I can confidently say that my ability to write has drastically increased since the beginning of the semester. At the beginning of the year I had failed the writing placement test. My most recent score on the exam was a 3, this is considered a passing grade. The biggest improvements that I have made have been in the purpose and content sections of the rubric. I have gotten better at being able to connect all of the different loose ends in my paper to the thesis and introduction of it. Also, one of the most important changes I have made to my writing style has been the addition of more details. Making generalizations is my essays was one of my biggest problems at the beginning of the year. I was able to improve on these skills through the help of a couple of different factors. Before I could even think about trying to improve on my writing tendencies, I realized that I would have to put all of my effort into it. Obviously, my habits of showing up late and occasionally missing a class were not immediately gotten rid of, it took a little bit of time. Once I had gotten accustomed to paying attention all the time, I started to see real improvement in my grades. The first things that affected my skill were the in class lectures on grammar rules, and the grammar practice exercises. Along with those, the fact that I was writing about one to two journals a week led to me improving my storytelling ability. While the journals were helpful in examining my writing skills, the best practice I had to improve them was through the essays. The four different essays that I had to write were all crucial to the growth of my writing ability. For each one I had to have four different people review the essay before I could hand it in. This helped me to recognize the mistakes I had been making and gave me the opportunity to fix them The final reason for my growth, if not the main one, has been the e-portfolio project. This is true because of the duration and size of the project itself. The entire point of the project is to produce different works of writing that span from the beginning of the semester until the end of it. This collection of work is then put on a website and separated by the kind of paper it is. After that it is organized chronologically. The website is able to clearly show the progress that I have made over the course of the semester. Because of this, it is my opinion that the main reason for the substantial improvement in my writing ability is due to the work I had to complete for the e-portfolio project. 

Editing skills checklist: https://olddominion-my.sharepoint.com/:x:/g/personal/jpeck001_odu_edu/EdbmzSd3E0RAu6n8N6JO0nUB4Pp1_P1tTQvGV6gv1_2_yQ?e=Vj92Cv