Assessing my writing process from a technical and persuasive stance
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Yosef Zidell
Prof. Rodwell
Writing for Engineers
November 5 2019
Self-Reflection essay
This assignment tested my ability to balance the persuasiveness and technicality of writing. The point of this assignment was in order to create a description of a technical product for the purpose of customer education, being detailed enough to allow the consumer to know what they are reading about and convincing enough for him/she to understand its value compared to competing products.This writing process was extremely difficult for me for many reasons, and they are very apparent throughout my work during this assignment.
In the first part of my essay, I talked about what fly fishing was and the historical background of the product I was describing, the Shakespeare Agility Fly Fishing Reel. The purpose of this section was to build a case for the importance of my product by showing the need for its innovation, which I felt I expressed well. My historical background was relatively strong, as I mentioned the rise of fly fishing over standard fishing throughout the years and how the fly reel changed its modeling over the course of a couple centuries. Overall, this section felt like a solid foundation for my technical analysis.
When it came to the actual technical description of my product, I felt extremely lost in the organizational and researching aspects. I knew the product I was researching, and it felt promising describing the individual parts in depths, leading into each part’s substantial value to the overall mechanism. However, when it came to the actual research of the product, I wasn’t able to find enough information online that would allow me to describe the parts appropriately. I was able to retrieve a blueprint of the specific fishing reel from the company via email, conveniently listing the parts and subparts for me. However, after hours of rigorous research, I could not find actual measurements for the parts. the only information I was able to obtain was that of fly fishing reels in general, not for my specific fishing reel brand. This forced me to focus my technical description not so much on the parts themselves, but rather on how the parts are important to its respective system. For example, For the drag of the reel, I focused on the drag system more than the actual drag components. This was a common trend among my essay, and it made my essay seem more like a description of a process rather than a product.
On top of not getting clear information through my research, I did not have a clear understanding as to what my layout was meant to look like for this essay. At first, listing the main parts of my system was simple, as there were four clear parts that made up the reel. However, these components did not have subparts but rather were unique in their individual design. This made my focus on each part geared towards its shape and design, as I was unable to expound upon the intricacies of its subparts since they were non-existent. Due to this, as well as not finding much information on the few parts I was able to identify, my technical analysis was not as strong as it should have been. Overall, I am unhappy with the quality of the technical description essay. Mainly due to a lack of research findings on my product, I was unable to portray that sense of technicality along with the persuasiveness in the importance of the product. Perhaps I would have been better off researching a product which had more online information, and I made the mistake of not confirming that before choosing my product. I missed out on delivering a potentially great essay and I know now to make sure my topic is easily researchable before deciding to invest in it.
