Writing classes, for me, have always come across as daunting. As an extremely structured individual, I work well with specific instructions and guidelines to help me visualize my goals. But because writing has a certain sense of individuality involved, it clashes with my strengths of order and direction, which has negatively affected the way I have viewed writing classes thus far. However, this Writing for Engineering class has enlightened me to the true nature of writing. From the various assignments and discussion boards throughout the semester, I was able to not only recognize and enhance certain writing skills but was also able to strategically build off what I learned from the previous assignments in order to  better the current ones.

 

The first assignment was the Letter of Introduction. The purpose of this assignment was to introduce ourselves to my audience and talk about my drives and passions that helped me choose my selective major. This assignment felt comfortable for me for I was able to convey a sense of honesty through my words, which I’ve always been strong in. For example, I highlighted the fact that my passion for playing fingerstyle guitar stems from the same passion that influenced me to choose the engineering field, stating:

” It comes across as one whole majestic piece to the listener, when in reality it is the result of carefully calculated combinations of otherwise simple and mundane techniques. This is like the work of engineers, as they are the ones behind the scenes creating the algorithms, the designs, the layout, everything involved in the result which everyone sees as a simple yet mesmerizing skyscraper”.

However, the very approach which I thought highlighted this strength of mine as a writer showcased many flaws instead. With my tunnel vision to provide genuine content, I neglected the layout and flow of my arguments, making my letter not appear like a letter at all. I didn’t have any paragraphs because I didn’t structure my thoughts enough to separate them into sections. This assignment introduced me to the importance of structure, for having a proper setup to my paper would have directly enhanced the perception of my content.

 

The purpose of the memo was to showcase my ability to take a stance on a problem and depict that accordingly, making it the first assignment I actively focused on structure and flow of ideas. However, despite what I felt was my best efforts at the time, I still fell short in a delivering a strong paper for two main reasons. My first problem was lack of transitions. Although I set up my memo into specific paragraphs, I lacked the flow of my ideas within those specific sections. My second issue was my lack of evidence for my thoughts. For example, in my section discussing the issue I was addressing, I made multiple claims stating that students were stressed trying to navigate the CCNY campus and it was affecting them academically. However, I never supported these claims. I should have included a survey or statics showing these claims to be true, which would have made my argument much stronger. Despite these shortcomings, I felt I learned a lot about the writing process. I learned how to formulate a stance through my writing by using a certain tone to portray the urgency of my memo, and I was able to find a balance between what I wanted to write and what the audience was going to perceive, using certain language and ton to accomplish that. Because I was required to depict specific language in my arguments, I increased my ability to engage in in genre analysis.

 

For my Lab report analysis, I was able to implement  what I learned about structure and stance from my first two assignments in order to properly critique the works of three separate lab reports by using rhetoric analysis in order to convey their similarities and differences. There were a lot of elements which were needed for the success of this paper, first being the structure. As a recurring theme, I struggled with the structure of this assignment but not for the same reasons as the two previous assignments. This time, my issues resulted from the fact that while the points I made were both interesting and valid, they didn’t have a purpose. I constantly made critiques as I went through each section of the reports and even stated why these points made the respective section strong or weak in certain regards. However, what I failed to do was show how I came to these conclusions. What my structure lacked was not in its inability to flow from ideas, like my previous assignments, but in not having my ideas tied to one overall theme. For example, I wrote a fair point in one of the lab’s inability to produce an effective introduction section:

“ Lab A set up its introduction by stating vague background information regarding mental performance in loud areas, and then introduced the intro-extroversion aspect, suggesting other studies that correlated the two before ending the section. Besides not even clearly stating a hypothesis, Lab A’s Introduction wasn’t impressive in the slightest, as the content seemed more scattered than being building blocks for each other. For instance, Lab A begins by vaguely mentioning the factors which influence mental processing, and then quickly transitions into the lack of findings regarding that concept (G. Belojovic, 2001). It would have been more effective to elaborate more on the influential factors, as well as their significance, and then mention the lack in findings in order to convince the audience of the Lab’s importance.”

This point was well made in that it showcased a specific issue with that lab’s section. However, what I failed to do was show why I thought this lacking made the section better or worse. There were no specific guidelines for my critique and therefore my points lost their strength as a whole. This assignment helped me strengthen my source use data for quoting, summarizing, and analyzing, as the entire paper was comprised of information from other papers.

 

The technical description paper was by far the most difficult assignment for this class. The background and history section was straightforward, as I talked about the build-up of my innovation and how it was remodeled through the years to be what it is today. However, when it came to the technical description part, I had obvious stumbling blocks. Most of them rooted from the fact that I chose an innovation which had barely any sources to help describe it in depth. The only source I had to use to describe my product was a company diagram, which was very helpful in showing the design of the various parts that made up the product. However, I was unable to locate dimensions, materials, or any other important details regarding my product’s parts. For example, When talking about the main body of my product, I stated:

“The size of the body allows the fly-fishing reel to give or take a lot of line per revolution while reeling, more than the standard fishing rod. This allows for more line to be reeled in with less effort, allowing for faster catches”

What I wanted to include in this was the dimensions of the body, the weight, as well as the material used. From this I could have easily made an argument as to why this reel body was effective and better than other models. However, I was unable to do that due to that information being unobtainable. I even reached out to the company itself numerous times to find more information on it but was left empty handed. Although I missed out on delivering the technical aspect to this paper, I was still able to provide persuasion with the information I knew, as shown by the excerpt above. The information was able to obtain came from various sources, such as fly-fishing blogs, history websites, and online retailers. This gave me great practice in using online data bases to locate sources appropriate to my project. Because I needed to use persuasion as a tactic in my writing, this assignment helped me better my ability to negotiate my own writing goals regarding conventions for genre. On top of this, because of all the sources i used for my paper, I was able to strengthen my source use practices for integrating and citing sources.

 

My final project was greatly fitting in that it encompassed all the tools I gained through the first four assignments. What was especially important about this project was that it provided a sense of individuality: Everything that was implemented into our final paper rooted from our original decisions. The process for the project was tedious yet necessary and was extremely structured and well planned. My group and I first needed to acknowledge an important issue in the world. This required group collaboration and input from our personal experiences, what we’ve read, etc. Next, we needed to come up with a solution for the problem. This required a lot of research into potential solutions for our problem, a task I was prepped for by the technical description assignment. Once we decided on our specific solution to the issue, the heavy work began. Detail was crucial in building our argument and having to make a stance for our solution was helped by my experience with the memo assignment. Knowing nothing about this innovation we were trying to construct made the entire process especially stressful, yet with proper collaboration my group mates and I were able to put together an impressively detailed proposal. I am generally a person who prefers to do everything on his own and this project really helped me develop and engage in the collaborative and social aspects of the writing processes.The final presentation also required tremendous preparation, as I needed to know my innovation proposal even more than I already did in order to effectively answer questions during the question/answer session.

 

Perhaps the greatest tools I had during my semester wwere the self-reflection essays and black board discussions. They taught me to assess writing concepts while away from the process itself. For example, the self-reflection essays helped me objectively critique my assignments, criticism which is near impossible during the actual writing process. The blackboard discussions helped me understand concepts through collaboration of my other classmates. This was crucial for my writing growth as I was introduced to ideas that I would otherwise not encounter. For example, a fellow classmate’s response on the black board discussion regarding the self-reflection essays really enlightened my approach. He said that his approach to critiquing his work was done by evaluating the following: if he did something right, why did it work, and if he did something wrong, what would have made it better. This tactic was incredibly effective in my self- reflection essays, as it gave my points a proper guideline to follow. Another invaluable tool came from the student led discussion regarding the project presentation. There, my fellow classmate posted a response highlighting the similarities in approach to standard writing assignments and what the textbook was describing for the presentation approach. The similarities she mentioned regarding structure, assessment, and drafting took a lot of stress of the presentation process. These blackboard discussions helped me engage in the social aspect of the writing processes.

 

This semester was a beautiful accumulation of growth and application. What was learned from previous assignments was immediately implanted into the next ones, which allowed the course learning outcomes to be constantly relevant. These tools I learned will be extremely helpful down the line regarding the technical aspects of the field. I look forward for what the future holds for me as a civil engineer, for I feel more equipped now than I was four months ago to handle any situations which require skills I developed throughout this semester.