Dear future English 210 students,

Writing for Engineers was a course that was somewhat similar yet very different to what I was expecting from first impressions. Initially, I thought this class would be relatively similar to the writing courses I’ve taken in high school, though being directed in the engineering field. The initial impressions ended up in terms of the gist of the course; however, the content taught was contrary to what I was used to learning in prior writing classes. This class has taught me a lot of writing conventions that I’ve never heard of prior, such as the rhetorical elements and the course learning outcomes. I’ve also learned how to write a memo, technical description, lab report, and engineering proposal using these conventions.

A set of conventions that was utilized in our writing in this course was the Course Learning Outcomes. Throughout the semester, we have utilized meeting such listed outcomes in our assignments; the memo, technical description, lab report, and engineering proposal being such instances. In these assignments, we learned and practiced usage of rhetorical elements like exigence, purpose, stance, and audience to shape the content and format of our text. We also practiced using research databases as reference for our work along with avoiding plagiarism and proper citation using the APA format.

Throughout the fall semester, my perceptions on what writing is and does evolved by implementation of more specifications and guidelines towards what I’m writing. In high school English, papers that I would have to write would usually consist of analyzing text in a relatively general and informative manner. However, when I took this class, there were more guidelines toward how to write a paper, considerably in a persuasive sense. Writing in this course heavily emphasizes on persuasion; usage of the rhetorical elements exigence, purpose, audience, and stance being instances of the more persuasive attitude towards writing for this course. My perceptions on writing changed from a very indifferent attitude to a more persuasive one, being more considerate towards who I am presenting this content to, how I would convey it to said audience, why I am writing said content, and what purpose do I have in presenting such content.

Audience is important when considering the content and purpose of your text. As you’ll be presenting your text to a select group of people, it is important to consider how you’re writing as means of making it more presentable to them. There are several factors to consider when considering the audience of your text, such as your audience’s reading level, the demographic being considered, etc. For instance, in the memo, I was writing to the president of The City College of New York, Vincent Boudreau, who is a highly educated person and has a very professional position in the college. Thus, the content and purpose of my text should be written in a very formal and professional matter to make it more presentable to him.

When you change one of the elements of a situation, the other rhetorical elements would either change or remain the same depending on what is being changed. For instance, if the media is being changed, rhetorical elements may be changed to fit the new media. If the media was changed from print to multimodal, the audience may change due to an increase in various accesses of the text. Other rhetorical elements like exigence, purpose. and stance would either change or remain the same depending on the significance of the change in media and audience.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on how this course was taught. Due to the course suddenly shifting to entirely remote learning, students and professors are forced to use online methods of communication for classes, such as CUNY Blackboard, Zoom, and other websites of similar function. As a freshman starting the fall term and ENGL 21007 being my first time taking a college-level writing course, I was initially struggling in this class because it was pretty difficult to keep up with the workload. There was a short amount of time given to complete each assignment and the CUNY Blackboard site was relatively difficult to navigate. Communication was difficult ingroup assignments since almost none of us have met one another in person before and we have to primarily rely on social media like Discord in order to communicate. Though this obstacle was a hassle to overcome, communicating online did teach the importance of communication and group work in the engineering field, such as the engineering proposal, peer reviews, etc.

Overall, though the course workload is tremendous and there were several difficulties due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the skills learned in this class will have significant utilization later on when pursuing a career in the engineering field.

Sincerely,

Derrick Tan