Writing Development:

The main improvements I made to my writing throughout the semester was focusing more on
the importance of formatting. Most of my assignments had significant formatting issues in their early
drafts, and improving this made the documents a lot more organized. Another area of improvement was
the consideration of difference audiences. The workplace correspondence assignment especially made
me focus a lot on how a document changes based on the intended audience, and their relationship to
the writer. Furthermore, the information I learned relating to style increased the quality of my writing,
as I never really considered color or font choice an important part of a document.

Course Goals:

My goals for this class were to pass in order to progress in my degree, as well as learn
communication techniques applicable to my desired field. I think I was successful for both of those
goals, but especially the one relating to learning good communication techniques. The workplace
correspondence document specifically was helpful as e-mails and memos are essential to almost every
business, so learning how to properly write them was extremely helpful. I would increase the number of
assignments related to this type of communication, as it seems to be the most relevant for most people.

Assignments:

The assignment I am the most proud of is the white page assignment, even though it’s the one I
did the worst on. The main issues with my assignment were mostly related to formatting, but I think the
content itself was really well researched and thought out. The problem I chose to outline in that
assignment is legitimately a serious and relevant problem, and I think my formal document did a good
job explaining the many aspects of it. Due to the length and complexity of the assignment, it’s the one I
spent the most time on. Similarly, the formal report assignment is also the one I put the most work into
revising and the final draft is the most improved out of the three assignments.

Even though I am the most proud of the white page assignment, if I could add additional
assignments to this course it would be more workplace correspondence. Internal communication is by
far the most common form of communication in the workplace, and I think more assignments based on
e-mail and other forms of internal communication would be very beneficial. Furthermore, an
assignment that focuses on more “back and forth” communication could be helpful as our current
assignments don’t really account for replies or follow-ups.

While I wouldn’t change any specific assignments in this course, I would remove the need to
select a Reaktion book. The Reakton book didn’t seem especially helpful in my case, it was more like
picking a general topic, as the book itself was my least used resource for my formal report document.
Furthermore, specifically for the five-week version of this class, the book had to be chosen and ordered
so quickly that it was more like picking at topic at random anyway. I think the main reason I didn’t find
my Reaktion book especially helpful was the fact that it seemed mostly informational, whereas both
assignments that used it were mainly focused on solving a “problem”.