Page 3: Creating this Portfolio

     The creation of this online portfolio has been a new and challenging experience for me. Not only have I never made a portfolio of any kind before, but I have also never created a blog or website. I saw this project as a very daunting one. I even questioned the necessity of making a portfolio of my work. But as I continue to work on this project, I have come to realize that a portfolio is very helpful for both me and the readers of my work in thinking through what I have learned over the past semester. It also provides an excellent opportunity to apply that knowledge. With the guidance of my assignment objectives, the advice of my teacher, and much patience, I have been able to create and design a blog showcasing my work over this English Composition I course.

Theme and Background Design

To begin this portfolio, I first chose a theme for the layout of the website. I wanted something that would be both easy for me to edit and for my audience to navigate. Using bloger.com, I have chosen the simple theme, “Contempo Light” to work with. I thought the automatic background of this theme was lacking in color and purpose, so I changed it to the picture of a bookshelf full of books which you see now behind this page. The color chosen to complement this picture is the cream-yellow seen at the bottom of the screen. My choice of books has to do with the association of books with education. I felt that a picture of a bookshelf gives the impression of being studious and smart. Books are also very fitting with the subject of this portfolio – writing. After all, there can be no written books without writing. I chose yellow for the accompanying color mainly because it matches well with the picture above it. However, I was also aware that yellow is a color associated with warmth and positivity. It is fitting for this portfolio because I intend to maintain a positive tone throughout my work.

Introduction Design

The introduction to my portfolio can be seen on the home page. It consists of a couple introductory sentences and a summary paragraph, which are both placed beneath a picture of my English Composition notebook, my laptop, and a couple pens. This picture sums up well what this English composition course involved for me. The notebook, pens and laptop are all indispensable tools in my writing process. I believe that this picture provides a nice visual introduction to go along with the written one of my works done for English Composition I.

Page 1 Design

Page one, “Changes in my Writing Processes” is organized by bold, main headings and italicized subheadings. The use of headings provides structure and organization to the contents of the page. I included headings because they are helpful to both me as the writer and the reader of my work to be able to easily follow what they are reading.

You’ll notice that I also included a picture of my writing notebook on this page. I thought that this picture helped the look of the page as it offers visual variety. It also provides readers with a deeper understanding of my process, being able to see a part of it, as opposed to only being told of it through the text.

Page 2 Design

The next page, page 2, is different both in content and in organization. While I do include an introduction, body, and conclusion in both pages, I do not give bold or italicized headings in page two as I did in page one. The simple reason is this: as the content is about writing an essay, I thought it would be appropriate to write the page itself in essay form – without dividing headings.

This page requires two links to two different versions of the same paper, an original, and a revised version. I intentionally placed these links after the introduction to the page; not before and not after. This is because the work that those links lead too, is not to be read until after the preceding paragraph properly introduces them. The contents of those links, however, should be familiar with before continuing with the page. 

I also included a couple of pictures. I think that these pictures do an excellent job of summing up what the page is about. They provide a visual explanation of my work to go along with the written one.

 

     Making this portfolio has been a learning experience for me both in writing and website making. It has been a lot of work, some of it has been simple, some challenging. It required much trial and error and a lot of patience to format the blog and make the contents of it.  After continuous use and getting familiar with the format, I have done my best to create an acceptable online portfolio.