Checklist

THE FIRST THREE ARE REQUIRED. Many types of writing satisfy these general guidelines. Each category represents a different intellectual and rhetorical task (these are not genres or models, but frames of reference and author’s “positions” related to materials and readers).

PLEASE IDENTIFY EACH CATEGORY BY NUMBER ON YOUR SUBMISSIONS.

  1. _____ A descriptive, narrative, or expressive piece which is primarily the result of the author’s own “making sense” of experience (relying on memory, observation, or imagination); for example, this could be a lab report, or set of field observations with a substantial conclusion, or a personal essay, or a story.

  2. _____ A logical and well-supported argumentative or persuasive piece in which the author takes a stand on a topic or issue, or proposes a solution to a problem.

  3. _____ A piece of interpretation, evaluation, criticism, or analysis in which the focus is on the ideas of others, written from several sources and documented according to an established manual of style; this will usually be a formal collegiate research paper similar in format to professional and academic journal articles.

  4. Optional _____ any piece of the student’s own choosing; feel free to show us your best, your most experimental, your most impressive, your most creative writing.

Annotation

  • _____ A note at the front of the whole portfolio should call the readers’ attention to what the student believes are the strengths of the portfolio; feel free to reflect on yourself as a writer and the learning that is demonstrated by the whole collection.

  • _____ Students must also attach to the front of each piece a short description of the purpose of the writing (assignment or occasion, intended reader, desired result) and the circumstances (number of drafts, time spent, resources used, including any help received from any others). Also state the bibliographic style used to document sources (APA, MLA, CBE, Chicago, etc.).

Check the following details before turning in your portfolio to the Foundations Office.

___ All submissions may be revised; all must be in the discourse of our academic community (grammatical, organized, appropriately documented).

___ All pieces must have been composed following the student’s matriculation at Eckerd College, except that students transferring to Eckerd from another college may submit two of the required four pieces from previous collegiate work (a note from the instructor must certify that the student wrote the piece under her or his supervision).

___ Students are encouraged to submit writing from any Eckerd course or original work done for the portfolio; work submitted from courses must not show the grade received, nor any evaluative comments (use white-out on a photocopy to remove such marks).

___ Length of the entire portfolio must be greater than 12 double-spaced typewritten/printed pages (or equivalent, approximately 3000 words), distributed among the three or four pieces.