In my portfolio, the four writing examples I have chosen are the internal announcement,

news release, cover letter and media pitch and fact sheet. I chose to use the internal
announcement due to it being the first assignment I wrote that included a noticeable tone. I feel
that this assignment exemplifies the first significant development in my writing style since
starting this course. My second assignment on the portfolio is the news release, which I included
due to it being one of our latest assignments. By including the news release, I show how far my
writing has progressed due to it being a recent assignment. Included as the third assignment are
the media pitch and fact sheet. I have included this example because I believe it highlights my
capacity to provide relevant information in a manner that is direct and informative while still
leaving plenty of freedom for a journalist to cover the topic on hand. My final example in the
portfolio is the cover letter, as it displays my ability to demonstrate direction when writing. A
cover letter needs to be direct and concise, particularly when focusing on job opportunities, so
this writing piece would show employers that I not only have the skills they may be looking for,
but also the ability to write about them.
When updating the internal announcement, I made several improvements to help the flow
of the assignment. I changed the wording of a few sentences to stop repetition and capitalized the
name of the “Leaving It Better” campaign. In the news release, I added a comma where
necessary and reworded a phrase to ease the readability of the news release. My cover letter
required me to cut back on repetition of the word “internship” and improve readability by
reorganizing a paragraph. Improving the media pitch and fact sheet was relatively simple, as it
only required me to vary a few phrases as well as start several sentences with a more active word
than “the.”
After this course has concluded, I will continue to improve my knowledge of the AP
Stylebook, and will further practice my implementation of AP Style writing in other courses and
in extracurricular activities. When writing papers for other classes or sending emails, I will
always practice active writing to captivate my reader further. One specific feature is starting
sentences with a word other than “the,” as it is dull and boring. By spicing up my word usage, I
may even be able to earn a better grade by captivating professors who read my writing. A final
skill I hope to continue to improve is my comma use, as I feel I overuse commas or place them
where they are not necessary. This simply slows my writing down and makes sentences too
complex to understand.