Hello, my name is Abel Jacob. I am currently a freshman in my second semester. I like to play badminton and play in the club at CCNY. This wensite was created to display my different projects and assignment from my Writing for Engineers class. You will be able to see the final drafts of many of these assignments and my thought process and hopefully you can enjoy them.
Abel Jacob
Self Assessment Essay
Prof. Rodwell
05/07/23
Throughout my time in this class, I was able to multiply my knowledge on the writing process and get a deeper understanding for what I could do better when writing. The specific assignment we did during this semester allowed for me to focus on specific parts of my writing process that would be very crucial in the future as an engineer. The assignment I will present today has allowed me to grow as a writer and understand my flaws and how to fix them. The Product Review Essay, Lab Report Analysis, Technical Description, and Product Presentation papers all allowed for me to gain a deeper understanding of analysis, research, presentation, being clear and concise, and overall writing a document for people to understand thoroughly.
The Product Review Essay is the first among the many assignments that were given to us when partaking in this class. This project was inherently simple but proved to be more challenging as we worked on it more. In order to get a satisfactory grade for this paper, not only did we need to present this product, but we also needed to know all the smaller and typically unknown characteristics. This allowed for me and many other students to do deeper research into an item that was more interesting than long documents or articles. It increased our ability to search and find pros and cons from each product while showing why the product is good for a consumer. Through the research we did, there came a time when many sources were used. This portion of the paper taught us to properly cite sources and gain an understanding of the APA formatting. Align with this I was able to improve on my tone when writing. Typically using a formal tone would not suffice for this essay as the main point of it was to entice the reader into buying this product. As it was the main point, I also needed to do a good job of easing the product info onto the reader as they do not want to be overwhelmed by the amount of information they are receiving. This first project introduced a separate aspect of analysis into my writing arsenal and allowed me to use it on future assignments as well.
The second project in this lineup is the Lab Report Analysis Essay. This essay had students research 3 connected lab reports and then compare and contrast not just their content, but specifically the style and outline of the entire report itself. This allowed for students to understand how to format essays, what to include in certain portions, and how a tone or theme can help when writing a longer winded essay or paper. For this essay we had to use much more in depth researching techniques in order to finalize our lab reports and sections we would write on. By using the similar sections provided in the lab reports, I was able to compare and contrast sections of the reports easily while not confusing the reader as to which article I am referring to. One of the key points I saw in these reports was the lack or excessive use of biases throughout the contents of the reports. Many times there were instances that produced opinions which stemmed from a biased view or standpoint of the topic. I learned that for most formal writings, bias is not a good thing to have as it skews your overall credibility on the topic and can confuse the reader between facts and opinion. Another comparison I found between the reports was the differences in writing styles and how they were very sporadic in their usage of tone, language, and diction. While some writers focused on making their report easy and understandable, some made there’s very complex and thought provoking.
The Technical Description was one of my more favored assignments as we were allowed to use any product we liked and fully dive deep into the inner workings of the product and how it functions. I was able to understand all technical aspects of writing through this assignment and see where I lacked in detailed descriptions. Oftentimes I would write without giving the full content of an explanation which could be confusing for readers. Another important part of the project was to be organized by separating the item into parts and subparts. This allowed for students and readers both to have a concrete understanding of the specific items the product housed. This also allowed for a neater way of explaining the functions of each part and how they worked together throughout the item. In addition to this, we were able to use pictures as supplemental information for the readers to understand specifically where the parts are located and what they look like.
The Innovation Presentation proved to be one of the most challenging and time consuming projects I had ever done as it gave me very quick deadlines for assignments but this time I had the help of other group members. By using the aid of these group members, we needed to formulate a new innovation and have it produced by the time we were presenting the whole thing. Working in a group proved to be difficult as many of my members did not have time to meet together which led up to more and more inconveniences. This spiraled on to affect our writing as we had no idea of what the other members were doing since we never had a chance to regroup. Procrastination also proved to be a big issue as many people in the group left things for the night before which allowed for minimal peer review and analysis of our work as a whole. Our time management was also tested as the presentation proved to be difficult as the members never met up to present beforehand. This ended up in overtime which did not let us finish our presentation and made the Q&A section that much harder due to the lack of knowledge to the people watching. This project ensued many problems which made me despise working in a group as it allowed for no freedom or control of anything, in a project that was completely about creative explorations. I would have liked to improve the group’s work ethic and determination to finish this project but that is left up to the members alone. I also wished to have more time and breathing room when it came to the presentation as 10 minutes for a project we worked on for a month seemed highly unrealistic to approach. Many of the groups went under the same issues of not being able to give a solid and detailed explanation of their products because of the restricting time limit. Although there are many things I would have liked to do better, I found that these key things that were not under my control contributed heavily to a poor performance by my group.
Throughout this semester I was able to learn many different things and have a deeper understanding of certain topics and styles of writing. Moreover I learned about peer review aides, researching techniques, and issues of working with others. This all spiraled down to my knowledge currently where I can now go and repeat these projects with a higher chance of success. By allotting my time properly and truly understanding the criteria for the projects, I will be able to my best on these papers and those I will write in the future.
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