Abstract
The self-assessment is my way of evaluating how well I was able to achieve the course learning objectives. Through this, you will be taken on my journey of understanding what writing now means to me. I learned many things this semester and it is all conveyed in this piece.
This class has been one of the most enlightening classes that I took this semester. From understanding the wide range of differences among people to engaging in the discipline that is technical writing; I believe it has taken what I already know about writing and brought it to an even higher level. As an aspiring mechanical engineer, I would agree that math and science serve a significant purpose in much of my future, but this is not to say that writing is not of equal importance. It is essential that I am capable of solving problems efficiently, but what good is this ability without being able to convey it to others? This is just one of the many things I was able to learn this semester. My development as a writer has changed my perception on what writing is and does and while I faced some hardships from time-to-time, I still believe that my grasp on the course learning objectives was just as strong as someone who didn’t.
The first assignment we did was the resume/cover letter for a company in our field of study. I believe this assignment was designed to introduce us into the technical world and obviously, like many other careers, this begins with a resume. Identifying my strengths relevant to my field of study and choosing a company that reflects some of my goals was important. This does not mean simply choosing a company but more so researching and understanding what some of these companies stand for. Up until this point, I do not think that I have ever really thought much about this, so it was a good introduction for what we would be doing later in the class.
The following assignment was the business memo. This is where my perceptions on what writing is/does really began to change. It was this assignment where I had to evaluate the ethics of a companies (in my case Google) Code of Conduct and report my evaluations in the form of a business memo. Understanding how to write a business memo was very straight forward. The real tough part about this assignment was being able to recognize how a Code of Conduct should be written ethically. With time, I began to understand more about how this is done. In such a diverse society, we have to realize the range of differences amongst people. This means acknowledging the difference in education levels, language, and opinions to further develop a contemporary attitude of expressing our ideas. Avoiding jargon and unnecessary information is crucial in doing this and allows for the highest level of effective communication. This is how a Code of Conduct should be written. The language used should be universally understood across the range of education levels and it should not include unnecessary information. This ensures that your audience has the greatest understanding of the rules and codes. When I finally evaluated Google’s Code of Conduct, I realized much of this and through heavy drafting, revising, peer reviewing, and editing, I was able to evaluate the ethics.
This was the similar approach for the lab reports memo as well. Researchers in many technical fields of study are not an exception to this way of writing. In fact, it may be more important for them than it is for everyone else because of who they are writing to. Considering many of these lab reports get published in bigger journals, their audience tends to be the general public. As a result, their writing has to keep that in mind. When doing this assignment, I had to use many online databases and sources to find relevant lab reports to my field of study. It can be hard to pinpoint a specific lab report that does this, but I eventually narrowed down my options to 2 reports that I could compare. After this, it was smooth sailing. I picked a stance on how ethical the reports were in relation to each other and followed many of the things I did with the business memo, except this time, I was already aware of the differences between people and rhetorical sensitivity. It made it much simpler to handle this assignment and I could go through the revising process with my classmates easier than before. Overall, this assignment helped me to perfect my ability to use various resources/databases, understand rhetorical sensibility, take a stance in my writing, and cooperate with my classmates for revision.
The next assignment was the technical description and instructions. This was one of the only assignments that I struggled on this semester. It may be partly due to the fact that it was very different from the first few assignments that we did in the class. I had to describe a mechanism within my field of study and include instructions on how to use it. Not only this, but I was well aware that this was a way for me to finally incorporate ethical writing into my own work. The technical instructions were easy for me to achieve. I made steps to describe how to do a simple task and included diagrams so that the reader could better understand what was to be done. Then I made sure to eliminate all technical jargon and after some revision, I was done. On the other hand, the technical description was tough for me. The reason for this is because of the lack of editing I could do. I was unable to get great feedback from my peers because we were in the midst of shifting school to online. This is when I realized how important the social aspect of writing is. It is crucial to be able to collaborate with my classmates because the feedback I get is immensely helpful. Since I lacked a lot of this during the assignment, I struggled with including a technical description. I interpreted the technical instructions and technical description as being the same thing and I now firmly believe that if I had more peers to help me revise, I would not have missed this. After my professor gave me feedback, it was clear on what I missed, and I was able to go back and do heavy editing to fix my mistake. I feel that if I did not experience this situation, I would not have realized how important peer feedback really is and because of that I am glad that things happened this way. It allowed me to develop more as a writer.
Finally, the last assignment was the group project/proposal. This was the cumulative assignment that would encompass everything we learned throughout the semester. We had to include technical descriptions, ethical writing, peer feedback, and use online resources, but now it was being done in a group. It was tough given the current circumstances of the world, but in the end, I think we were able to meet our end goal. Although I am confident in what we did together as a group, I do think that we could have done much better if we provided feedback to each other in person. Working online is tough to handle and trying to communicate effectively in everyone’s busy lives was definitely hard. Nevertheless, we accomplished the task and managed to incorporate many of the things we learned throughout the semester.
Ultimately, I just want to end by saying that this semester was very important in my growth as a writer. Out of the 7 course learning objectives, I think I was able to achieve all of them. I may have struggled when it came to the technical description, but without this hardship, I do not think I would have been able to understand the importance of the social aspects of writing. The resume/cover letter helped in introducing me to the technical world, and the memos improved my ability to understand rhetorical sensitivity and the differences amongst people. Through all of these assignments, I had to engage with my peers multiple times to ensure I could edit/revise to my fullest potential. And finally, I was able to gain an understanding on how ethical writing transfers to different genres. Regardless if I had met these objectives or not, I still think I would have come out of this class understanding the major importance of ethical writing. Everyone must acknowledge the wide range of differences in education levels and language and should always look to convey their ideas in a simple way for everyone to understand.
