Portfolio’s and cover letters are extremely important not only in school for students but they also have great importance in the real world. Personally, I never understood the true importance of either of them until it came to job application and unfortunately, I was on my own when it came to figuring it out. A portfolio is a visual collection of work samples that help showcase your skills and achievements and is usually specific to a topic you are trying to show, whether that be English, math, psychology, etc. A cover letter on the other hand is a personalized introduction of yourself explaining why you are best fit for a particular job and states how you are qualified for a position’s specific requirements. This then directs the reader to the specific pieces within your portfolio which then goes into depth about your abilities.
In “Writing for Academic Audiences” by WRI@SLU, the article touches upon the CARS model and in my opinion I feel that if I had known this before trying to figure out a cover letter and portfolio it would have been beneficial. In the text that discusses how having a captivating, well-organized, and structured introduction is key to success in paper. This correlates to portfolios and cover letters because the way that Swales set up the model, in a way it creates an easy guide in what to write which allows them to structure both pieces better. Because it breaks down the paper into sections it makes it easier to fill in the gaps. Although this article talks about using the CARS model in introductions I feel that it can be applied to a piece of writing as a whole. In particular when looking at a cover letter, a cover letter is essentially an introduction of yourself which essentially has the perfect overlap when thinking about the CARS model.
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