Dear Future Engl 210 students.

Before the spring semester, I expected the Writing for Engineering course to be the same as other English classes, writing things. However, although my expectation of writing a lot did prove to be right, what I really did in this class wasn’t part of my expectation. Throughout the course, I learned to write different kinds of documents: memos, technical descriptions, and engineering proposals. In addition to writing, I also worked on different genres, including creating a public service announcement, and a website for the engineering proposal assignment. This course is very important in your pathway.

To what extent have I achieved the course learning objectives?

The course learning objectives are straight and clear. It is like a guideline throughout the course. Whatever work I do in this course, I would look at the course learning outcome and try to do what it says I have to do. For example, for the engineering proposal, I would research various databases, including the CCNY Library database, and find appropriate sources that I need. I would always cite in the APA format, add a quote from the references, and form a stance. In my writing, I looked at rhetorical elements. The purpose, genre, stance, exigence, and so on, and write a reflection after my writing to see how I met each. Every time I write, I would analyze the audience I am writing to, which requires research. When our group wrote a proposal, it was for the California mayor, so we researched him and the California government.

In what ways have my perceptions on what writing is and does evolved this semester?

Taking this course, my perception changed a lot. The course taught me to write as effectively as I can. For example, before, I didn’t really care about the audience. I would write the same way for all audiences. However, in this course, the way I write changes according to the audience. That’s why for any writing assignments there’s a reflection and audience analysis sheet to go at the back. When I write to someone I know, I would write differently from writing to a group. Also, the writings I did, such as memos or tech descriptions, were new to me. I enhanced my writing skills, and acquired skills in writing different types of documents.

How does the audience impact the content and purpose of text?

When I write, I have a purpose. I want to achieve something from my writing. I have an audience who would read my writing. My goal is to deliver my message to the audience and draw the response that I want from them. When I’m writing a proposal, my purpose is to get approved, and my audience will be people in the position that I need to persuade, as well as some other engineers that they might talk to, or a branch or group. When I am writing to a vast group of unknown people, for example, a technical description of a product, I have to write according to that. The content of the two papers varies, to the level of the audience (level of the audience, I mean things such as level of education or skills. I don’t know who’ll read my technical description but I know that people who read my proposal will all have at least a bachelor’s degree and some higher-level skills, so I have to persuade them with all my resources). My purpose would change since I can’t expect the same from the two groups.

Was there a challenge in writing across genres and addressing specific audiences?

I had to understand writing for each genre, but rather than that there was no problem. Addressing specific audiences, is highly related to my purpose, either to persuade or to inform. The only thing was understanding writing for each genre, only because I didn’t know that genre was part of the rhetorical element. Overall, I didn’t have a challenge. For example, working on the engineering proposal project, my audience was government officials and scientists, and engineers in environmental protection under the government. Therefore, the had to present our issue in a very specific way. We had to write a proposal and also create a presentation and website, which couldn’t be the same. We wrote all of them separately.

What happens to the other rhetorical elements when you change one of the elements within the situation? For example, when you change media, do the other elements change?

Rhetorical elements are like a set. When one thing changes, it just means that the whole set is still applied, but in a different way. For example, for our public service announcement, we had to create a 45-minute video. The genre isn’t writing. Therefore, in our video, we had to include visuals, and our content (the writing part) had to be short and precise. However, just changing the genre doesn’t change other elements. Our purpose was to inform, we intended for a large audience, and our stance and exigence were all set before we actually started working on it. However, we might have to adjust some things to be all set together.

Sincerely,

Daeeun Kim.