One concept that was enforced further by completing the web folio was learning to write for your intended audience. For my web folio, I had to make it focus on academics, and it was important throughout that I made sure that whatever I was writing would be important for my audience (in my case, a graduate school). For example, in my home page, I provided a link to one of my research interests (Numerical Linear Algebra). Making sure that research interests are clear is invaluable for a student who wants to move onto grad school after a Bachelor’s degree. As well, finding a supervisor in a specific area is key, so this is another reason that it’s very important to make it clear exactly what you want to research. As well, the hyperlink to my LinkedIn profile outlines my research interests more carefully, and also provides a list of relevant upper year classes I have taken. Again, this is for the purpose of meeting the needs of my intended audience.
Another important idea I learned from designing my web folio is how to structure websites and webpages in such a way that readers won’t struggle to navigate the website. For example, I ensured that each of my individual webpages were easy to access, by making sure that they were easily visible in a menu on the main page of my website. Another way I designed my website to appeal to the reader was in my “BEST WORK” section. On this page, I made sure each assignment title was clearly bolded, so that each of my pieces of writing were clearly separated.
Another important lesson I learned from completing the web folio was how to go back and revise work I had completed in the past (not necessarily recently). This required me to reread the work, and try to determine exactly what ideas I was trying to get across when I first wrote it. For my reflection blog in unit 2, I decided to go back and edit it. This proved to be challenging, since remembering my exact thought process when I was writing it wasn’t easy. Ensuring that even if I made edits to the work, that the writing would still flow well, was particularly difficult.
Overall, completing the web folio required me to use many skills, many of which were not just writing-oriented skills. It allowed me to bring together all of my best work from ENGL 301 this term, and everything I learned in the course up until this point.