Mohammed Islam

Self-Assessment Essay

As I progressed through this semester, I’ve learned more than I expected. This English class was very different than any of the English classes I’ve taken in the past. This course was specific to Engineers. This class exposed us to different types of writing that as engineers we will see and do. We looked at lab reports, technical descriptions, and engineering proposals. We examined these types of writing to understand the dynamics of how they are purposed and how they are made. What previous English classes did for us was develop ourselves as writers and taught us how to write organized papers. What this class did for me was further my development as a writer and taught me how to use what we already know about writing in a professional environment. This was an interesting class and I enjoyed the assignments because it felt more real to me. These are the types of tasks and assignments we are going to do in our careers as engineers and I believe this class has prepared me well.

One of my favorite assignments was analyzing lab reports. In this section of the course we dissected lab reports and learned all the components of one and how to make effective lab reports. In addition, we learned how to extract information from the reports. We did this by understanding the functions of different components of a lab report then understanding how lab reports are created from the authors view. This gave us a good sense of how lab reports are made and where to look for specific information. We produced a lab report analysis comparing two given lab reports.

“Lab 2 contained an abstract section while Lab 1 did not have one. The abstract in Lab 2 contained a brief description of the lab. This was informing on what the experiment was about and the dynamics of the experiment. Lab 2 also included the results of the experiment in the abstract. This way someone can open the lab and know the results to see if they are further interested in the lab. By not having an abstract in Lab 1, it makes the lab less professional and makes it harder for other scientists to quickly understand the lab and its results.”

This is a portion of my lab report analysis and illustrates how we learned different components and their functions. Here I analyzed two lab reports and described the differences in their abstracts. Moreover, we can identify them and show how they can impact the lab report. This shows how this course gave us an understanding of lab reports and their components.

The course learning outcomes in this class were very clear. Fortunately, I think I have achieved all the course outcomes of this class. Some of the course learning outcomes I have previously achieved in prior English classes such as strengthen your source use practices. One course learning outcome I achieved this semester was develop and engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes. The collaborative and social aspect of the writing process is a very important one. I learned this from experience in this class. Every writing assignment we had was edited and revised by our peers and instructor. This helps us better our paper and writing by allowing others to view the paper before it is finalized. This way, any mistakes that we might have not noticed ourselves can be fixed. This process has allowed me to improve my paper greatly before it was finalized, and I am grateful that my instructor allowed us to explore this important aspect of the writing process.

“It is a good option economically and physically as it has distinct differences in it’s manufacturing that makes it more desirable for use.”

This was a sentence used in my first draft of my technical description. I have the tendency to leave certain ideas vaguely. My instructor reviewed the paper and pointed out that I can elaborate on this idea to make it clearer to the reader. I improved this part by using a comparison as suggested. That allowed to make a more explicit distinction between a wooden pencil and a mechanical pencil.

One thing this class has opened my eyes to is the importance of audience and purpose. These two are key factors that should be considered when writing anything. What surprised me in this course was that audience and purpose serve great importance even in technical writing such as a technical description, lab report, or even proposal. If you keep your audience and purpose in mind while writing, writing becomes easier. For example, it is easy to get caught up with an idea and go on about it in your writing subconsciously. If you keep in mind the genre of your writing as well as the purpose and audience, it is known when what you are saying does not belong in the writing. You become more focused in your writing by acknowledging the readers perspective. This helps make your paper more effective and professional. I think this is the most important lesson I learned in this course because it will help me be a better writer for all the writing I do in the future.