Self-Reflection


Overall, this English course was difficult but also interesting at the same time. Writing for Engineers consisted of assignments that correlate to the world of engineering. For this course, I had to use English skills that I already know of and I also had to learn some skills throughout the way in order to finish the assignments. This course has taught me a couple of important things. The most important thing that I learned in this class was that it doesn’t matter what type of engineering I’m majoring in because, at the end of the day, I still would have to write a high-quality report. By learning this, it was mandatory for me to improve my writing. I had improved my writing by coming up with different reading and writing skills and I was also implementing the course learning outcomes into my assignments.

The formal letter of introduction was a letter that was written to the professor speaking on behalf of what my major is and what my goals are as a mechanical engineer. In the Formal Letter of Introduction, I was able to formulate and articulate a stance through and in my writing. Throughout this letter, I generated a stance by giving a positive attitude since I was talking about what my major is, what do mechanical engineers do for a living, and the possible goals that I am able to accomplish as a student in this course and as a mechanical engineer in the future. I also provided a stance on the idea of what life would look like without mechanical engineers.

The lab report analysis was an assignment where I had to choose three lab reports of my interest, analyze those reports, and compare them by how strong and good their content and format were. In the lab report analysis, I enhanced strategies for reading. This was the most difficult assignment that I had encountered throughout this course since I didn’t have any strategies on how to read, write, and analyze three long lab reports. The blackboard discussion “LRA developing best practices” helped me enhance strategies for reading since peers were sharing good reading strategies that I could implement to analyze long reports. The strategies that I used were annotating, highlighting significant information, reading and summarizing each section, and making inferences. Implementing these strategies into analyzing the lab reports helped me understand them a little better because I was able to summarize the reports in my own words and it also contributed more confidence in my thinking and ability to analyze reports. I need to improve on negotiating writing goals since the content of my lab report analysis was weak and I really didn’t have an idea of how I was going to write the analysis.

The technical description was an assignment where I had to choose an innovation of my interest that contains multiple parts and subparts and explain to the audience what each part and subpart does. In the Technical Description, I practiced using the internet to locate sources that were appropriate to my assignment. This was the most interesting and easiest assignment that I had encountered throughout the course since this was an assignment where I had to be informing the audience about my innovation (which was the Logitech Harmony Elite Universal remote) and persuading them on why that innovation is the best in business. I used the internet to search for sources that were authentic and had significant information about the parts and subparts of the universal remote. I analyzed those sources to make sure that the information was accurate and was also written by a trusted author. Once I had analyzed the sources, I had to make sure that the information was relevant to my innovation. In this assignment, I was able to have provided good explanations of the purposes of the parts that I named due to the use of good sources.

The proposal pitch was an assignment where my group and I had to come up with an engineering innovation in order to stop water pollution. In the proposal pitch, I practiced using the Internet to locate sources that are appropriate to our writing project. This assignment was difficult to complete since there was a lot going on. We had to come up with an idea on how to stop water pollution in NYC, I had to stay in contact with my group members, we had to agree on a time and day that everyone could meet, and I had to make sure that everyone was doing their part. The innovation that we chose is a drainage net and it already exists in Australia but we want to introduce this innovation to NYC and improve it. We used the internet to locate sources that best suited us. We looked up the cost of the material of the net, installation, the time it takes to manufacture the material. This assignment has demonstrated our imporvements towards writing and how we have the avilability to revise each others parts so we could improve our writing strategies more.

The final assignment was the leadership presentation. Me and two other students had to lead the blackboard discussion “documenting your sources” where we would give students feedback on the sources they chose or we would provide them with an additional source that could help them. In the leadership presentation, I developed and engaged in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes. I was very engaged throughout the discussion and the more engaged I was in these discussions, I improved on giving tips and giving students important concepts for improvement. I was able to give students good feedback on their sources, provide them with suggestions, and ask them questions that would lead them to make inferences.

To summarize, this class was interesting but also difficult since I came into this class with no idea of how engineers write. This class was helpful to me since I improved my reading and writing strategies. I learned new strategies and these strategies will help me further in other English classes.