accomplished. I learned the importance of revision,

setting timetables, and always writing with my audience in mind. I hope that this portfolio is a

reflection of the skills Ive learned and practiced throughout this course. I know what I learned is

invaluable even beyond my undergraduate career.

Sincerely,

Victor M. Espinoza Castro

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