Maxwell Rifon 12/6/17

Final Portfolio Essay Advanced Writing

Through the semester I have created multiple writing pieces, each with distinct focuses

and goals. As time passed my writing developed and was reshaped by critiques and readings

provided in class. Many lessons specific to my own writing were learned, as well as general

lessons directed more towards writing style like clarity, concision, balance, and transitions. I

would go so far as to say that my writing is not only clearer, but also more palatable for the

intended audience. This learning can be seen through my writing as we have proceeded

through the course, both in revisions and in progression from one piece to the next, even as

some of my weaknesses remain.

The rhetorical analysis demonstrates well two weaknesses of mine when analyzing the

writing of others. First is that I have had a difficult time in separating my analysis of language

used with my opinion of the authors intent. One such example from my paper would be in my

analysis of the final paragraph of Johann Haris You are being lied to about pirates when I wrote

The final paragraph furthers the juxtaposition that was more explicitly formed in paragraph

eleven. The righteousness of action is called into question when a quote sets the scene Here

you can see that before there is even a mention of the what is written by Hari, I manage to

interject what I felt the writing served to do. Whether that is solely what I felt or what I

interpreted the author to intend, it is not clearly disclosed in my writing. This could leave a

reader confused on many levels. Closely related to this is the second weakness not directly

addressing the language used by the author. This is clearly illustrated by the fact that the only

quote I used from Haris paper wasnt even something he wrote, rather it was a section of him
quoting an interaction with Alexander the Great. This is thematic through the first draft of my

discourse analysis, with small improvements in the revision.

The discourse analysis shows the most change in the detail of language description out

of all of my work, as would be the goal in a discourse analysis. In the final revision, I included a

technical definition of the mathematical trader jargon that undergirds the artifact being

discussed; terms such as delta, theta, vega, gamma and volatility are translated into laymans

terms for those outside of the discourse community. While the first draft is not exactly a

beacon of hope towards the analysis of the communitys vernacular, there is a step in the right

direction as the style and format of communication is discussed. The first draft includes

information about the discourse community, explaining how financial authors share

information through text in many ways retrospective reports fundamental reports (and)

research pieces are all mentioned and defined. In the first draft, there is an issue with the

amount of my opinion that I allow to bleed into my analysis of the different communication

styles. When discussing retrospective reports that are aimed towards retail traders I let slip that

I believed more often than not, these types of articles are figments of the authors

imagination, as the articles are usually only required to be logical and entertaining rather than

wholeheartedly accurate. To fix this vulnerability in my revision, I said what I meant rather than

making a brash statement to prove a point. I replaced my comment with These types of

articles have no requirement of true accuracy beyond being logical and entertaining, or

interesting to the casual reader. This clarified my meaning while getting the point across, and

prevented alienation of readers who may find value in the aforementioned style of financial

writing. This rewrite helped me to recognize the necessity of fitting my writing to my audience,
and ensuring that the pathos is palatable to the reader. It is a lesson that should have been

carried forward into the writing of my research paper, yet a similar issue arose in the first draft.

The issue mentioned is that of my lengthy intro analogy, trying to paint a picture of the

financial crisis in the most basic sense.

Imagine walking into your basement to figure out why you have no hot water, only to find a dragon

corpse spilling out from behind your water heater, smelling up your whole house and leaving you at risk

for god knows what. You call your utility provider and ask why the hell there is a dragon in your basement,

and why its dead. Their response is Well he saved us a ton of money on gas bills, so we just left him

there. I guess we should have checked in a bit more often. Anyway, youre going to need to rent a crane

or something to lift him out, and then were sure you can figure out how to get the heater working again.

Good luck.

At first, I thought it would be a good way to transition an average reader into the complex

issues about to be discussed. In reality, this too alienated the entirety of the academic and

professional audience that this paper was supposed to be written for. This analogy has no place

in a research analysis of the regulation that followed the financial crisis to think that anyone

who would be reading the rest of the paper would need a simplified abstraction is somewhat of

an insult in hindsight. In the revision, I chose to replace the analogy with a straightforward

explanation of the history with cited sources to better fit the audience.

Massive amounts of money were being wagered through swap contracts by the largest banks in

America, many of which were central to the entire economy. The reason that these bets went unnoticed

for so long was that nobody was required to report the existence of these contracts, or how much was

being risked when writing them. This secrecy was not malicious, and banks never intended on losing

money through this practice as the housing market they were betting on was interpreted to be incredibly

stable (Davidoff, 2009). Unfortunately, the profits generated with these contracts incentivized an increase
 in their use to the point where there was simply too much risk in the system, and the stability of the

housing market was discovered to be less than assumed. After the increase in volatility and massive losses

to many banks, there were quite a few casualties in the finance industry.

Another major misstep made in the first draft of my research paper was the process of sourcing

references and citing them with enough frequency. While this is not thematic through the rest

of my work (due to a lack of citation required previously), it is a major weakness that Ive had

since high school and need to continue to work towards improving. The initial perspective I had

when writing this research paper was that of a member of the research community reporting

the understanding I had gleaned from my sources. In reality, I am not a member of the

community and cannot report with such authority based on my interpretation of my sources.

The proper mentality that I wish I had from the beginning would have been more of an outsider

(still not to the degree that frequent technical translation would take place) reporting on the

research available, very much in a similar manner to how I reported on the discourse

community in my revised discourse analysis. Had this been my plan of action initially, I would

have done much less interpretation and much more direct reporting from sources. While I do

feel that my writing in this piece was congruent with the research at hand, it certainly would

come off as questionable to anyone used to more formally written research in the field.

In conclusion, there are thematic tendencies in my writing to mismatch my writing to

my target audience and to integrate my own interpretations, opinions, and biases into the

content of my writing. These issues have been noted and improved over time, but it will take

active mindfulness in the future to mitigate their occurrence. I hope that with my recognition of

these weaknesses, that I will be more successful in systematically correcting them in my

writings to come.