Dear Professor Gallagher,
As we come to the end of this semester, I am now reflecting on a journey that has been both enlightening and transformative. Writing for the public was once an area that I would never have imagined being taught a couple of months ago, and now it has become a vital skill for me to use in my major and potentially in my future career. I am grateful for the lessons and experiences that I have gained in this course.
At the beginning of the term, my understanding of writing for the public was narrow and I thought that it was just for my academic requirements. However, as the semester progressed, particularly looking at the differences between academic writing and writing for the public, my perspective shifted. I began to recognize the dynamics of rhetoric, and its ability to engage, persuade, and resonate with diverse audiences in different settings and platforms as we read different literature with different opinions on rhetoric. I thought that the course emphasized the importance of shaping persuasive narratives and creating connections between authors and readers, which really intrigued me.
Throughout the sequence of assignments, I underwent self-discovery and intellectual growth. From the Grammarian project, where I collaborated with a classmate to explain and teach dangling modifiers through a video, I learned about collaboration and communication. Moreover, I believe that I gained a better understanding of how to properly use modifiers and avoid dangling modifiers. This was my first Upgrade project that was thoroughly completed. My second Upgrade was the Cleric labor log where I documented my writing process. In the labor log, I learned about myself. During this semester, I have overcome various problems: academic, interpersonal, physical, and mental. Although none of these problems were “serious” as I considered them, each event that happened during this semester was reflected in my labor log. I would concentrate, be frustrated, or just be calmer during days when I experienced different events. I have also found out my procrastination has been getting better throughout the semester as I have communicated more with my family, peers, and professors. Finally, the Wordsmith project, which I will be guiding you through later in this letter, is where I polished my craft through iterative revisions guided by peer and professional feedback and witnessed the evolution of this semester-long project. Each assignment became a layer of the foundation of my intellectual and academic journey as I tried to learn about rhetoric and writing for the public.
I approached each task with a commitment to growth and improvement as I believe that I am a mastery-oriented person instead of performance-oriented. The readings assigned throughout the semester further allowed me to understand the way to communicate with the public, which is different from the structured writing assignments from previous courses. From the assigned readings, I learned about the diverse styles, valuable insights on shaping my text, and techniques that are effective in public writing.
Among all the learning activities, the most important and useful tool was our peer review. As you have stated, not providing simple, grammatical error feedback helped the peer review process to be more crucial in revising each of my longer compositions. In my previous courses, peer review was composed of scanning through each other’s work and looking for mistakes. This process did not help revision as I would only receive feedback on minor mistakes and grammatical errors, whereas the peer review in this course allowed another perspective to proofread and identify errors that would influence the readability of the audience.
Furthermore, I am struck by the intersection of our course materials with real-world experiences. One example would be in the course required textbook, there was a section on how different cultures perceive texts, symbols, and even gestures differently. While reading this section, it was the first time thinking about how my text could be more inclusive to a wider audience.
Now, I will guide you through my revision process for the Wordsmith Upgrade. This upgrade project requires revision for two pieces; however, I revised all three options: the White Paper, the First Post, and my Q&A Profile. I will be specifically talking about my revision process for my First Post and White Story as those two pieces required more revision.
Compared to my White Paper, the revision process of my First Post was mainly minor cuts and edits. My first thought on revision was finding places to cut in my First Post as the overall feedback has stated, “...going on at length with overviews and rationales that are not needed to persuade the reader of this case. The length and logical claims burden the rhetorical impact...”. Therefore, according to the marginal comments, I have deleted sentences in some of the prolonged paragraphs about the research as it could be written and expanded in the White Paper. On the first page, I separated the first paragraph according to the suggestion to emphasize my personal story and experiences and deleted the sentence that may lead to confusion. I have also reorganized and cut the portions that related to mental health policy in China. First of all, the comments indicate that this back-and-forth between policies in China and the U.S. is confusing. Moreover, it is hard to find specific data and research articles to back up my original point, which is also mentioned in the comments, “What’s the source for this?” (Page 1) and “Evidence to back up this claim?” (Page 2). There were also two suggestions on the places that I could cut in my First Post, on pages 2 and 3. On page 2, I cut out two sentences that I found less essential to my piece and provided a transition as I moved on to discussing the UCC in the next paragraph. On page 3, according to feedback, I have cut sentences that are less important to my piece, where I want to emphasize the importance of supporting mental health and reducing stigma. Lastly, I have revised the last paragraph on page 3 in the original piece, where I stated, “It’s not clear if this includes immediate access...” and replaced it with the current resource that the UCC offers, where the UCC itself does not include 24-hour crisis response but instead offered by Allegheny County.
For the citation in my First Post, I SIFT through the original link for “National Institute of Mental Health” and found the study that provided the data, which I now have as a link under “research” on my first page. I have deleted sentences that were not backed up by evidence or research.
Lastly, for my First Post, the remaining problems are mainly using vague words, grammatical errors, and wording. I have eliminated the word “we,” by replacing it with a more suggestive tone to my audience. I have clarified the places where I used vague nouns or pronouns that may lead to confusion by replacing them with details. As I have finished editing my First Post, I have revised the issues addressed in the general comment and the marginal feedback!
Next, I moved on to the research-based White Paper, where I found most issues on citation, visual design, and research. I initially looked at feedback on the information under the White Paper Draft rather than visual elements. As stated in the comment, I would need to propose to a specific audience, reduce the number of proposal ideas, and SIFT my sources.
I initially started with my sources when I was still familiar with them. I SIFT from psychiatry.org and “Fostering College Student Mental Health and Resilience”, and found the study by Ansalem et al., and directly cited from the National Healthy Minds study. I have also revised the citations on the Work Cited page according to the marginal comments. Moving on to the most important revision: finding a specific audience. According to the information provided in the organizational chart from Office Hour, I have addressed a specific decision maker, the Associate Director at the UCC, in my final draft. In the introduction and proposal sections of my White Paper, I specifically mentioned him for rhetorical goals as this would strengthen my argument. Moreover, I have cut my proposal to include and further explain 1) the video strategy and 2) collaborating with student organizations. I chose those two proposal ideas according to suggestions, what the UCC offers now, and the possibility of implementation and cost. Furthermore, I have also clarified the resolve crisis network and revised the format of my White Paper. I aligned my text to the left and chose a serif font.
Continuing the revising process, I looked at visual elements. The visual revision and design process required more effort, thought, and time than I thought would take! I started with using a graph to address the mental health issues and severity according to the Healthy Minds Study. During Office Hour, we talked about the possibility of using an infographic to provide more information with more accuracy. Therefore, when I revised the visual design, I chose to delete my original graph and create a new infographic, still according to the Healthy Minds Study. Finally, I have cited my image and graphs and removed long captions for the images. Overall, the visual design remains consistent regarding the text, color, and images in my White Paper after revision.
Finally, the publication of my Substack posts. This is my first time using and reading Substack so when editing my Substack page and posts, it was a hot mess. I started with the easiest part: my profile. In this, you will see my major and all my posts when you scroll down. You will also discover the logo that I designed using Canva. Then, I edited my About page. In this, you will know my goals, whether you should care, and who I am (as readers don’t click into the author’s profile). I used green as the color theme of my Substack as it represents good health, vitality, and generally, positivity. Moreover, I have pinned my Q&A profile so that if readers open my Substack, they first read this post that provides them with a decent amount of information about mental health at Pitt. Then, the White Paper serves as a “logo”, where research and evidence are the main themes in it. Finally, the student’s perspective and the reason for my Substack newsletter.
Despite the challenges encountered, such as navigating new platforms like Substack, I am proud of the risks I took to get out of my comfort zone. Each piece that I wrote was an opportunity for me to learn. Overall, the journey of this semester has been both challenging and rewarding.
Thank you for your guidance and support throughout this semester.
Best,
Lisa Lichao Wang
Cover image credit: “Old-fashioned wax-sealed envelope on textured green background” by Татьяна Макарова. License: Adobe Stock #789700989