Writing online with no lessons was a new experience. I was suppose to just figure out my topic and write it out. In a way, this was the natural progression. I am used to writing persuasive essays or descriptions. In Writing for Engineering, the process of actively promoting a certain innovation was similar to writing a persuasive essay. I gone deeper into this process by spending a huge chunk of time reading scholarly articles for the first time. This course really pushed my expectations about what writing should be for engineers. It wasn’t boring or useless, instead I found the experience similar to other genres I wrote about. It was a learning experience that I would have preferred to be more creative, but this is engineering after all .

When linguistic difference is mentioned my first thoughts is the language. In writing it’s how a person is able to put down their thoughts onto paper. This was clearly seen during group projects with different actors mingling. I acknowledge that not everyone has had as long of an English experience as me and the skill in the category. When I am tasked with helping such individuals, I would not criticize their writing, but I would help them ease their ideas onto paper. Examining others also leads to many interesting ideas that I would have never though of before. I have to admit my idea of writing about luminous efficiency came from someone who was writing about solar panels and electric efficiency. Rhetorical sensibility on the other hand is a confusing take. Am I expected to write in a way that lets everyone understand? I think that when writing memos or short brochures the language should be easy for all. When writing lab reports or technical descriptions, I certainly wouldn’t want to tone down the level of writing.

Over the course of this semester I managed to procrastinate less on writing. I don’t know how this came to be other than I grew into writing again. The bi-weekly writing exercises made me review my writing. I would also mention the need to write in third person helped me. I was used to writing in third person, but I swapped to first person to make personal statements. For the drafting process, even writing somethings fully fleshed out is better than an outline. The fully fleshed out paragraph allows me to come back it later instead of worrying about how to start my essay.

I have always held myself in high expectation. I have read bad essays and college level essays should be on a even higher level. What I expect from others is what I strive for. This, however, means that I find most essays disappointing and this is also because I am used to reading extremely good essays. I don’t believe I am up to the level I want to be at and I don’t think striving for it as necessarily good. I have set a basic standard for myself and this standard will change over time. I think I made a leap in terms of writing from the lab report to the proposal. I was fumbling around when writing the lab report about opioids and written a 7 page essay. I personally could have continued and written another 10 pages, but it’s important to mention that it should have been 2-3 pages. For the proposal, I made sure to get rid of repetitive information. The paper was more cohesive and I would say the best one I written for this class.

Writing on blackboard wasn’t something I enjoyed nearing the end of the school year. I found it extremely tedious to respond to others. I sometimes found a topic interesting and would write a long response. Most of the time I would find myself writing just a bit more than my expectations. For the memo, setting up times to talk and write was an interesting experience. The process was less effective than meeting in person to discuss, but it also allowed for more flexibility. Setting up important deadlines is a must when working online. I have taken that lesson to my other online group projects, and that worked spectacularly.

The use of text can only explain so much things. As people say, a picture is worth a thousand words. When writing a technical description, I don’t expect the reader to know what I am talking about even if they had the object in their hands. Providing a sketch or labels on a picture can easily allow the reader to understand the idea of the text. I came across this a lot during my search for scholarly articles. The articles with diagrams were easily understood while those that were all text had my scratching my head for a long time. Another bonus for using multimodal composing is that readers would always check out your work first. No one wants to just see a huge glob of text.

When writing an essay, I always made sure my stance could be supported. If I discovered that I chose a topic that didn’t have much information, I would choose another topic. I admit to changing stance only if there was more data backing another side. When I first was deciding on a topic for my engineering proposal, I thought of nuclear reactors. I could not find and information, thus I changed my topic to be about lasers and lighting. It’s also important to note that I never fully stated my stance on a topic. I dropped hints around the essay, and I think that is the best way to generate a stance. The reader would not be forced into your stance, instead they are steadily drifting to your side.

Searching online databases was I skilled I long developed. I had a whole class about the topic in middle school. Sadly I didn’t know if CCNY had any free databases to their name. I resorted to googling scholarly articles when I wanted information. If scholarly articles were too specific, online news sites are often a good source. I make sure to use mostly NYT since they are an extremely trustworthy news source. Citing is an extremely important skill to follow up to being able to research. Over this course, I relearned how to use parenthetical and MLA. This also means integrating information into my essay without awkwardness. To achieve this, I tend toward paraphrasing long paragraphs into one or two sentences. I only quote when the information is specific and directly impacts my stance.

When people ask “what is writing,” I would say it’s a way to put down ideas. What those ideas can be are up to the writer. However, the best “what is writing” and more I found came from Amy Tan. She says she choose her mother as her reader and seeks to “capture what language ability tests can never reveal: her intent, her passion, her imagery, the rhythms of her [mother’s] speech and the nature of her thoughts.” In essence, writing isn’t about how well you write the language. Is is about how well the reader can say I understand. As an engineer, my first job is always to make sure the reader understand. Tan’s lesson on writing goes beyond just writing for the sake of entertainment.

Amy Tan, Mother Tongue – http://www.umsl.edu/~alexanderjm/Mother%20Tongue%20by%20Tan.pdf