Self- Assessment

I am pleased to say that this class exceeded my expectations for learning. What I really enjoyed about this class was that the assignments were all centered around something that we would commonly be doing in the real-world setting as Engineers.

1. acknowledge your and others’ range of linguistic differences as resources, and draw on those resources to develop rhetorical sensibility

This class definitely taught me a lot about teamwork and what a difference communication between a group can make. There were many times during the semester where we would peer-review each other’s work and help each other out with our assignments- whether it was helping to fix grammar issues, spelling, tone, design, or rhetoric, it was interesting to see another peer’s perspective on my writing. I found it very useful to read other people’s assignments as well because it gave me a different perspective on the prompt and ideas in which to change the way I wrote something. For example, in the Memo, I had originally just written everything in paragraph form and had not bulleted anything but after seeing my partners organized memo, I liked the way she formatted it and I was inspired by it.

• enhance strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing, and self-assessment

This was a particular objective that was emphasized a lot in the class and I do not think I used it as much as I should have. I think that I should have had more drafts before submitting my final paper. This had to do with time constraints and issues as such. However, I definitely benefited from having peer-review sessions where my classmates could critique my work and really help me with what I needed to edit, because of course there is always room to edit and have more drafts.

• negotiate your own writing goals and audience expectations regarding conventions of genre, medium, and rhetorical situation

There were many different mediums and genre’s that could have been used for this class. All the different assignments required a different format that was different from any other English class that I had been in. The memo required us to be organized, persuasive, informative, and precise. The lab report required us to have citations, outside information, and create a real experiment. The technical description required us to be extremely detailed and precise and strictly informative. All of these skills will be useful in the career of an engineer.  

• develop and engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes

I developed and engaged in the collaborative and social aspects of writing through the proposal and through the multiple peer reviews we had through the semester. I gained a lot of insight on the importance of listening to other peers. Meeting with my partners after class and discussing the proposal and presentation made everything go very smoothly and effectively. We bounced ideas back and forth to produce a strong and well-developed idea and paper.

• engage in genre analysis and multimodal composing to explore effective writing across disciplinary contexts and beyond

This objective came up in the proposal and presentation assignment. When we were asked to invent something, there are many different factors that go into the development of the product, including business and engineering. We also had to explain the disaster of forest fires in California, which was not really related to engineering. However, through our product design, we had to explain how it worked and the details of the mechanism which did include engineering skills. The business aspect of the proposal was for the marketing and the budget to be created and actually work for everyone.

• formulate and articulate a stance through and in your writing

I was required to formulate and articulate a stance in my cover letter. I needed to persuade my audience that I was right for the job which is vital for any job that you need to have in the future.

• practice using various library resources, online databases, and the Internet to locate sources appropriate to your writing projects

Although I did not use physical books or the library to obtain my sources for the assignments, I did use the CUNY online database which did help out a lot to find reliable and relevant sources. Although I did not use these in my technical description, I think my paper would greatly benefit from having better sources. I also learned how to cite in APA format for this course. I usually always cited in MLA format, however I need APA for my future career as an engineer.

• strengthen your source use practices (including evaluating, integrating, quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, synthesizing, analyzing, and citing sources)

APA format was new for me in any course I had taken in college or high school so quoting and citing sources became a slightly different task, but not extremely significant. The lab report and technical description were 2 assignments where sourcing was important. I was also unfamiliar with citing my images which I ended up learning at the end of the course.

Proposal

Professor’s comments:

Slides look good. Good intro. Make sure you proofread the graphics. News clip is very helpful and illustrates the problem very well. Nice explanation of prevention tips. Installation drawing is also helpful. The budget raises some questions. What are the prices based on? What is the cost for the consumer? This could use more development. In general, the slides are well-prepared.

            The proposal was a fun project to work on and I liked that we had to incorporate teamwork to propose an invention that we all agreed on. This assignment allowed us to develop and engage in the collaborative and social aspects of the writing processes which we will need in the future as engineers. However, the most difficult aspect of this assignment was actually working together because it was a new experience for all of us. We had trouble finding a way to format all of our work together in a way that made sense and did not repeat. Me and one of my partner had written the same information when one of us was supposed to write an introduction and one of us was supposed to write alternative methods to prevent forest fires. I had written the alternative methods and my partner wrote other alternative methods in the introduction that also included some background on forest fires. So, we had to change the introduction to add more on the history of forest fires and add more graphics to help the reader understand the huge problem in California. It was new for me to add so many images in a piece of writing. It was also new for me to write a proposal.

            Thinking of an idea that did not already exist was one of the most difficult parts of this assignment. Everything we thought of had already existed. However, after some brainstorming and specific details to our invention, like the heat sensor and Phos-Chek instead of water for the repellent made our idea unique. We could have added more information on the budget and explain why we think this would be the price for everything. However, although it was difficult to work with other people and not something we were used to, I think it was very important to develop teamwork and strong communication that is necessary for any job in the future.

Presentation

Technical Description

Professor’s comments: This is pretty good. I think you could present a little more on the historical and cultural background to make it more complete. The graphics are helpful, as are the explanations. Definitely work on finding better sources. There is better supporting information out there. The writing is okay, but it could use another draft to make it stronger and clearer.

The Technical Description was another assignment that I was not used to writing and had to look over the textbook to see what points I needed to add. I was also having trouble with the word count throughout the paper but I kept thinking about what details I could add to make it more specific. The violin was an instrument/object that I knew from the start that I was going to do since I have been playing for about 14 years now and I really feel like I could write a good description on it.

I actually saw myself writing multiple drafts for this assignment and I was surprised to see that I could have used even another draft to make my writing stronger and clearer. My first draft had little information on the parts of the violin and had to image to direct the reader. However, I added a lot of information on the description and function of all the parts of the violin. I could have strengthened my sources here which is actually one of the course objectives. I could have found better sources that were more reliable to help me explain the violin better. I should have searched more to use more appropriate sources.

The most difficult part of this assignment was how to format it. I was not sure if I should add the description and function of the violin parts in the same paragraph or if I should split them. However, after trying both, I decided to add all the information on the same paragraph because it would be too much back and forth reading if I did not. I also made sure to add sources to my images which means that I finally learned how to do that after the first 2 assignments!

Lab Report

Professor’s comments: Well-written and clear. Interesting lab! Titles should be properly capped. Be sure to label images and reference in the text. Nice graphic of the data. Work on overall design of the entire document. 

The Lab Report was a really useful assignment to experience writing the fundamental aspects on a simple experiment. When I first thought of my topic, I wanted an experiment that would incorporate my friends and be fun to try out. I also thought that choosing this experiment would be useful for the future when picking out which gum brand to buy! My lab lacked design overall and sources of images. A way to have created more design in order to make it easier to read and nicer to look at, I could have added ornaments such as caps, italic or bold text. In my first draft, I lacked factual information on the reason why gum runs out of flavor and I feel like that is an important topic to touch on that will strengthen my experiment’s data. On top of that, I think it was important to also include how companies make their flavors last and the possible differences between each brand of gum. I integrated quotes and added many citations in my introduction and conclusion that helped solidify my experiment. The graphic of the data was also something that was added to the final draft to add clarity to the lab. I think I could have researched even more about the ingredients used and explain those in my discussion. I also think I could have added more visuals on top of the graphic and images for further clarification. However, overall, I really enjoyed conducting this experiment and I think it will help me with my future lab reports in other classes.

Memo

Professor’s comments:
Like the idea and organization of this memo. It makes it clear and easy to read all of the elements and features. The photos are nice, but they need captions and labels. Also, where did you get the photos? They need source info.

The Memo assignment was a great way for me to experience writing a layout of an idea that I had. I had to use the textbook to see what components I needed for a memo since I had never written one before. I liked writing this Memo because it was a way for me to express creativity in an idea I had had for a long time and bring it into words and potentially something I could even share with a real architect in the future. This assignment was a little different than anything that I had done before in that it negotiated my own writing goals and audience expectations regarding conventions of genre, medium, and rhetorical situation.
While writing this memo, I found myself thinking how I should perceive my tone as: persuasive or informative? In a way, I used both aspects when I spoke about the facts and layout while also explaining why it would be a great idea to have such a spa and café. The other thing that was new to me was how to organize the information in a cohesive way that makes it easy for the reader to understand. As a future engineer, I know that other engineers and people in similar fields will want information straight up and will not want to read so much at a time. It was also new for me to bullet my points and add so many subcategories but I really think it spaced things out well.
The only aspect I had trouble with in my first draft was with adding more factual information about the design and organizing the subcategories better. I also did not include sources for my images. However, overall, I think I did a good job in articulating my idea in a cohesive manner which is a huge objective of this class.

Cover Letter

Resume

Introductory Letter

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