RACHEL WILSON

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

[1]       Wilson, Rachel. "Minor in Writing Application Letter." Letter to Sweetland Minor in

           Writing Selection Committee. 28 Oct. 2013. MS. Ann Arbor, MI.

As the title suggests, I had written this letter in application to the Sweetland Minor in Writing program, in the fall of 2013. Desperate to get myself back into the world of writing after a year spent in engineering and science classes, this letter represents my best attempt at writing my own ticket to a better emotional place and a better academic position. Within the letter, I address my motivation for applying, detail my writing development—and how the minor program would further this development—and project my interactions with and contributions to the minor in writing community. This letter’s aim had been to express my interest in and secure my acceptance to the Minor in Writing program. While I’m unaware of the level of competitiveness in the population applying to the program, my application had certainly been successful (and here I am, completing the capstone course). The structure of the letter is heavily influenced by cover letter style and examples of other application letters to other positions, telling the story of my passion for, my experience with, and my hopes for my writing. I think the original version of this letter had been rather unpersuasive, but the influence of advice from my English 124 professor allowed me to learn how to improve my skills at this kind of storytelling.

Pleasantly enough, my goals for the minor haven’t really changed since I wrote it; it is reflectively reassuring to see that I have achieved most of what I had set out to do in the first place. (Namely, develop my writing skills and keep myself from going insane after too many science classes.) While some of my wording is a little cheesy (e.g. comparing my relationships with engineering and writing to yin and yang), the overall piece maintains a balance between professionalism and passionate excitement.

[2A]     Wilson, Rachel. Becoming a Writer: Starting a Reader (A Writing History). 9 Oct. 2013.

            Unpublished manuscript, University of Michigan. Ann Arbor, MI.

Written for my First Year Writing Requirement course, English 124, this essay acts as a record and explanation of my writing history. In this essay, I relate my growth as a reader to my growth as a writer, by arguing that my innate love of reading encouraged me to cultivate my love of writing. I use the rule of thumb that “reading makes you a better writer” to explain my development as a writer. I begin by developing the story of my intimate relationship with reading as a child, make a pit stop at my appreciation for getting away with bullshit in my academic assignments, and move on to my new, more-grown-up relationship with both reading and writing. The maturing phase of my development as a writer and reader had begun when I started writing for my high school newspaper, and then had continued as I enter college.

It’s interesting to reflect on this essay as I write on this topic again, now as a senior. I wrote this essay as a sophomore (but a first-semester sophomore, which is essentially equivalent to a freshman), and now I’m writing again about my development as a writer as a second-semester senior. Much has happened to me, both personally and academically, to influence how and why I choose to write. I was really proud of this essay, and I definitely still am. My grammar and structural choices are a little more convoluted than they would be now, but I think I responded to the prompt well and engagingly. More than anything, I see how hard I had tried to sound “academic” by finding increasingly convoluted ways of explaining my writing history; in many places I strain to poeticize my reading or writing experiences, instead of letting them be presented straightforwardly and clearly. 

[2B]     Wilson, Rachel. A Personal Education (A Response to Montaigne). 23 Sept. 2013.

            Unpublished manuscript, University of Michigan. Ann Arbor, MI.

Also written for my First Year Writing Requirement course (which, ironically, I neither took in my first year at UM nor was required to take), English 124, this piece is a preliminary exploration of my personal philosophy of education. By following the example of Montaigne’s “On the Education of Children,” I use this space to argue an individual’s responsibility to develop a personal education. Given the ease with which technology connects people to a vast wealth of information, this piece claims that those with access to this trove are morally obligated to develop their general knowledge, learning and creating opinions in order to interact intelligently with a global community. Constructing this argument had been one of my first opportunities to enter this kind of philosophical space within my writing development.

The levels of convolution in my introduction to my argument in this piece do not surprise me; at this point in my writing development I had been very much fixated on aiming for a voice that was “academic” and “cultured” when writing anything that wasn’t a “personal” piece. This convolution decreases as the piece progresses and I develop the components of my argument. While I think the piece is well-written overall, and fits the occasion of the assignment, the voice I had sought in this piece lacks authenticity. Although, there are still moments where what I would consider now as my “true” sound peeks out. I had enjoyed writing this piece, and enjoy reading it now, but it is clear I had put on my “philosopher’s hat” during composition.

[3Aa]   Wilson, Rachel. Writing in New Media (A Personal Reflection). 22 Apr. 2014.

            Unpublished manuscript, University of Michigan. Ann Arbor, MI.

Written for my Gateway course for the Minor, this essay is prompted by the questions, “Who am I, as a writer?” and “How do I write?” within the context of new media. In learning to write in new media (namely, blogging and creating infographics) for this class, I had begun to understand how to consider the audience I was writing for. In this piece, I focus on the social media subset of new media, looking at how the persona I present online integrates with my overall persona. This integration then affects how I attempt to present myself as a writer—highlighting the aspects of my writing persona that are relevant to my audience.

This essay was really easy for me to write, because I wrote it during a time in my life when I was spending countless hours on social media and new media. I think this ease of writing it makes the piece enjoyable as a reader, but kept me from considering alternative perspectives and allowed me to make somewhat-sweeping generalizations about my “generation” or social media. However, my argument does establish an important connection between how I view myself as a person and how I portray myself as a writer. This connection resonates throughout my writing development process.

[3Ab]   Wilson, Rachel. Why I Write (A Personal Reflection). 17 Apr. 2014. Unpublished

            manuscript, University of Michigan. Ann Arbor, MI.

Another piece written for the Minor Gateway, this is a cross between a journal entry, a blog post, and an essay. (In other words, I incorporate the intimacy of my journaling style, the casualness of my blogging style, and the structure of my essayist style.) In writing this piece, I attempt to answer the question of “Why do I write?” The result is an intersection of explanation and defense—once the piece settles into a rhythm (longer paragraphs broken up by short, sassy addresses to the reader), I explain that writing is cathartic, by allowing me to create order. I then defend the selfishness I feel to be inherent to this kind of catharsis, somewhat aggressively for my usual style.

I am surprised by this aggression upon my rereading of the piece—normally, I reserve this level of sass for conversations with my closest friends. Upon further investigation, I’ve realized that I had written this piece at a very tumultuous period of my life, during which I had to defend my choices on almost every front. I am surprised, although I shouldn’t be, at how directly my emotional trends affected my writing style. I don’t think this defensiveness limits the piece, although it does shift my writing persona away from a “typical personal piece.”

[3Ba]   Kennedy, Lauren; Houtschilt, Steven; Noble, Jeffrey; Rojas, Nicole; Wilson, Rachel.

            melaTonight Product Development Plan (A Senior Design Technical Report). 16 Dec.

            2015. Unpublished manuscript, University of Michigan. Ann Arbor, MI.

Written for my senior product design course, this report is the most lengthy, in-depth piece of technical writing I have contributed to at this point in my writing development. My senior design team, which is comprised of five chemical engineers, myself included; had been developing melaTonight, a transdermal melatonin patch that provides enhanced sleep aid by providing an extended release of the hormone throughout the night. This development plan acted as our proposal for the in-lab development and testing of this patch during the following semester. From title page through the sixth appendix, the document spans 48 pages and covers everything from the team’s market research findings, to our technological investigations, to our proposed development schedule.

Contributing to this report was a wonderful opportunity to foster my ability to write about technical subjects. More importantly, it allowed me to truly stretch and test my formatting skills—to get in direct touch with the “nuts and bolts” side of technical writing and conquer such an unwieldy document. (Which was made challenging not only by length but also by the fact that it was written by five authors instead of one.) Personally, I find the report to be quite successful, an opinion validated by the report’s success in the Landes Technical Writing Contest.

[3Bb]   Wilson, Rachel. En Pointe (A Personal Narrative). 23 Dec. 2015. Unpublished

            manuscript, University of Michigan. Ann Arbor, MI.

This personal narrative is a response to the commission of the great John Rubadeau to “make the private, public.” In writing for one of my Upper Level Writing courses, English 425, I use this space to explore one of the most central aspects of my identity: a balance between my delicate nature and my strength. In order to illustrate this exploration, the piece begins with a story of one of my experiences with preteen judgment, and how I reacted to the scorn of my peers. I then transition into looking at this balance between delicacy and strength within the four categories of my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual identities.

Unlike most essays submitted for this course, I use this space to examine a particular aspect of my identity through storytelling. (In comparison, many other essays had examined a personal story to extrapolate conclusions about an identity.) I remember being severely disappointed with how this essay turned out, because I felt as though I did not make a strong enough case for this aspect of my personality. However, with hindsight, I see this piece translating a highly personal experience into a public space, where it can be shared with an audience.

[3C]    Wilson, Rachel. Feminist Citizenship: A Refusal of Silence (A Political Theory Critique). 27

           Mar. 2015. Unpublished manuscript, University of Michigan. Ann Arbor, MI.

This political theory “mini-treatise” is my argument for what I had thought a model of feminist citizenship should look like. Written for another one of my Upper Level Writing Requirement courses, Political Science 401 (cross-listed with Women’s Studies 422), this is my deepest foray into political theory, specifically within the bounds of feminist thought. I argue for a model of “non-silence” in all spheres that citizens occupy in order to create and sustain lasting change towards gender equality. This non-silence combines the feminist goals of gender equality with the rights and obligations of citizenship to shape this change.

While certainly eloquent, I barely recognize myself as the writer of this paper. The persona I present is certainly wearing my “theorist’s” hat; the language and structure of this critique is noticeably influenced by the content and style of the syllabus material for the course. As with my other forays into the philosophical realm, I use convoluted sentence structure and highbrow tone to seek legitimacy for my argument. However, this attempt does manage to simplify many key points of my argument within the body of the critique, which aids the readability and believability.

[3Da]  Wilson, Rachel. The Selfie Project. The Girl with the Curl. Nov. 2014. Web.

Writing 200, or Writing in New Media, used a foundation of ancient philosophy to understand how new media is utilized by modern writers. In learning how to engage with and utilize new media, or the “web 2.0,” one of the key focuses of this course was the project of blog-building. While the site, “The Girl with the Curl,” itself does not contain any writing on this subject, the entire project was an exercise in implicit ethos construction. In fact, the content for the site is mostly lighthearted ramblings or crafting DIY tutorials. However, from this project I learned how to consider design and structural presentation as contributors to ethos, in addition to my writing’s content and tone.

[3Db]  Wilson, Rachel. Learning Record Reflection (A Learning History and Assessment). Dec.

            2014. Unpublished manuscript, University of Michigan. Ann Arbor, MI.

A brief reflection on my learning history, this piece is a response to an interview I had conducted with my father about how I have developed as a reader, writer, and thinker. Since my father was instrumental in my intellectual development during childhood, these reflections focus on my early growth, transitioning between each stage of my education. Starting as a reader and thinker, I learned to also become a writer; as this development continued, the three identities became intertwined, growth (or stagnation) in each influencing the others.

This piece is a component of a lengthier process reflection on my intellectual development, called the Learning Record, and provides insights to the implications of early stages of this development. Since it is a component of a larger piece, many of the terms are ill-defined or contextualized, which makes it more difficult to isolate the piece and allow it to stand on its own.

[4A]     Wilson, Rachel. "Stringed State Love DIY." Web log post. The Girl with the Curl. 19 Nov.

            2014. Web.

I wrote this post for my personal crafting blog (which I had started in my Writing 200 class and maintained for personal use) in order to make a small contribution to the online crafting community. The tutorial guides the reader through a wall-art project, which uses nails and string to create an outline of a shape (in this case, the shape of California). While the textual content is rather short, creating and composing for the post required inordinate amounts of time and creativity—remembering to stop and take pictures of my process along the way proved to be one of my biggest challenges. Even more challenging was the difficulty of composing images that told a cohesive story across the post. While the site itself is small, and the post hasn’t gotten much traction as a result, I think it does a good job of guiding the reader through the creative process while also including my personal motivation for making and sharing the project.

[4B]     Wilson, Rachel. "Research Assosicate Application Letter." Letter to Gilead Sciences. 2

            Apr. 2016. MS. Ann Arbor, MI.

Much of my non-academic, non-journaling writing time has been consumed by my search for employment. In pursuing positions within different companies, I have attempted to use my writing skills as a distinguishing factor for my applications. These attempts include my resume and, more importantly, my cover letters. This letter serves as a summary of my relevant experience to a research associate position with Gilead Sciences, as well as an explanation of my investment in and passion for the healthcare industry. In writing this piece, I balance explanations of my industrial experiences with the story of my excitement over entering the industry as a full-time employee. The storytelling aspect sets this piece apart from a restatement of my resume, and makes my personal connection to the topic more tangible.

[5]       Wilson, Rachel. "The Mulan Complex." Web log post. Sweetland Minor in Writing. 26 Jan.            2014. Web.

Unprompted, this blog post is an analysis of my distaste for reflection. More accurately, my distaste for active self-reflection. Beginning with an illustration of the difference between passive and active reflection, I transition into an explanation of my emotional reactions to being required to reflect on my analytical development. (The irony of this post is almost too lovely.) Initiated by a spark of inspiration, this is one of the pieces I am most proud of writing. Rereading it still allows me to resonate with the struggles of reflection and encourages me to continue pursuing opportunities for growth. This growth is near impossible without reflection—at the very least, on the dirt the growing is being done in.