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Paige Harriss

Writing Portfolio

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Portfolio of Writing

Fall 2017-Spring 2020

As I reflect on the evolution of my writing development throughout college, I am struck by both the large number of genres and discourse communities I have been introduced to and the small number of genres and discourse communities I have actually mastered. For while I am familiar with journalism, English, political science, and political theory discourse communities as well as the case study, literary analysis, reflection, research design, and research paper genres, I consider myself only a member of the political science discourse community and adept in one or two genres.
Specifically, a formative moment in my writing development was my fall 2019 semester in Washington D.C.. In that semester I completed a communications internship as well as 12 credit hours of study - including a class taught by journalist Al Hunt. My internship, at a national security think tank, introduced me to a love of international politics and foreign policy that I did not know I had. It also introduced me to a way of looking at political science topics through an interdisciplinary lense; at my internship I studied wars, nuclear weapons development, and human rights issues from a journalistic perspective - how the media covers it, what events it emphasizes and which it doesn't, and how to introduce detailed research to a general audience in a way that is accessible. Thus, I was able to write pieces such as my op-ed on the media's coverage of North Korea and impeachment, which expanded both my genre and disciplinary awareness. I quickly realized, however, that I had only scratched the surface in terms of knowledge of foreign affairs and quickly signed up for three foreign policy classes the next semester. Thus, what you might find of my most recent works is the product of this search for a deeper understanding of international relations; my senior thesis covers the relations between Israel, Iran, and the United States in the context of the 2015 JCPOA agreement and my other research has delved into the effects of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war on wider Middle Eastern power dynamics. 
Writing and researching domestic and international politics from an interdisciplinary lense has increased my command of writing within my political science major. I have noted that across disciplines and topics my attention has focused on emphasizing the “so what” of a topic - why an audience unfamiliar with my subject matter should pay attention to my argument. Even later on, when I began to write for more specific audiences within various discourse communities, I continued to utilize this strategy as a rhetorical tool of persuasion. Many of these strategies have also aided in my introduction into professional writing, examples of which I've included at the end of the portfolio. 
Lastly, although I increasingly prioritized political science writing during college, I have also deeply enjoyed the creative writing I have had the opportunity to complete for it has led to tremendous amounts of self-examination and discovery during the most formative four years of my life.

United States, Israel, and Iran in the Wake of the Nuclear Deal

May 2020

This project, my senior thesis finishing off my political science major, has been my most ambitious writing endeavor in college. Completing such a lengthy research paper in isolation, separated from many of the peers or professors I would normally ask to provide feedback, was incredibly difficult. I also realized that I had to make adjustments to my writing process in order to complete the paper - I could not write the same amount at the same time everyday, rather, I had to capitalize on moments when I felt motivated and inspired to write and complete as much as I could during those times. This paper, then, to me represents a huge test of endurance and patience during a time in which everything around me felt confusing and out of place. There are many changes I would make to the paper even now but I think lengthy projects such as this one are an important experience for a writer to have - a lesson in patience and forgiveness of yourself when you feel uninspired and unable to string one sentence together.

Balancing Drama and Substance in Impeachment Coverage

December 2019

This paper was one of my favorite pieces I wrote during my college career, particularly because the class was one of the most fascinating classes I have taken. It was for a Press and Politics class I took under journalist and Wake Forest trustee Al Hunt in Washington D.C.. I was writing about the media's coverage of impeachment under the guidance of one of the media's insiders as it was unfolding around me. It was my first experience writing about an event or a topic as it was occurring, in which I had no idea how the "story" would end or what my conclusion would be. Moreover, it allowed me to discuss an important political event from a journalistic perspective which was an angle I had never taken before.

How the American Media Enables Kim Jong-un

October 2019

I completed this assignment for Politics of the Free Press in the fall of 2019. Although technically a political science course, the class focus on press gave many of our writing assignments a journalistic bent. This particular assignment was to write an 800-word opinion editorial on an issue that arises passion, either Wake Forest-centric, personal, or global. Rhetorically, the op-ed genre cued usage of concise and direct language targeted at a general audience of individuals without prior knowledge of the issue. Moreover, being a short piece, it seemed necessary to select a topic with little complexity for there would be scarce room for heavy foregrounding or defining of terms. 


I was immediately drawn to a global topic - the problem of media exposure in North Korea. The North Korean ban on open internet access, television, movies, and news has been used as a tool to suppress its citizens for decades. Recently, however, many North Koreans have found ways to circumvent these bans by smuggling foreign media over the border from South Korea. The focus of my op-ed was to discuss why the American media has avoided coverage of this new phenomenon’s significance. Overall, the piece meets the rhetorical conventions of the op-ed genre well; it presents a strong claim at the outset, using concise and direct language to persuade a more general audience of why they should care about an issue seemingly distant from their own lives. I regret, however, that I did not enumerate specific strategies the American media should employ when covering the issue or emphasize the future impact this coverage might have in creating a more open society for those living inside the regime. 

Immigration and Cultural Preservation

August 2019

During a political theory class sophomore year, we were given an assignment to discuss the theory of open borders and the argument of cultural preservation in restricting access to immigration. The assignment was geared toward a political theory discourse community, familiar with the work of theorists on immigration. 


My process for writing the paper was heavily textual based - I attempted to create an argument that was in the middle of two theorists’ ideas of immigration, arguing that while cultural preservation as an argument in favor of limiting immigration is often miscalculated and overbroad, it is commonly used in defining who may enter a country and who may not. In other words, while cultural preservation is an argument cited against immigration, it is in constant tension with economic need, for as one theorist phrased it, “democratic citizens have a choice: if they want to bring in new workers, they must be prepared to enlarge their own membership; if they are unwilling to accept new members, they must find ways within the limits of the domestic labor market to get socially necessary work done.” I found that political theory utilizes political science conventions in a looser manner than a research design or case study might for it is less grounded in reality. Rather than providing explicit evidence, suggesting avenues to test the theory, or defining terms in narrow or explicit ways, I functioned more on an idealistic level. And while I think I effectively brought a new focus to conceptions of current immigration theories, I needed to better emphasize the challenges of implementing such ideals in current society. 

Analyzing the Absence of Language in Trainspotting

April 2019

In my Scottish Literature class sophomore year, we were to pick a short passage from the novel Trainspotting and analyze its use of common Scottish literary themes (specifically land, language, or music) in short two-page analyses. In general, I found the lack of spoken language within the novel rhetorically significant in characterizing the volatility and chaos of the characters. I began the analysis, then, by questioning how the reader should interpret moments in which characters do not use any spoken language or do not use it to say what they mean. 


I selected a passage in which Mark Renton, in the throws of a heroin overdose, is unable to pick himself off the floor to open the door for his mother. He thinks to himself “I love ma, love her too much, but in a way which is hard for me to define, a way which makes it difficult, almost impossible, to actually tell her.” He never says a spoken word, however, and never opens the door for his mother. I concluded that perhaps “Mark does not use language in this scene because he cannot - cannot admit that he loves his mother, that he carries deep grief, that he knows change is not an option.” Ultimately, however, I end the paper still questioning, only admitting that “as the reader I find myself hoping for vocalization, for speaking these thoughts would change everything and would bring the outside of the moment just a little closer inside.” I found the literary analysis rhetorically effective for while I grapple with the text I do not seek to resolve its inherent tension - only highlight it.

Balancing Neutrality and Advocacy: How to Write a Political Science Case Study like a Political Scientist

December 2018

In Writing 210 sophomore year, I wrote a case study analyzing writing within a particular discipline of my choosing. I was to select a particular professor’s work within the discipline, analyze the rhetorical choices made within the paper, interview the professor regarding my analysis, and report my findings. The assignment was to be 7-9 pages long, targeting an audience of those within the discipline’s discourse community. While writing, I sought to put into practice the conventions I had identified within the professor’s work - to find a gap in current research, attempt to fill it with developing analysis, and to discuss implications of this analysis for future research. 


Specifically, I argued that within political science academic writing, a writer must strike a balance between neutrality and advocacy for “ in some cases, the writer’s goal is simply to outline a set of prescribed legal principles and in others to advocate for a specific theory or policy.” Evidence of this tension often lay in the writer’s use of particular rhetorical devices, such as view-oriented first-person markers and short noun phrases connected within a longer cumulative sentence. I concluded that these findings could be particularly useful for undergraduate students trained to write in prose and lacking the skills to craft a sophisticated political science argument. Upon review, however, I would attempt to discuss more wholestically the significance of navigating this balance in order to assimilate into the wider political science discourse community.

How a City Council Election Got Twisted

October 2018

Sophomore year, I was given an assignment to write a 500-word story on a local event for a journalism class. It was my first introduction into a journalistic style of writing - short sentences, objective tone, and the inclusion of quotes for dramatic effect or style. It was to be written like a regular news story, geared toward an audience unfamiliar, perhaps, with local elections. Approaching the story also required me to obtain genre knowledge not only about traditional news stories but about interviewing as well. I had to craft questions that would prompt meaningful responses and quickly familiarize myself with terminology such as “off the record” and “deep off the record” when my interviewees warned me that I could not attach their names to their quotes in the story. And I had to parse through the hour-long interview, training myself to listen for and pull out quotes that would fit within my narrative. 


My story covered the inner politics of the upcoming Winston-Salem city council elections and included interviews of three individuals serving on the Winston-Salem city council. Although I was able to obtain interesting quotes from the interviews, I found it difficult to adhere to the news story’s genre conventions. At many points I wanted to infuse my own style or commentary on the apparent nepotism of one council member’s attempt to fix the election in favor of his niece post-retirement. And while it seems that I ultimately succeeded in shying away from lengthy sentences or incidental bias in my writing, my strict adherence to genre conventions and fear of expressing opinion inhibited me from incorporating more of a “so-what” in the article. Yes, the city council election turned into a convoluted and political process but why does it matter? And should it only matter to those in Winston-Salem or should it matter nationally as well? I needed to identify my audience better and loosen my tight grip on convention (detached from its rhetorical purpose) so that I could more effectively connect to the reader. 

Worn Ties

March 2018

I wrote a 5-6 page lyric essay about my high school move from Texas to Georgia freshman year in Writing 212. While striving for closure on the situation, I was also conscious of the conventions of the lyric essay while writing the piece. The Eastern Iowa Review, for example, distinguishes the lyric essay from a personal memoir as it “engages primarily with ideas or inquiries, lending it an aspect of intellectual engagement that is not usually foregrounded in the personal essay.” Thus, I made a conscious effort to discuss my personal experience only so much as was required to convey emotions resonant with a general audience nonspecific to my situation. Instead of enumerating my family’s reasons for moving, describing in detail the appearance of my new house, or providing names of specific family members or friends, for example, I focused only on details communicating feelings of nostalgia, loneliness, and confusion. Rereading the assignment now, I am satisfied with its ability to strike a balance between that desire to vent about a personal experience and the genre’s convention of conveying more abstract or universal ideas (although my increased genre awareness since that time might allow me to strike the balance more effectively if I were to revise it).

American Democracy in Five Novels

December 2017

In the first year seminar freshman fall, our class read five novels exemplifying the evolving conception of democracy in America during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Our final paper was to trace a history of the American anxiety of representation during these three historical moments. The paper seemed to be written for an audience familiar with concepts involving democracy and political representation. My central argument offered a somewhat lofty definition of democracy - that it “cannot be prescribed boundaries through fixed institutions, scientific theory, or elaborate tools- not if it is to represent the individual and guard their identity. As Brown, Ellison, and Choi illustrate, it must be an emotion shared by many, a connective force weaving each identity into a collective thread.” I supported this definition through analysis of novels such as Invisible Man, in which the Invisible Man commands his audience not through prepared words but through forging an emotional connection with individuals in the audience.


 In reviewing the paper, it seems to adhere too rigidly to the five-paragraph essay format. The three points made in the paper shift abruptly from one to the next; only the conclusion contains overarching connections between them. And while not poorly written per say, the paper’s structure serves little rhetorical function. If I were to make changes now, I would present my definition of a “democracy of emotion” in the introduction and continuously refer back to it as I move through novels and historical moments, not allowing the paper’s structure to hinder my argument but rather facilitate it. 

Foundation for Defense of Democracies Media Pitch

June 2019

During the interview process for my internship at Foundation for Defense of Democracies I was asked to submit a sample media pitch promoting an FDD researcher to television and print media. This was my first attempt at drafting a "pitch" of any kind and definitely a test of my ability to write concisely. And while the pitch was certainly not as effective as it could have been, the experience impressed upon me the importance of concise writing in professional settings - no longer was I writing lengthy research papers for professors I did not have to convince to read my papers, I was now selling a product to a potential client.

Attorney at Law Magazine Article

April 2020

I completed this project for Jacksonville Florida's Attorney at Law Magazine, a magazine geared toward Florida's legal professionals. The editor of the magazine asked me to write a feature on the anniversary of the 19th amendment's passage giving women the right to vote. The project was an opportunity for me to employ many of the skills I had gained in journalism classes at Wake Forest to a more professional setting; I was able to collect quotes from women's legal organizations in Florida and coordinate with legal and editing executives in my area. Moreover, this also felt like another exercise in applying a political topic to a new genre and audience, which my academic experience had prepared me well for.

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“Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind, is written large in his works.”

Virginia Woolf

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