Tyler Brack

Reflection Essay

I felt as though my writing improved throughout the course, particularly as it pertains to

professional writing as opposed to academic writing. The Instructions and Usability script was
probably the most enlightening for me as I used to spend at least an hour on every paper hitting it
with a thesaurus, and that’s the exact opposite of what we were supposed to do with the script.
There are still some general writing changes that I need to improve on, the largest of which is my
inclination to use run-on sentences. In terms of areas for improvement, I’d maybe consider
expanding the options for topics, because the nature-based options we had for this were not in
my realm of interests so that made writing about tumbleweeds frustrating to a point that it
negatively affected the effort I was willing to put into the assignments that were about it.
My goal for this course was “to improve and refine my writing ability generally speaking while
also learning how to present information more effectively in professional formats”. Out of those
goals, I learned the most when it comes to professional formats, as that is the focus of this class,
but I also feel like I learned a lot in terms of general writing. This is because a lot of the old
tricks I used to use in writing classes were no longer effective for this type of writing, so it
required me to try and use different approaches and styles, which helped me learn a lot about the
different approaches to writing. In terms of revising the course in order to help meet the writing
goals, I’m not sure if the Engagement project was an effective use of time. It was a cool and
interesting project; I’ve never had an assignment like that, so it was cool to try out that kind of
medium. The only issue is that it did very little in terms of helping improve my writing and it
was something that I felt wasn’t of as much use in terms of professional settings as well, with
obvious exceptions such as marketing and other artsy related professions.
I was the proudest of my Instructions and Usability Packet, not because it was my best grade or
anything, it was actually my worst, but because it was both unique and enlightening for me to
write something from that perspective. If I could add any assignment to this course, it would be
something like that. The formal report and workplace correspondence were both necessary in
that they both taught quite a bit in terms of professionally oriented work, but the Instructions
packet did that while also being unlike any other writing assignment I’ve ever done. In terms of
other examples that fit that category, I don’t have any great examples; I’m not sure if instructions
and usability scripts are something that could be separated into two assignments, but if it could
that would be something that I would consider. In terms of editing an assignment, it would
probably be the Engagement Project. I’d consider trying to add some way to incorporate more
writing into it, maybe have us create something like an “If you want to learn more, go to…” type
page that would get linked at the end of the last sphere.