Introduction Letter

Dear Julie (or whoever spend their time actually reading this),

Welcome to my website! As you scroll through, you will stumble upon the final portfolio of my
Writing 2 class, including my genre translation, explication essay, literature review and a bit
about myself. My whole writing process in college has been kind of like a roller coaster, but yet
extremely insightful. My adaption from writing an English argumentative essay at my
Norwegian high school three years ago to suddenly writing an academic rhetorical analysis
including words and phrases I had never seen or heard about before - yes, I am talking about
ethos, pathos and logos – has definitely been a challenge for me. At first, I was trying to sound as
sophisticated as other academic writings I had laid my eyes on, which left me with
procrastination and drowning my writings in unnecessary jargon and vague sentences. However,
through the taking of this course, I have learned that you can both be creative and clear in your
academic writing, which is basically what this whole course is about – isn’t it?

The various and creative readings we have been assigned throughout this course have been very
helpful for me to understand that you actually have some type of freedom when you write - even
in academic writing. In “Genres in the Wild,” Lisa Bickmore helped me understand the concepts
of genres and genre conventions, which made me realize that they are more to be used as helpful
tools rather than a force in your writing.1 It is kind of similar to having a pizza-recipe next to you
when you are making pizza. The recipe comes with certain conventions, such as having cheese
and sauce on top of the pizza crust. However, these conventions do not mean that you can’t add a
little twist to your own pizza by adding supplements here and there to make it more personalized,
but they are more there to help you achieve your goal of having a good tasting pizza. And that is
the same in writing – through genre conventions, you get an idea on how to make a good written
product, but you also have the freedom to explore your own way of writing and still achieve a
good and clear academic paper that your professor likes. And this is what stops us from being
“just a robot” in our own writing process.2 As I simply understood this silly yet important
concept myself, I started to look for what my inner writing voice is trying to say instead of
thinking that there is a specific way I needed to write to get the results that I wanted.

In addition to understanding that I can use my own voice in my writing, I have also realized that
academic writing can be written in a much more easy-understanding manner than what I
anticipated. As you (or Julie) presented in the introduction power point to WP2, jargon and
complex concepts in academic writing is a problem as they “can be totally incomprehensible to
the majority of readers.”3 When working on my WP1 and the psychology peer-reviewed article
"Mindfulness: Theoretical Foundations and Evidence for Its Salutary Effects,” I probably had to
re-read and look up every single sentence I read, which left me with a feeling of stupidity and
confusion.4 But after being told that this is a common problem in the academic world, I do not
feel the pressure to include unnecessary jargon and pompous complex sentences in my own
1Lisa Bickmore, “GENRE in the WILD: Understanding Genre Within Rhetorical (Eco)Systems, August 1, 2016, https://openenglishatslcc.pressbooks.com/chapter/genre-in-the-wild-understanding-
genre-within-rhetorical-ecosystems/.
2
Bickmore, “GENRE in the WILD”
3
Julie Johnson, (2021).
4
212. Brown, Kirk Warren, Richard M. Ryan, and J. David Creswell. "Mindfulness: Theoretical Foundations and
Evidence for Its Salutary Effects." Psychological Inquiry 18, no. 4 (2007): 211-37. JSTOR.
writing, which allows me to write with a more understandable language that seems more natural
for me and my inner writer.

Looking back at my revising process in my two writing projects, I have used the feedback I
received and power point lectures to make them clearer and more effective. In the WP1, I
focused on my explication essay, where I mainly did changes in concision and signal phrasing.
For example, by changing from passive voice that made my writing seem vague and a bit
confusing to an active voice that was more direct and concise allows me to enhance the clarity in
my writing.5 Additionally, I rephrased from weak signal phrasing (e.g. “states”) to stronger
signal phrasing (e.g. “argues) to emphasize the argument I was trying to make in my writing. In
WP2, along with signal phrasing I focused on clarifying my ideas by going more in depth.6
When introducing my sources, I included more background information, such as the author(s)
full name and contextual information to establish credibility, which also strengthens my
credibility in my own writing.7 I also changed to a more in-depth thesis and included more
examples/evidence to be more articulating and reveal more about the key take away from my
project.8

Looking back at my writing process, I am very grateful for all that I have been through and the
insights I have gained, both in the peaks and the valleys. From draining in procrastination and
jargon to voluntarily sitting for hours writing, I have learned to actually enjoy the writing process
itself. Thanks to this class and my amazing professor (shout out to you Julie!) I have now learned
how I can adapt different tools and methods to write with my own voice and not anyone else’s. I
am fully aware of the fact that mt writing is still far from perfect, but as I will keep learning as I
write I know I will grow and become better at writing as time goes by <3

Sincerely, 

Klara Vickhoff Lie

Works Cited

5
Julie Johnson, (2021).
6
Julie Johnson, (2021).
7
Julie Johnson, (2021).
8
Julie Johnson, (2021).
Bickmore, Lisa. “GENRE in the WILD: Understanding Genre Within Rhetorical (Eco)Systems.”

Go to the cover page of Open English @ SLCC. Open English @ SLCC, August 1, 2016.

https://openenglishatslcc.pressbooks.com/chapter/genre-in-the-wild-understanding-genre-

within-rhetorical-ecosystems/.

Johnson, Julie. “W21 Discourse Communities WP2 Day 1.” Power Point. Lecture, 2021.

Johnson, Julie. “May 19 Areas for Potential Growth.” Power Point. Lecture, 2021.

Johnson, Julie. “Quote Integration & Signal Phrasing.” Power Point. Lecture, 2021.