The Writing for Engineering course has revealed an interesting thing about my writing. At the beginning of the semester, I only had a grasp on a few forms of writing from previous classes. Most of that only consisted of argumentative and rhetorical analysis essays following a rigid format provided by Collegeboard in high school. Only the rhetorical analysis essay proved applicable to this course since it has writers breaking down a text into all its literary devices, rhetorical devices, and word choice. In other words, my writing style was limited to a few types of essays which made it less engaging with the audience. Then, I realized that there is more to writing than the length of content or the grade I get. I found my theory of writing when I learned that people write with an obligation to inform and contribute to change within their audience and their field. 

Coming into class, it took time for me to get used to citing sources in APA format since most of my time spent writing would be done using MLA format. The nature of the APA format took me a while to get used to since it is mostly applicable to research papers. I was never great at research papers since I am always in the habit of writing an essay on content in less than an hour.

In Writing for Engineering, different assignments are addressing different skills and layouts of writing pieces. For example, we learn to analyze lab reports and heavily emphasize how the audience views the written content. This is only natural since lab reports are data-heavy and can easily distract or disengage from viewers when a page is oversaturated. 

At first glance, it is easy to spot the differences between my writing before and after this course. For example, in my “Letter of Introduction”, I wrote in short sentences with one to two clauses each. I did it as a habit to avoid runoffs in the past and to keep my writing simple. But I did have many mistakes holding me back. A notable one is that I overuse contractions, shortened words that should never have been used since it is informal. This takes away a lot of weight and credibility in my writing, therefore, making it less appealing to certain audiences.

Both my technical description and technical innovation assignments have similar flaws. But, the technical description started with an unorthodox approach. I decided to write about the innovation that went into the production of the modern stainless steel chef’s knife. There are two key problems with my technical description. First, there was not enough content to write about to satisfy the minimum word count. It would’ve been a smarter approach to choose an item that was a little more complex giving me more topics and physical parts. Second, my poor attempt at citing sources in APA format was showing. From the in-text citations to the reference page, there is an inadequate amount of information and it doesn’t completely follow APA guidelines. In other words, both assignments revealed the many gaps in my writing skills. 

The rhetorical analysis was the assignment that truly contributed to my theory of writing. Specifically, the part of writing that caught my attention and changed the way I write was an acknowledgment of ethics. Ethics is the study of the principles of conduct that apply to an individual or a group. This idea broadened my understanding and incentive to write since some of my reasoning behind the analysis of each section of the lab is derived from the ethics chapter of the Technical Communications Book by Mike Markel and Stuart Selber. Not only is it important for the researchers to have well-developed and concise answers, but they must be aware of the moral responsibility to give concise and informative answers to inform the audience and improve their field of research. We write not to just inform, but also to bring a level of professionalism and foster curiosity within the general public.

This means the writer has a clear and reasonable framework for discussing ethics in something like technical writing. For me, that will have me make sure that my writing will always inform the audience effectively by removing all forms of jargon, loaded language, and wordy sentences.

Overall, my writing was initially bonded to fabricated and rigid guidelines, making it superficial and less engaging. As the assignments in the Writing for Engineering course challenged my writing skills, my writing conformed with it. This made it more legible and meaningful to me and the audience as there is a reason I should write. This mindset behind writing is applicable in many other settings besides this course. For example, analyzing and grading each part of a lab report is useful in science classes. When writing argumentative essays, I can lay out my stance and reasoning quickly without drawing away focus from the reader. Having a purpose to write beyond a good grade is another motivator for me to write in the most effective way.