Reflection Essay

Charles Richards

1. Having the opportunity to look back on my writing granted me with the pleasure of
seeing that my writing has improved throughout the semester. When noticing my past
documents, I noticed that my writing was strong, it was just being utilized in a poor way. I would
waste my writing by accompanying it with poor design and style choices which would lower the
caliber of my writing. I am pleased to say that as I was working on this final portfolio that I
thoroughly enjoyed getting to revise something for a third time. It would be easy to get the grade
that we received on our second draft and never revisit the document, but I really enjoyed going
back and editing, or in some cases completely overhauling much of the content. I believe that my
writing became more concise and to the points in which I was trying to talk about. In an earlier
discussion post this semester, I stated that one of my goals for this course was to be better at
creating documents to then public speak with, and I think my writing has accomplished that. I
would feel incredibly confident teaching my instructions face to face, or advocating for better
wildfire education, or guiding the NYTs to produce a better fire page all in person. I am very
proud of what I have learned about all aspects of technical writing this semester.
2. As previously stated, my goal was to become a better writer so that I could use my
writings to have better public speaking capabilities. I met that goal. All my documents I wrote in
a way that if I spoke to them, they would be very impressive speeches. I got better with this style
of writing this semester while learning more and more about persuasive language with the white
paper and the workplace correspondence documents. The persuasive style of language that could
be capitalized in those two documents would be great ways to talk publicly as you are ultimately
trying to accomplish something, and you must possess the skills to write/speak in a way that will
help you to accomplish it.
3. I believe that I am the proudest of my Workplace correspondence packet even though it
was the packet that I received the lowest grade for. This document was the most enjoyable
packet because it taught us that it is necessary in the workplace to maintain a healthy form of
communication with coworkers to accomplish something. I believe that my generation is lacking
certain communication skills that will be necessary to market oneself in the professional setting.
I enjoyed that assignment, and I enjoyed revising it for this portfolio even more so that I could go
and redo it again even better this time.
If I could add any assignment to this course, it would probably be to create some sort of
blog post/media post where you are trying to reach out to the public about something and you
have to learn how formal/informal you have to be to ensure that you get the best reactions
possible. That would be a cool assignment considering how much social media is now become a
format to be an advocate on. It would be helpful to know just how to be the best advocate you
can be through style and design of simple posts. If I could edit this course, it would probably be
to edit the engagement project. While enjoyable, it was a little confusing at times but I am sure in
the future story spheres will get resolved and so that will take away some frustration of the
document. However, perhaps having a discussion like peer reviews where other people could
review your scripts for your speech boxes would be helpful.
Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed this Technical Writing class. Thank you for
everything and happy holidays!