Writing for Engineers is a class that is necessary for every person who wants to be a professional engineer. Any engineering field requires proper knowledge of working with different types of documents such as official letters, memos, technical descriptions, lab reports, and others. And, each of these types of paper has a different format and style, so it is not an easy task to create them without having any experience. But this class introduced me to the level of writing that is needed for engineers, and, I believe, developed my writing skills.
Each major assignment that was given during the semester included work with a specific type of writing. My first task in this class was to create the introduction letter which was formatted as an official letter. And, before taking this class I had no idea how to create such type of paper, but with the advisement of the professor, Elisabeth von Uhl, and a special tutorial provided by the book used in this class, Technical Communication by Mike Markel, I was able to understand how to write professional letters. I can’t say that my first assignment was perfect, but I think it was good for the first time. Even though, I could have made sentences less vague and clearer.
When it comes to the second assignment, Memo, my performance was bad. The major problem of this paper is that some of my sentences were not clear or awkward. Also, I made it difficult for a reader to focus on the problem discussed in my memo, because I did not explain some of my statements or did not clarify what exactly I was trying to write about. Another problem is that sometimes I used informal words and made some grammatical mistakes, which are not acceptable for any official paper. This issue always follows me when I’m trying to write or say something, because I am not a native English speaker. And, usually, it is difficult for me to formulate my ideas in my native language and, at the same time, translate them into English. However, I am trying to fix this problem by making more revisions of my drafts. So, this experience with the memo demonstrated to me that I have to pay more attention to reviewing my own writing.
The third task, Lab Report Analysis, is something that I was familiar with before, because I had an experience of writing lab reports for my Chemistry class. So, I knew some basics of what is actually required for any report, and it made the task easier for me. The style is pretty much identical for every report and must include some general parts such as summary, introduction, description of the experiment, etc. So, I was able to describe the steps made the authors in their writings. At the same time, the chosen lab reports helped me, as a reader, to understand what an audience expects from the author. The format of the lab report will always include various scientific terms and concepts, which can be obvious and simple for the writer. But no matter who the author is, everything in the report must be defined and explained, so that any audience could read and understand it.
Technical Description, the fourth assignment, was one of the most challenging for me. I have never done this before, and there is no specific format or style on the internet or in the book of how to do that. So, I was confused and not sure what steps to make during the creation of this paper. It was difficult to explain in my writing why Xbox One is valuable for society, or how it was created. There is basically a little information about the history of this gadget, because it’s a matter of privacy and no one will ever provide information about the creation of the device. Also, because it’s a technical description of the advanced device, my writing included a lot of specific names of various components. And, I failed to describe some of them and explain what they are. That is a huge mistake that I made, but it’s still a good reminder to me, as a writer, that I always have to revise my paper several times and make sure that reader will understand everything that is written.
The final major assignment was a Proposal, which included group work. That was probably the most interesting task in this class. The work with other people allowed me to learn different approaches to writing and reviewing paper, so that I could adopt some of them, such as creating a bullet point plan or underlining some keywords before starting to write. Also, each of the group members had a different perspective on how innovation should be described. And, it actually helped us to communicate more and discuss our ideas, so that we could combine them together in one solid writing. So, I believe that it made our proposal only stronger, because each of us was making sure that there is no bias and no mistakes made. At the same time, our group faced some difficulties with connecting thematic parts of the proposal together, but we figured it out anyway with the help of online document program that allowed us to add comments and suggestions about some specific words or sentences. The opinion of every member was mattered, so each of us made sure that he/she was okay with the final version.
Work with different types of documents was not the only thing that helped me to improve as a writer. Each of these assignments included peer reviews and in-class discussions. And, it helped me a lot, because other people will always notice some mistakes that I missed or show me that some of the sentences are not clear. It made me understand my weaknesses in writing, such as being not specific and using too general statements. It was also good to get different ideas from other people about what I should focus on in my writing and how to develop it. Especially it helped me with my lab report analysis, because I had no idea how to start it. But, during one of the peer review sessions, another student advised me on my introduction part. So, this kind of class work helped me to spot some of the issues in m writing by looking at it from a different perspective.
Another advantage of in-class discussions is that it helps to improve linguistic skills. During the conversations and discussions between students, the professor was making sure that students are using proper words, better language, and clear pronunciations. For me, writing a paper is a conversation with myself, so these in-class dialogues really helped me to improve some of my conversational abilities, and that reflected in better writing. I mentioned that after several classes I’ve started making sure that I use more formal words and tried to write clearer and shorter sentences. Can’t say that I achieved total success, but at least I am paying more attention to this now.
My work in class also included different grammar and citation exercises. It was a good practice to make sure what mistakes could be done and to see my issues in my own writing. English is not easy, but it is important to create clear sentences and use a proper grammar structure. No one will take seriously an engineering and his product or creation if he/she can’t professionally describe, explain and discuss it. Grammatically correct paper creates a good impression on a reader, so it is necessary to provide my writing with a good and solid structure. Different exercises demonstrated me some common issues made in an essay, such as misuse of pronouns, commas and so on. Thus, it helped me make fewer mistakes in my lab report analysis in comparison to the previous assignment, memo. Also, my assignments required the use of different resources, so I had to make a correct citation with APA style. And, provided by the professor online exercise on the citations made me learn when to use citations and how to use them correctly.
Overall, I have spent useful time in this class, because it allowed me to see what I was doing wrong and right in my writing. I think that any practice is good to improve myself as a writer, and this class provided a lot of practice and work with different document types, sources, and exercises. And, most of these tasks helped me to focus on my issues, so that I could not make them again and create a better level of writing. I can honestly say that if someone asks me right now to write a technical description or send a letter to some company, for example, I will not be scared to do that, because I have already done this before. And, I know what steps I should make to write these types of documents and what possible issues I may face.
