Throughout the entire course I have shown clear improvement in my writing skills with technical writing, revising and editing, peer reviewing and collaborative writing. Each assignment brought out a different side of me as each required different thoughts and ideas. The first assignment was the Formal Letter of Introduction where I spoke on my past and why I want to pursue a career in engineering. This assignment was my first piece of writing for this course and it opened my mind to what was ahead of me, revisiting my past and using skills that I already knew to figure out what skills I would need in the future such as technical and collaborative writing. 

For each assignment I felt that I always had to do a lot of revising and editing as I never felt satisfied with what I had written and this primarily came true in my Product Review Essay. The area that I had the most trouble with was the criteria needed to correctly review the product at hand. With the help of my peers I was able to finalize an essay that I believed had all the correct components for a product review that I would be satisfied reading if someone else wrote it. I had never been open to the ideas of others as I believed this would do more damage to my writing than good, but learning to understand others just makes your work better. 

Whenever I thought about a lab my first idea was a science course and an experiment done. This course opened my eyes to the reality that labs don’t necessarily have to do with one subject or topic but can deal and affect many areas. The Lab Report Analysis was my first look at technical writing in engineering work. Throughout the process of this paper I read many lab reports to find the labs that I wanted to break down and criticize. The problem was more in the writing than anything else as when I would break down each lab I felt repetitive and I felt that the writing would bore my readers. In order to keep the interest of the reader I found a way to get my points across and not repeat the same words. I used synonyms and many different transitions so the essay flowed and didn’t sound like it was different ideas entirely. 

My introduction to technical writing was very interesting to say the least as when I thought about technical writing I believed it to be strictly about computers and how they function. An article I read in class showed me that technical writing can deal with anything as long as the item was being described with facts and certainties. With this assignment I once again had a problem making the words flow. This assignment was where I took advantage of peer review the most. I didn’t know how I wanted to structure my assignment, with reading and helping others I discovered that I could use the structures of others and make it my own. Reading others’ work gave me a better idea of how I wanted my writing to be. Peer review is a very big tool that I will be using in the future a lot as others have ideas that are very useful that I would’ve never thought of before.

Group work had always been a struggle with my learning as I believed that only my ideas were valid and the thoughts of those around me had less value. The collaborative project enlightened my thoughts on this narrative. Working together to create an innovation that I know will be bought and help many people around the world got me to think that working as a team is better than working alone. The narrow thoughts slowly began to widen as I learned that different people have different linguistic thoughts and skills. Each team member brought something different to the table which allowed me to be able to advance my writing as I would be constantly criticized by my team members. Without the help of my classmates and professor I wouldn’t have been able to advance as much as I did in my writing. 

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