In this section, students were to recognize learning over the course of the semester, and reflect on their strength and weaknesses when completing assignments. Students are encouraged to point out course learning objectives to their experiences in the class, the composition of assignments, and as well explain how it contributes to Writing in the Engineers.

My name is Moheeb Mohamed, and I’m enrolled in a Writing for Engineering class. I’m a sophomore and intending on majoring in Mechanical Engineering. Some pieces of work done during this course are reports, technical descriptions, memorandum, etc. When enrolling in this course I expected to be taught the different style of writing related to this field and wanted to grasp/comprehend the essence of Writing in Engineering. As I enrolled into the class late, I was behind on some assignments, so I tried to catch up. I remember submitting the assignment for the Technical Description, I had gotten feedback that it wasn’t done correctly. This is when I started to be very aware that this class substantially differs to literary writing. A lot of context to how assignments were to be written were from the in-person lectures, and not only limited to the assignment prompts posted on Blackboard. I believe that this Writing for Engineers class can really develop your skills for writing research papers, and especially lab reports that STEM based majors are to write in future classes. This class also opens the ability for students to recognize the importance of different styles of writing; specifically, the informative writing that is to be present in data related papers. Writing in engineering is changing very fast at times like this; AI is powered in generating texts for the masses to consume, hence why aspiring engineers should be aware of different writing styles that are a part of the field. I believe this class will encourage me to write well developed papers testing hypothesis with information given and outputs out the experiment as being perceived and seen in a suitable way of writing.

During phase 1, the course would introduce the ability to write in a different linguistic style; technical writing. The assignment would consist of reading texts and gathering information on what technical writing is and how its applied in the world; manuals, instruction, etc. The discussion board post was very much focused on why and how technical writing is important. All discussion board posts focused on analyzing articles, excerpts, and texts, and writing either comparisons or contrast between them. The eighth course learning object of “strengthening your source use practice (including evaluating […] quoting, paraphrasing, […] and citing sources” was applied in discussion board #1 and #2.

For phase 1.2 we were to compose our technical description of an object. The assignment was based on evaluating a staples office box. We first started off with getting familiar with learning the format of the writing a technical description, then created our first draft of the Technical Description. Students were to take notes on the dimensions, material, and modules of the object. Students are to work together when evaluating the office box as well as the covering of it. We would gather the dimensions by using our phones cameras to measure the width and length and speak on the material of the object being carboard and the feel of it. The course learning object of “develop and engage in the collaborative and social aspects of the writing processes” were shown here. Strict formatting of subleaders for a section of the object, following the information must be shown. This is so that manufacturers can quickly find the sections they want by searching easily to the section one thing must be at. For an example, if the manufacturer wants to find what type of material the object has, they will have to search for the materials section. The technical description would have to have the formatting of the title, introduction on what the object is, and then the respective sections mentioned prior. Feedback for this assignment was given and the assignment produced wasn’t according to expectation. The assignment I submitted was merely a description and not a technical description. I would then look at other samples and compare and realize the assignment would have to more of a technical writing and be more informative.

For phase 2 we were to learn what a memorandum is, and inevitable create our own. We started off by looking at samples on memos, recognizing why they’re used in day-to-day communication between employees, and or departments. As the professor stated in the syllabus, the use of AI’s in our class would be talked about in class and students would be allowed to explore the different outputs of from the AI based up various prompts given. In class, we examined different memorandums which were produced by AI and some produced by the professor. We would compare how successfully the AI would perform when producing the memorandum. The professor would display that the AI can be very inaccurate in producing memorandums without specific guidelines that are to be expected. This is important as we can begin to recognize how the differences of how AI tools can affect how we work and communicate. The memorandum would consist of students getting familiar with composing “to, from, date, re” sections on the memorandum as well as the divider blocks between that and the message being addressed. 

Phase 3 consisted of students being able to identify and create their own lab reports. We were able to choose our own hypothesis to research but gather the search results and compare different databases to each other based upon how likely we were to incorporate it in our research with source(s) outputted. The lab report would consist of a lot of assignments which took a lot of time creating. Top results of a specific search prompt in respective databases were to be taken and put in a google form assessment sheet to evaluate. Charts of the assessments are created giving a visual representation to how likely the sources performed based up on the criteria given. The course objective of “practice using various library sources, online databases, and the Internet to locate sources appropriate to your writing projects” was obtained during this phase, as there many databases within the OneSearch that would give me sources regarding Engineering. I had a concept as to how the lab report would be structured, I had experience in writing one before. One thing that trouble me to me is that I hadn’t known that were to write a lab report on us evaluating the search results of our desire topic, and rather write a lab report on the subject were searching, with the search results being sources in which we use in our papers. Although, looking back it wouldn’t make sense to compose a lab report on lab reports as something needs to be tested in order to find observations on the test. Wen creating the final, it wasn’t a huge struggle as assignments were to pieces of the final lab report. The lab report did have a long process in creating through periods of time as one must be able to conduct their search for results, put them in the assessment, create graphs with explanations as well as gather the data chart, and then put them all together to then reflect upon the observations of the experiment. Students would being their informal lab report to class for peer review, and this completes the second course learning object of “enhance strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing, and self-assessment”.

The 4^th phase is on the Rhetorical Analysis. We were supposed to read given passages that were based upon research, lab reports. After we choose one of the given passages to read, we were to create a discussion board and briefly explain who the authors are, their purpose, and the exigence of the text. A course learning object that was fulfilled here was “acknowledge your and others range of linguistic difference as resources […] to develop rhetorical sensibility”; as students were to peer review their drafts; I recognized analyzation of other student’s writing and offered my way of interpretation. Using Rhetorical Analysis can be useful in the Engineering in writing field due to  the structure of texts, the way they’re written, and why or how the author seeks to accomplish their purpose through experimenting.