Tasmia Sultana
Ms. Davidow
Writing For Engineers
May 13, 2019
Self-Assessment Essay
Throughout the semester we have completed multiple assignments. Assignments such as the technical description, lab report, and the engineering proposal. Each assignment took loads of research and time analyzing Markel’s textbook to properly complete an assignment. At the beginning of the semester, we were given eight course learning objectives. Throughout the semester we were given multiple assignments that challenged us to use these course learning objectives to better our writing.
The first course learning objective is to acknowledge your and others’ range of linguistic differences as resources and draw on those resources to develop rhetorical sensibility. This learning objective became important to me when I was writing my Rhetorical Analysis of Lab Reports. For my technical description, I was describing both lab reports and it required a lot more research than I thought. For this class, we did not really use our research to make a rhetorical example. But, we used it to solidify ones’ reasoning. For the assignment, you had to choose two lab reports to compare and contrast so which ones’ we choose were very important. The learning objective talks about others’ range of resources which I also used. I used peer review to see what my peers were using as their resources and which one is the most reliable. The second course learning objective is to enhance strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing, and self-assessment. I used this learning objective when I was writing my Technical Description. For this assignment, we had to find an invention and describe everything about it. We had to describe the history behind it, the parts of it, and how the parts work. This also required an extensive amount of research. There was a lot of information that came with the assignment so the drafting and editing process was very important. I came to understand how important this learning objective until the end of the semester. After our engineering proposal came to an end, you realize how the writing process is so vital to a well thought out essay.
The third course learning objective is to negotiate your own writing goals and audience expectations regarding conventions of the genre, medium, and rhetorical situation. This learning objective came into use when I received my assignment for the engineering proposal. I have never completed a proposal for an invention in my life so it came to me as a new challenge. I had to start to include an audience and what was the purpose of my proposal and I tried to instill that throughout the proposal. For the fourth course learning objective is to develop and engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes. I came to understand this objective when we started the engineering proposal. At the beginning of the assignment, we were given the opportunity to choose our innovation. That first day of choosing there were already some challenges when everyone had completely different ideas. The fifth course learning objective is to engage in genre analysis and multimodal composing to explore effective writing across disciplinary contexts and beyond. Throughout the semester I do not think I used this learning objective for the particular assignments given. I have not achieved this goal but it seems imminent to writing that has a deeper thought process.
The sixth learning course objective is to formulate and articulate a stance through and in your writing. In our class, we never developed a stance for our writing pieces. Our pieces were about describing evidence and giving reasoning to it. The work we did in class was never opinion based. But I understand where this learning objective could be used. You can write an essay on a controversial topic such as immigration or abortion. The seventh course learning objective is to practice using various library resources, online databases, and the Internet to locate sources appropriate to your writing projects. This learning objective was used for all my assignments. Every assignment I had required research and using different databases to also complete homework. This learning objective is important because when doing research people should have different methods and places online to look for. If you always use one search engine to find the information you will not be able to maximize your information in your assignment. The eighth course learning objective is to strengthen your source use practices (including evaluating, integrating, quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, synthesizing, analyzing, and citing sources. This learning objective was mainly used for all the assignments as well. For example, for my engineering proposal, we would obtain the information and evaluate which part of it should be included in the final proposal. We summarize it to fit the proposal’s standards and we cite any sources that have been used.
My literary journey was a short-lived one, but I have learned many things along the way. The course learning objectives helped me define what is writing along with Professor Davidow’s criticism. The objectives definitely applied inside the classroom, as it helped develop my writing skills. It taught me how to manage my time, to be concise, and present my message clearly. This required reviewing many drafts and changing my evidence all the time, but in the end, it helped create my style of writing. Figuring out my way of writing will help me outside of the classroom in my major that being, Electrical Engineering. In my major, I will have to write down multiple reports or even publish articles about new findings in the field. Teams of engineers even write manuals to certain programs and blueprints to build a part. In my class ‘Writing for Engineers’, this is exactly what we did. We made collaborative projects and completed assignments related to the engineering field. Writing is something that will be in my everyday life. The definition of writing itself is “a medium of human communication that represents language and emotion with signs and symbols”. Overall, I will never escape writing, which is why it is important for everyone to establish their own style of writing in order to succeed in the future.
