Starting off the first day in the class of Writing for Engineering, I can recall feeling very nervous. I did not know what to expect. Fall 2021 is my first semester at The City College of New York, as I am a transfer student from Borough of Manhattan Community College. I took two English classes in my previous college, and they were both very different. I managed to get a good grade in both classes, but they’re level of difficulty was opposite to one another. From my previous understanding, I had the idea that writing was centred on your own personal reflection to whatever task you were given. For example, in an English class, one may be asked to do an analysis of a poem. I thought that the professor does not want to know what the poem says, but rather what I reflected on the meaning of the poem. Although that is true for creative writing, it does not hold for all types. During the time which I was taking this class, my understanding of what writing meant dramatically shifted. I would say that I enjoyed this class much more than any other English class I’ve taken before. I believe that technical writing is a much easier way of communicating. I like that simplicity, clearity, and ease of understanding in this course has been emphasized. In my webpage, I added the following assignments which I completed: Letter of Introduction, Technical Description, Rhetorical Analysis of Lab Reports, group peer review of public toilets, Electric vehicles proposal, and the electric car presentation. Writing these assignments has changed my perception on what writing does. Although writing can sometimes mean to make people think and challenge their ideas. There’s also writing to help people understand how to work machinery, criticizing other works, informational writing, proposals, and much more. I will further discuss how I have shown my understanding of the course learning objectives or about ones I was not able to master. 

During the last portion of the course, I engaged in group work to come up with a proposal. My group chose how to make electric vehicles more efficient. I was responsible for the introduction. To my surprise there was more research than I expected to introduce the topic. I was also able to improve my rhetorical sensibility. I did not notice the significant difference there was in my own and other group members’ range of linguistics. However, it was very simple to divide up the work and assist each other with tasks during the process. I have to say though, I usually have a method of working, which I had to adjust while working in a group. My method was to copy and paste the outline given, and write my paper around the outline. However, when I tried to do that with the group assignment, I think it confused people more than helping them. For the independent works involving peer review, like my rhetorical analysis of lab reports and the review of other team members’ draft proposals, I was free to follow the method of my choice. After revising other works, I definitely always reflected on my own. I remember the particular instance where I was reviewing the draft proposal of public toilets. I noticed that they did not include references, which my group did not as well, and more importantly they had a section my group was missing. As a group we came together to add this section to our paper. Although I was reviewing another person’s paper, it made me look at my own, and want to do much more. Becoming better at revisions allowed me to better understand my own way of revising work as well. I noticed after seeing what other group members had commented as a feedback to other’s work, I felt like I was probably too hard on my reviews. 

Understanding one’s audience is important in the process of writing and presenting. For example, while preparing my presentation on making electric vehicles more efficient. I was careful to not add anything that was too wordy. I had just a sentence or two on each slide with a picture to accompany the writing. I believe imagery helped the audience visualize the overall concept. I also made sure to not include wording that was not common in everyday English conversation. I added attention grabbing phrases so that the audience can continue to stay engaged. I took these steps because I knew that my audience of City College undergraduate students were most likely not fully aware of the concepts and ideas which I knew after reading up on articles in order to prepare for the assignment. The presentation also had an important social aspect. My group members and I had to meet to discuss the topic, how to approach it, and how to divide up the work. We used a shared document so that we can work on the assignment simultaneously. Our method of communication was usually during class time, we had a lot of time dedicated to group work, so we took advantage of that. We also had a discord group, we shared our concerns there, we also exchanged advice on how each group member could improve their own parts. During my earlier projects, I was able to take part in genre analysis for a rhetorical analysis of laboratory reports, which I discussed a little earlier. I also engaged in blackboard discussions throughout this semester for this class. I enjoyed the blackboard discussions on the peer review, which I have included in the website. I ended up learning a lot about public toilets and revised my own paper because of that. I also engaged in the discussions on blackboard ‘icebreaker’, ‘fast, cheap, or easy? Forum one’, and ‘definitions’. I provided feedback as well as responding to others’ feedback. I believe it’s important to give responses which are not repetitive but rather a new fact or thought which would allow for further discussion. I always try to be honest and helpful to give feedback to others.

While writing my technical description on headphones, I had to take a look at my own point of view. I didn’t consider the age group too much, as headphones are used by people of any age, but rather on the education level of the reader. I myself don’t know much about the technical terms of headphones except for the most basic parts like a microphone. Therefore I wrote the paper as if the reader, like me, was not very knowledgeable about the technical aspects of headphones. I think this method allowed for a much wider range of audience for the paper. People who have never read a technical document before would not have a hard time reading mine. Locating online databases was easier than I expected. I can recall finding the articles I needed for the rhetorical analysis of laboratory reports. I did a general search on Google and found many articles which came of interest to me. The references I used were:

Abdul-Razak, N. S., & Hashim, H. I. (2017). Design a reliable engineering system by using fuzzy expert system. Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Retrieved November 7, 2021, from http://article.sapub.org/10.5923.j.eee.20170701.01.html#Ref. (Abdul-Razak & Hashim, 2017) (Fg.1)(Fg.2)

K., S., & Kanchan, D. S. (2017). Concept of solar and pedal powered electric bicycle. Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Retrieved November 7, 2021, from http://article.sapub.org/10.5923.j.eee.20170702.03.html. (K. & Kanchan, 2017)

As shown above, I found both the articles from the database after finding the database on Google, the database name is ‘Scientific and Academic Publishing’. During my analysis of literature, I was focused on finding reliable material which provided laboratory reports. I did not find much difficulty in it as my area of interest was very wide. Also, our class had practiced finding materials online during class time. Unfortunately, one of the goals I was not able to achieve was in figuring out how reliable sources are. I still struggle with this now. I believe as I continue to get exposed to different databases and work with them, I will be able to have a better idea of what sources to trust.

In conclusion, my idea of what writing is has dramatically shifted since I started this technical writing class. Technical writing is much more different than any other English class I have taken in the past. I believe it helped me to become a clear writer. During my group work, I learned how to work with my team members in ways that benefited all of us. Revising the work of others made me look at my own materials and question my ideas. It made me compare my work to others. I gained a better understanding of targeting a particular audience when writing or presenting. Collaborating with my team members and class mates using blackboard, discord, zoom, etc allowed me to grow my social aspects as a writer. I continued to acknowledge my own point of view in writing, and how that could influence my target audience. One of my favourite parts of the course was locating databases to find articles for my writing. Unfortunately, I believe I still need more practice in determining what reliable sources are. I know as I continue my undergraduate studies, as I read and write, I will grow and develop. I believe I have a good idea of what writing is, but I have a feeling that by the time I graduate that idea would have completely evolved to something else.