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Kimberly Smith

Mrs. Sindelar

ENG 2116-022

August 7th, 2019

Reflection Essay

Writing Development
.

Throughout this course, I have learned much more than I thought was possible in

such a short time period. I am thankful for the teaching techniques you used because it

was nice being able to visually see the changes you made throughout my documents.

The utilization of track changes was incredibly helpful with my progression in technical

writing because I was able to see what mistakes I made and how I should revise my

writings. Technical writing is crucial in my future career with marketing and I was taught

how to use language that would be user friendly and more understandable for my

readers.

I always felt like English was my best subject but always knew there was so

much room for improvement. I improved most, throughout this course, on my creative

abilities through the use of title pages and letter heads. I was lucky enough to play with

adobe creative cloud and learn more about photoshop, as well as, InDesign. Being able

to use those two platforms was very helpful for my title pages and visuals throughout my

documents. The second thing I feel I improved most on would be outlining my

documents and using the necessary headers for each section. I was never taught much

about headers because most English classes I have taken focused mainly on grammar
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and readability. I liked learning more about layout and design because it helped me

understand just how much goes into a single document. I am now better at formatting

my headers and using appropriate colors/designs along with the most formal/informal

fonts for the type of document I am writing. Not many teachers give the amount of

feedback as I received from you and it truly helps receiving it to the extent that it is given

because I think I have improved most in this class than any other.

One of my bigger issues in writing comes from language usage. I tend to want to

use language that is unnecessary or over exaggerated. I have to work on the jargon

used throughout my papers, although I don’t think that the word usage is wrong, it is just

not useful in the types of papers I am writing. I have learned a lot about what kind of

language is useful in formal writing compared to informal writings. It also depends on

the group you are writing to because sometimes the jargon is necessary and can help

the reader understand better. A majority of the time I think that a minimal amount of

difficult language should be incorporated in any sort of papers regardless of the reader.

I think that there should be smaller essays due in between the larger ones so that

we could receive feedback on those so that we can better understand what our

weaknesses are going into the main assignments. Although, it may be different for

semesters that you are given more time to grade. If time doesn’t allow, maybe have the

students write a small memo in the last 30 minutes of class and walk around to as many

people as you can to answer questions and give feedback if needed. None of those

changes are necessary though because I feel like I received an affective and rewarding

semester. I can walk away from this class confident about what I learned and apply it

throughout my future career.

Course Goals

My original, yet common, goal for this class would be getting the credits. Of

course I needed the credits for this class and only took it because I had to. Although,

upon completion of this course, I realized this class has much more to do with my major

than a great deal of my previous classes did. Along with the previously stated goal I had

a few others. One of which was to better my writing skills to help future readers

understand any blog posts, articles, and various papers I may have to write in my future

career. Another goal I had for myself is obvious but important, gain more knowledge

about the skills and expertise needed to successfully write in a technical format. Lastly, I

hoped to improve my abilities to identify and analyze my audiences. Following I will

separate each goal into sections and expand on them.

Receiving the Credits

Yes, I do believe I will receive the credits that I needed to gain from this class.

This goal was obviously the most important but was accompanied with gaining the

information and abilities needed to better my technical writing skills, which leads me into

my next goal.

Enhancing my Writing Skills

(Before I get into this one, I almost put semi-colons next to each of these headings

which is something I have got to work on!!)

I did not think it was possible to learn as much as I have in such little time and

was overwhelmed in the beginning with the amount I was to do in such little time, as

well. I had a few hiccups along the way but I am very appreciative for the patience you

gave me. Being able to feel relaxed with the time and in the environment helped me

learn more than I would have otherwise. I hoped to learn more about technical writing

so that I could incorporate it into future tasks I was given in my career like blog posts

and articles, as mentioned above. This is just an intro class which makes it sound like

less than it was. It taught me much more than previous intro classes I have taken.

Skills and Expertise Needed to be a Technical Writer

This goal was achieved because I got to see what you were capable of doing

through our classes but also your grading techniques. You were able to go through

each of my big assignments and give me constructive criticism which helped me learn

what I could do better. I like that you made me feel important with your final comments

that summarized what I needed to work on because it seemed like you spent quality

time on each of my papers. I learned most from your revisions because you require us

to build a portfolio of our final work, as well as, tracking our changes on each document

so that we have no choice other than to learn from our mistakes.

Assignments

I am most proud of the letter assignment that I wrote to Dr. William Happer. I chose this

assignment because I researched my topic and the recipient in depth and found information

that I could use in order to put myself into the position I was serving at the World Wildlife Fund.
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I used the same topic of climate change throughout the entire semester and was able to gain

background information and knowledge that could be expanded on in each paper. I learned

more for myself on climate change as well like what I could do myself to help slow the process.

It has helped me gain awareness that I didn’t have before. I am glad that you let me chose the

topic of climate change because it was a broad choice having to do with my Reaktion Book

topic, ice.

➢ If I could add an assignment to this course it would be a mini essay or two that were

graded quicker than the larger ones with feedback and track changes. I think this would

be beneficial to this course and the assignments that are required because it will help

the students see what they should work on when writing the bigger papers. Coming into

this class, I wasn’t sure what I was bad at and what needed work so it would have

definitely been beneficial to me in my case. I know that this semester was short and we

had limited time to receive feedback but even if the class was to take 30 minutes at the

end of class, once or twice a week, and either turn it in to be graded or take questions

and give any input you may have while walking around the class during the 30 minute

session.

➢ If I could edit any assignment that you gave in class it would be the preparation sections

of the assignments. I like the preparation doc but I would have liked to see more

acceptable documents along with the documents that you had us revise. I had trouble

with a few papers because I was overthinking what would be right or wrong. Being able

to use a proper document with correct formatting/layout would be a helpful resource in

making sure our documents met your standards and could possibly help revert someone
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away from making the wrong technical decisions. The editing assignments were great as

grade fillers because it helped us learn what not to do and also gave us a chance at a

good grade as long as we did it correctly.

Overall, you have given me great feedback on my assignments which will help me create a

final portfolio that I can be proud of. I would have liked to know the kind of assignments I

would have been given before purchasing my book since I purchased it before the class started,

it may have made it a little easier to decide what I was going to write about. Though, I think

that the Reaktion Book topics were a bit tricky, by allowing me to use a broad topic it didn’t

matter how specific the actual topic was.