Looking back on my assignments, I found that my writing skill was improved by taken ENGL20107. It gives me a perspective on my skills on writing for becoming a better engineer in my future career. I am a transfer student, and the English courses I took from my previous college were mostly literature. This is the first time I write papers that under an engineering purpose. Each assignment has their own learning objective and propose, which provides a step-by-step studying acknowledge that helps me improved a lot on my writing. Some of the topics I have discovered have really influenced my point of view, and will be rhetorical elements in the engineering field, especially the different types of writing (Genre) in engineering and persuading or informing specific audiences.

The first paper was to write a technical description that based on student’s interest and their concentration. I was the one who wrote about jet engine on the artifact. As the professor said, it might be very difficult to write a technical instruction of a jet engine, since an engine has too many parts, and it has too many thermodynamic theories have to discuss. However, engineers have a demand on better efficiency and powerful engine, and jet engine was the one of the most developed power engines, engineers decided improved the efficient on exciting jet engines, turbojet was the engine that satisfied our demand. After a depth consideration, I decided to keep writing on the item I selected. It was a headache when I was writing my jet engine technical description. Since I am not a professional, I had to do many online researches on jet engine including historical background, components, dimensions, and performance. As well as some comparisons between jet engine and piston engine. It was an intense project, but I felt I am doing a good thing that may led me to improve my writing skills a lot. By doing the technical description, I also found an efficient way to do online research that best fit my learning style. This assignment also helped my understanding on engineering course. On my reflection paper, I wrote,

        “When I was assigned this paper, I must admit that I was a little scared. Writing that says I am not well versed in object and process descriptions will be a complete understatement. This assignment requires an intensive research. When I was writing the assignment, I was learning from where I read the articles. Before this assignment, I was not understanding the jet engines in detail. I like to write about jet engine is because my interest. After this assignment, especially after I did some research about jet engine, I am feeling more passionate in designing a new type of jet engine. I have learned that fast speed is the main advantage of jet aircraft. I also compared jet with propeller air planes.”

After the assignment, I gained so much that in both English skills and my major relative knowledge.

The second assignment was a lab report that is slightly different from the lab reports I have done on my science courses. The lab report for our group is focusing on the conductivity of different materials. Since we don’t have any experimental analysis in real, and the data were “imaginary”, to make the report reliable is a challenge. In addition, this lab report is more focus on English part instead of a science result.

The last major assignment was an engineering proposal. It was a group project that requires a good team cooperation. It was also a longest paper that I have ever written, which was about 31 pages including appendix. Our group was an unique group that our team members came from different majors; compare to other teams, their members are mostly from a same major. As the result, we did very good on this assignment since we have many opinions from different point of views. Also, in our presentation, we brined a prototype of our engineering sample from the project. It lead us standout from other group’s presentations. In addition, the audience of this project is very specific, compare to other projects were had general audiences. For instance, the audience for this proposal is: Maria Melendez, Martin Burvill, and William Long.  Maria Melendez in the mayor of Ponce. They are the people in real. We were thinking in depth about who should be our audience that really would impact on our project. We treat this engineering proposal as an real thing, and this let us gained some experiences in writing and presenting an proposal, which would help our future career.

Figure 1. comments from professor on the engineering proposal project

        In each assignment, we have audience analysis. Audience analysis is very important because when you understand your audience, you can adjust your views by getting the most out of your audience. You will know who will read your writing and the best way to satisfy their interests and prejudice. You will also arrange to write an article to help your readers understand you clearly.

We also worked on many writing elements as well, they were audience, genre, purpose, stance, medium/design and exigence. These elements were discussed on this website (see menu bar above), and I welcome you to check them out!

 

Sincerely

Y.H