Crafting your “Dear Reviewer Letter”

Your Dear Reviewer Letter is separate from your Public Portfolio. It will be read by your Faculty Advisor and the CxC Team, but it is primarily a formal introduction of you and your portfolio to the Portfolio Review Panelist assessing your skills as a candidate for the Distinguished Communicator Medal. You will submit your Dear Reviewer Letter when your final ePortfolio is due.  

The letter should adhere to the following guidelines:

Formatting

  • The letter must be a formal business letter addressed to the Portfolio Review Panel. To be sure you are properly formatting this type of letter, review this resource.
  • You should copy-edit the letter, and be sure it doesn’t contain any typos or grammatical errors.
  • Maximum length: 3 pages/1200 words. 
  • The letter must be submitted as a .pdf file.
  • Use the following naming convention: [last name, first name] DC Reviewer Letter.

Content

  • Briefly identify and discuss your audience (e.g., type of graduate degree program or specific professional position and/or organization) for this portfolio. 
  • Use specific examples to discuss the choices you made in organization, language, design and style that you believe will make your portfolio appealing to your audience (e.g., My home page introduces a ____ professional narrative to [intended audience] by utilizing... [discussion of content and design].)  
  • Discuss how your portfolio highlights your communication proficiencies in the four modes (written, spoken, visual, technological) as they are common to your discipline. Also discuss how your portfolio demonstrates how you exceeded the typical communication conventions of your discipline and how this helps further your goals in appealing to your audience.
  • Discuss where in your portfolio, and how, you demonstrated your skills and accomplishments as a leader. What choices did you make in organization, language, design and style that you believe make it clear to your audience that your leadership experience is valuable to them?
  • Discuss where in your portfolio, and how, you highlighted connections between your academic world and experiences beyond the classroom. What choices did you make in organization, language, design and style that you believe make it clear to your audience that your connections to these other experiences are valuable to them?
  • Discuss the process of collecting, reflecting and translating your skills and experiences into a comprehensive portfolio model. How did you choose what to include? What adjustments or updates did you make as you translated work and experiences from multiple arenas into one, multisensory, nonlinear narrative (i.e. your public portfolio)?

 

*updated August 2019 

 

LSU