Running head: PORTRAIT OF MYSELF AS A WRITER 1

Portrait of Myself as a Writer

Fortney, M. L. (n.d.). Construction contract basics. Retrieved March 28, 2019, from

http://www.fortneylawgroup.com/faqs/Components-of-a-Written-Negotiated-Construction-

Contract.html

Rodriguez, J. (2018, October 22). Common Construction Contracts for Your Product or Project.

Retrieved March 28, 2019, from https://www.thebalancesmb.com/common-types-of-

construction-contracts-844483

Austin Petersen

Bowling Green State University

PORTRAIT OF MYSELF AS A WRITER 2

Portrait of Myself as a Writer

Becoming a competent writer is a must for all college students. I personally am a

construction management major and a lot of my future work will have to do with professional

emails and writing to customers. If I can’t portray myself in an educated way through my writing

I cannot do my job correctly. This is why learning to write the right way is a must have when

going to the real world. I learned a lot through this GSW class whether it had to do with citing

my sources, creating an argument and having reputable sources to back it up, or being able to

find the counter argument to give my point more ethos behind it. All of these skills have made

me a better writer in which will make me a more effective professional in the future.

One of the main things I needed to work on as a writer was using credible sources when

making an argument. In the past I have always just tried to explain my side of the story and not

really give much backstory to what I would be trying to convey to the audience. Back in high

school when I would write argumentative essays I would struggle to get good grades on them

due to the fact that I wouldn’t back my points up as much as I should have. In this class I learned

where to find credible sources and what good and bad sources look like. In our literacy review

paper, I used a lot of sources form the school library where I could clearly find out if the sources

where peer-reviewed and who wrote the article to begin with. This made my papers ten times

better because my arguments where now backed by credible sources that I could call back on

when writing the paper. An example of this was I stated “. According to Rodriguez (2018) and

Fortney (n.d.), there are a lot about the different types of construction contracts in which are used

for different types of projects or situations.” I used an article that a cited prior to this to make my

argument more effective in my writings. I believe this has made me a better writer.
PORTRAIT OF MYSELF AS A WRITER 3

Another part of my writing that needed much improvement was a grammar and revision.

In the past I would usually just write my papers one time and give them a quick glance over and

then I would turn them in. I didn’t really think twice about it until I got my literacy review back

and saw all the comments my teacher had to give me. I was able to fix and mistake when I used

the literacy review in the final paper and it made the entire paper look more professional and

easier to read because I wasn’t trying to hunt for a word that wasn’t there or try to guess and

what a misspelled word was supposed to say. I am glad that I can get this part of my writing

figured out now that way when I get out into my profession I can look as best as possible in my

writing.

Another big advantage to this class that help out my writing skills tremendously was

using the activity system triangle. I had never even heard of this before this class and after using

it in my paper I quickly realized how effective it was at organizing my thoughts and hitting all

the key points. Being able to use the triangle to find out the different parts of a certain subject

and how they all relate to each other has made my writing much cleaner and easier to understand.

For example, when I used the activity system triangle in my final paper to show the audience all

the parts that come into play when talking about construction documents. It was beneficial to the

audience because they got a better understanding of who all is involved, and it was beneficial to

me because it helped to keep me on track and make sure that I hit every point in the rest of my

essay. I will for sure be using the activity system triangle in future papers because it is effective

in clarifying all the different parts of the subject.

Throughout this course I have learned a lot about writing and my skills have improved. I

believe that this course is very necessary for any college student because it doesn’t matter what

field someone is going into; good writing skills will always be necessary to effectively getting
PORTRAIT OF MYSELF AS A WRITER 4

the job done. Now personally I will always have room to improve and my writing skills are far

from superb, but with the help of this class I have become a stronger writer and will use these

new skills to better myself in the future.

PORTRAIT OF MYSELF AS A WRITER 5

Portrait of Myself as a Writer

Fortney, M. L. (n.d.). Construction contract basics. Retrieved March 28, 2019, from

http://www.fortneylawgroup.com/faqs/Components-of-a-Written-Negotiated-Construction-

Contract.html

Rodriguez, J. (2018, October 22). Common Construction Contracts for Your Product or Project.

Retrieved March 28, 2019, from https://www.thebalancesmb.com/common-types-of-

construction-contracts-844483
PORTRAIT OF MYSELF AS A WRITER 6
PORTRAIT OF MYSELF AS A WRITER 7

Footnotes
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Tables

Table 1

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Column Head Column Head Column Head Column Head Column Head
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