SELF-ASSESSMENT ESSAY
As a student of the Writing for Engineers course this Fall 2023, I have learned a lot this semester. In this class, we accomplished many assignments that tested our skills in technical writing. These assignments include Formal Letter of Introduction, Product Review Essay, Lab Report Analysis, Technical Description, and many more. Through these assignments I was able to grow as a writer and engineer.
For the first assignment of the semester, the Formal Letter of Introduction, I felt it aided my ability to explain my perspectives through writing. In this essay we had to write a letter to our professor introducing ourselves, our major, career goals, etc. I ended up writing about my projected major of Computer Science as well as my interests in the career of Software Engineering. This assignment improved my ability to convey a perspective by prompting me to explain how I believe engineers will solve problems in the future. I had to thoroughly explain the concept of first principles problem solving which is something that many important figures in STEM history utilize.
The second assignment of the semester was the Product Review Essay. The objective of this essay was to take a household item and review it using a criterion that we create. Additionally, we had to incorporate information about what makes the innovation possible. For this essay, it introduced me to doing Technical Writing myself. I had to learn how to describe an object’s quality assuming my audience has zero knowledge of the subject. This could only be accomplished properly through the analysis of the genre of Technical Writing, which many of the course readings aided me in doing just that. Creating an outline beforehand was also helpful because it allowed me to map out the different possible Thesis Statements, Criterion, etc. It simplified the writing process when dealing with uncharted territory.
The third assignment of the semester, the Lab Report Analysis, also aided my writing this course. For this assignment we had to find three lab reports in peer reviewed journals that are all similar to each other, then compare and contrast the formats to analyze the effectiveness and explain the reasons for each variation. I felt my researching skills improved significantly due to my usage of the CCNY Library. Previously, I would have trouble getting access to Peer Reviewed papers since they are normally locked behind a paywall, but since delving back into the schools Library, I now have access to these. The library truly improved my research skills by allowing me to utilize a variety of different resources to conduct my research and complete the assignment.
For the fourth assignment of the semester was the Technical Description. The objective of this assignment was to choose a Technical Innovation once again, but from the last 100 years. Then we had to organize its parts into main parts and subparts and describe the properties of each. First, I created an Outline for this assignment. This outline aided me because it made the labeling of parts and subparts easier. I used a numbering system to indicate corresponding subparts, and this translated over to my titles. Through the completion of this assignment, I improved my source use practices by learning the concept of adapted media. I took pictures from my products manufacturer, and edited labels on them in my assignment. Then I wrote labeled these photos with the phrase “Adapted from” to indicate the source. The way I learned this concept was from reading the text Dynamics of Media Writing by Vincent F. Filak.
For the final main assignment of the semester, was the Collaborative Project. For this assignment the students of the class had to form a group and create an innovation together. From here a Proposal had to be made as well as a Presentation on our innovation. During this project, I mainly had to learn how to work with others. Since this assignment was much lengthier than previous ones since it had many more requirements, we needed a plan of attack to complete it. This can only be done through scheduled meeting times as well as an outline of certain tasks to be completed. We had to devise times when we would all be comfortable to meet and assign responsibility of different sections of the documents to each other.
Throughout the course, we wrote Reflection Memos for three assignments. These assignments include the Product Review Essay, Lab Report Analysis, and Technical Description. These assignments were mainly to reflect on our performance post handing in our assignments to get a better understanding of where we went wrong and devise a plan for future endeavors. Admittedly, most of the insights I had drawn from these assignments aided me mostly in writing Reflection Memos since the assignments are so different from each other and there isn’t much room to apply the specific feedback twice. Despite this, it still aided me in enhancing my revising ability.
Another type of self-reflection work we did throughout the duration of the course was our Semi-Weekly Reflections. These weekly prompts improved my analysis abilities since they frequently asked you to analyze the rhetorical situation of an assignment completed during the week. To be more specific, these prompts improved my self-assessment abilities since analysis of the rhetorical situation is commonly utilized when planning the writing of an assignment. It makes you consider your audience, purpose, etc. This can be important to make sure you are writing appropriately for the type of writing.
During the duration of this course, we consistently wrote on Blackboard. The main purpose of these Blackboard posts was mainly to communicate and engage in collaborative feedback. One piece of feedback that stood out to me was when a group member of mine pointed out my misuse of “etc.” in my writing. I would frequently use replace the period in “etc.” with a comma whenever continuing a sentence. This is incorrect use of this abbreviation in writing as the period should always stay there. If needed to continue a sentence, you simply place the comma after the period. I found that this feedback allowed me to use others linguistic differences as resources as in this case, the difference was the objectively correct way. This feedback also once again improved my self-assessment ability because now I will be able to watch out for that mistake.
In conclusion, I learned a lot throughout this course. Through assignments such as the Product Review Essay, Lab Report Analysis, and Technical Description, I was able to make a leap into Technical Writing. The Lab Report Analysis also improved my researching ability through giving me access to many peer-reviewed resources. By completing self-reflection assignments such as Reflection Memos, and Semi-Weekly Reflections, I was able to improve my self-assessment ability in my Technical Writing. Lastly, blackboard posts also improved this ability by giving me feedback on my writing. Hopefully in future Technical Writing endeavors, I will be able to effectively use the skills learned in this class.
