Reflection Blog – Self-Assessment
Over the past 4 months I have learned a lot in English 301 (Technical Writing) that I wasn’t expecting. Initially, when I read the course description with activities consisting of emails, memo’s peer reviews, social media and applications to name a few, I thought, “this will be easy, I have experience with all of these things”. However, I didn’t expect the strategic and efficient structure of ‘technical writing’. Although many of these activities and assignments were familiar, I was able to perfect my skills and learn more. For example, I already have many social media accounts so it was not difficult for me to create one when it came to our LinkedIn profile assignment. However, I learned to perfect the account to look more presentable and to use it for its correct purpose.
Writing emails is also familiar since it is something I do on a regular basis. Over the years I have learned to write professional emails, this strength helped when it came to the email activities. On the other hand, I did not have much experience with writing memos until after this course, which allowed me to practice writing multiple memos throughout the course. Choosing relevant and important words to express the main point for the reader is something I worked harder on in this course. Learning to be concise was a challenge. In former courses I learned to be elaborate, hence in this course, I had to do the opposite by learning how to make my point without being too wordy.
Moreover, the assignment that was most challenging and rewarding was the Formal Report. I have read many reports before but creating one was different. There were various components that had to flow along the main point. I found it hard to stay on track of the main idea. The things that helped me were being able to do the assignment in steps and having enough time to proofread more than once. In this course, it was helpful to have the time to work on assignments, engage in peer reviews and continuously practice technical writing skills through activities each week.