Dennis Chen

The City College of New York

 ENGL 21007: Writing for Engineering 

Professor Julia Brown 

December 15th, 2020

During this course there have been many assignments that focused on rhetorical terms and concepts in order to engage with the audience. Assignments like the Technical Description and Engineering Proposal helped reinforce the process in figuring out how to go about deciding the conventions being used like the genre and medium in order to meet the expectations of the audience. Additionally, going through and incorporating other ideas from revisions will solidify the stance and approach when working collaboratively such as the Engineering Proposal. 

Every assignment from the Lab Report to the Engineering Proposal worked on strategies for reading, drafting, and revising which is the second course learning outcome. An example would be the Technical Description assignment, being asked to submit a template that already sets up the basis for the description of the object by including the most important information such as, “ Earbuds are small and compact and are very light. (include actual dimensions). Visual of airpods with earbuds and charging case alone.” By adding general descriptions of the object and thoughts of the object, when a peer reviews and gives their thoughts it further refines the quality of the description and also allows the writer to further elaborate on details they may have not realized to include. Ultimately, this practice of writing a very solid first draft and having multiple peers review it will amplify the quality of the final draft and also work on the writers strategies in revising and improving their use of conventions to make their point more coherent to the audience. One example would be the Lab Report peer review worksheet which is beneficial for the second learning outcome because by having questions like, “How well does the introduction provide context and significance for the experiment? What details help you better understand the experiment? Where do you need more details? Are there any details that could be eliminated?” it will give a general idea of what the writer needs to focus on as well as making sure that their stance is still understandable without going off track. Along with the first draft, peer reviews are useful strategies that will benefit and enhance the quality of the paper as well as focus on the revisions and drafting process.  

For the Engineering Proposal, it forces the writer to develop and work on engaging collaboratively with others while still attempting to maintain their own writing goals. This is relevant to the fourth learning outcome as the Engineering Proposal requires the individual to work with others to come up with a final proposal. For example from our proposal, “Changes need to be made so that everything can run smoothly with commuting. Focusing on reducing congestion within the complex and improving it with the capacity and ability to serve the growing number of commuters, with a proposed budget of $1.6 billion, we plan to renovate the entire complex focusing on the Moynihan Train Hall.” This shows each part that is broken up in between members like the budget, reducing congestion, site location, and improving the complex would all be split among the members to work on. By doing so, we negotiate our potential sources and collaborate consistently in order for the proposal to transition and be coherent, there are many social aspects involved. For a couple weeks, this proposal is done collectively while in constant communication so that when one section is completed, the next part would transition smoothly and still be on track with the group stance. Additional social aspects include understanding which sources will be used to prevent repetition, deciding on a potential proposal together so that every member is on the same page is important as well. With the renovation of Penn Station as our proposal, understanding that we were only focusing on one area is important because it would maintain our stance and the evidence would relate and not be irrelevant. As a result, the Engineering Proposal assignment greatly depends on working collaboratively and engaging in the social aspects as well to help with the flow of the proposal, if there isn’t enough communication or collaborative effort, the proposal will be all over the place and not articulate the main stance clearly. 

Additionally, in order for the writer to figure out how they want to approach their writing and fit the audience expectation too is based on how they’re going to discuss the subject and what is being discussed. In my Lab Report, which focused on the metal refinement of platinum I realized that making the methods and materials coherent and simple would be important when shown to the audience because the experiment had a lot of tools and materials in use throughout the entirety of the experiment and incorporating the report in sections including the results, process, and introduction. Since it’s a lab report the information should be simple and coherent enough for the audience to follow along, while still understanding what is happening during each phase of the experiment. For example, “To begin, after taking a sample from the road by sweeping and transferring into a bag, the sample will initially contain larger objects like gravel, rocks, cigarette butts, and tire pieces. We begin filtering the larger pieces from the dirt by using a sifter to get the smaller objects separated.” In other words, the main focus of my assignment was to be able to describe the steps of the experiment to the audience so that they can follow along from start to finish, which relates to the learning outcome since the writer should approach their goals and audience through their method of writing, they have to figure out how to form their conventions based on their topic, in my case since it was an experiment it is written in a lab report format. Meaning, the Lab Report is a good demonstration of figuring out how a writer wants to convey their topic to the audience in relation to the conventions of genre, medium, and rhetorical situation in order to relate to the audience while also being coherent with elaborating.