Self Assessment

In what ways have my perceptions on what technical writing is and does evolved this semester?

At the start of the semester, I didn’t understand the point behind making lab reports, technical descriptions, and documenting so much information for PSA’s or proposals. As we explored the lab report, I understood that. Its main purpose was to present all my findings for readers to either experiment with and factcheck or simply to learn something new. Then, for the PSA’s, a lot of information is required to be. Credible.  Making these PSA’s were fun to me because we had to work in groups, modeling the work ethic of engineers, gather credible information and condense it in consideration of the short presentation and attention from our audiences. Finally for the Proposal, engineers must know all of the information about what they want to improve. For the proposal, you have to entice your audience into wanting to support you. My understanding for the need of these technical writings went from thinking they weren’t necessary to understanding that they lay the foundation for an engineering project no matter how small it may be. 

To what extent and in what ways have I achieved (or not achieved) the course learning objectives? 

  • acknowledge your and others’ range of linguistic differences as resources, and draw on those resources to develop rhetorical sensibility. 
  • I achieved this CLO while completing the proposal presentation. I was reviewing all the information my group member put on the slides, checking for grammatical errors and removing unnecessary information. 
  • enhance strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing, and self-assessment
  • I achieved this goal when we were doing the peer review and I got feedback from my group member for the lab report. Ex; The covid 19 pandemic has affected the production of vehicles into our economy. This dramatic halt of production caused the prices of vehicles to rise substantially in 2020 (Lab Report Draft); The covid 19 pandemic has affected the production of vehicles into our economy. This dramatic halt of production caused the prices of vehicles to rise substantially in 2020. A main cause of the halted vehicle production in 2020 was the closing of the factories that manufacture Electronic Control Units (ECU’s). (Final Draft)
  • negotiate your own writing goals and audience expectations regarding conventions of genre, medium, and rhetorical situation
  • I dont believe I achieved this goal because I was not focused on my own writing goals. I was more focused on my topic and putting as much information as I needed while making it clear enough for the audience. 
  • develop and engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes
  • I achieved this CLO when we were doing the technical description and lab report assignments and we each participated in peer review. 
  • engage in genre analysis and multimodal composing to explore effective writing across disciplinary contexts and beyond
  • I don’t really thin I achieved this goal because the only genre I explored throughout this semester was informative.
  • formulate and articulate a stance through and in your writing
  • I don’t think I achieved this CLO because most of the writings we completed throughout this semester was more informative than argumentative. 
  • practice using various library resources, online databases, and the Internet to locate sources appropriate to your writing projects
  • I achieved this learning objective in the first lab report we had to do. When I was gathering all my sources, I had to ensure they were credible. Ex; Used-car prices may be easing, research shows by Sarah O’Brien (CNBC) Published Thu, Feb 3 2022 2:09 PM EST ; Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/03/used-car-prices-may-be-easing-research-shows.html (reference from Lab Report).
  • strengthen your source use practices (including evaluating, integrating, quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, synthesizing, analyzing, and citing sources)
  • I achieved this objective in all of my assignments because I was better able to put the information in my own words while still citing my source. Ex; “With all these components you may think that braking is very complicated, however it is not. When you press the brake pedal, the pressure created is then increased by the brake booster and transferred to the master cylinder. The master cylinder’s job is to now distribute brake fluid equally to whichever brakes needed to slow the vehicle down (Mike 2022)” (excerpt from Technical Description). 

What strategies, habits, or activities were effective and what might you do differently in the future?

Communication between group members was a very effective strategy for the group projects. Through our communication, we were able to delegate all the responsibilities and finish our PSA and Proposal in a timely fashion. Communication only fell apart when one member did not try to communicate with the entire group and did not do as much work because they were absent most of the time. The only thing I would do differently if I had a choice would be to choose different group members and having better time management. Time management has been my main issue ever since I started writing and completing assignments for school. Over time I have gotten better, however I still fail to properly utilize my time because sometimes I would find myself in class doing nothing simply because I have time to finish everything at home or because I just felt lazy. This issue did not hinder the completion of any of my assignments however, so this circumstance was my one redeeming quality.