advice from portfolio scorers

Each year, portfolio readers at Miami read hundreds of portfolios. And each year at the end of the scoring sessions, we ask those readers to evaluate their responses to the portfolios they have read and to offer advice to students who are compiling portfolios in hopes of receiving credit from Miami University. What follows here is a summary of the evaluators’ remarks and thoughts from the last two years.

aim and audience

Evaluators this year follow previous evaluators in indicating that a clear aim and sense of audience are the two most important features of a successful portfolio. In fact, the majority of remarks from instructors this year emphasize that while students need to show mature and insightful thinking and writing, they should also present themselves naturally, not artificially. Evaluators suggest that students should not be afraid to use “I,” and that “their own voice(s) should not be drowned by research.”

We have recommended in the past, and we continue to encourage you to “write as yourself,” not as the student you think college professors want you to be. We look for evidence that you think about how you fit into the world, about how issues you write about relate to your personal situations (social, racial, gendered, economic, regional, religious, etc.). Instructors suggest repeatedly:

“Consider your audience. We’re real people who can see through stereotypic, immature arguments. We appreciate critical thinking and self-awareness in each piece, not just description.”

Raters are interested in what you think and see and how you see those things in relation to broader issues and concerns. Evaluators tell students to “think about how the pieces you write connect, and talk about them as a whole, not just as random pieces.” Also, “think seriously about ambiguities, feelings, and problems. Revise, rewrite and show that you are thinking about your audience.”

The readers at Miami are diverse in age, teaching experience, interests, and tastes. While we range from experienced graduate students to tenured professors, we are all interested in students and spend quite a bit of time reading and evaluating college writing. When we score the portfolios submitted to us, we develop a set criteria that describes the qualities we value in writing. (See Appendix D: Scoring Guide in the Best of MU Portfolios downloads.) Before completing your portfolio, you should spend time reading your work with the scoring criteria in mind. While we make changes from year to year, the major criteria remain the same, and you should be familiar with them.

suggestions for improving your portfolio

While you should keep audience and aim in mind as you develop your portfolio, you will benefit as well from more specific advice and suggestions our raters offer below.