Andy Lin

Reflection Essay
ENGL 3140 (Section 407)
May 5, 2022
Throughout this semester, I can see the improvement in my own writing. This
improvement is in the area of expression and structure. At the beginning of the course, most of
the topics revolve around the fundamentals, like being able to analyze the audience, prose, style,
and design. These topics improve my ability to structure my sentence to get my idea across to the
audience without being overly complex. From not being able to understand the purpose behind
users and audience to being able to think of my audiences while writing and what message I
want to pass on. Also, I became better at knowing how to arrange and design my paper to meet
the requirements standard. The instruction assignment helped me in both these areas. I am clear
on my audience from the start, so I understand what kind of language and style to use. From the
assignment, I learn to incorporate well-designed headings to allow my user to scan through my
document and jump to different sections. The white paper assignment mainly helped me develop
how to process a large amount of information into a paper with a balanced number of
informative elements with a persuasive tone about a problem. Both the instruction and white
paper assignment helped my writing improvement. Even with these improvements, I still have
some problems with my writing, as evidenced by the email and memo assignments. The
assignment requires me to write an internal email and memo that can help to solve a problem. I
have trouble imagining as my audience is someone from my work. Not having much info and
knowledge on how to do it since all of this is imagining that I have assumed I have a solution to
a problem, whereas, in reality, I don’t. It could be better addressed in this course if the topic of
the assignment can be closely related to the student.
Back in the first discussion of the course, my goal was to improve my writing skills and
be comfortable with writing. My goal is mostly complete. In comparison to the beginning of the
semester, my overall writing skills became more fluent and understandable. This improvement is
mostly due to the assignment done throughout the course. These assignments taught me how to
get my message across to the reader and have me pay more attention to detail that I normally
ignore. For example, how the sentence is ordered and avoiding the use of passive voice. The
discussion we have done throughout the course made me more comfortable writing messages to
others. These discussions allow me to be more straightforward and expressive in my writing. The
assignment that I was most proud of it will be the resume and cover letter assignments. It was my
first resume and cover letter, and I think it was pretty good with my current knowledge and skill.
The cover letter has my purpose and goal well written to the audience. The resume was well
structured, and the overall design with the use of white space, lines, and a list helped the resume
to look professional. If I could add any assignment to this course, it is an assignment related to
conversion. Most assignments done in this course are one-sided, so I wish for an assignment that
requires a writing conversion between more than one person through writing. I believe this way
can improve the student's ability to communicate through writing, and they will become more
comfortable and natural at writing to someone. I already talked about the assignment I wanted to
edit, and it is the email and memo assignment. All the assignment and work we have done in the
class is great, but this one I have the most difficult. I only wish the assignment to better fit the
student's current situation, so the student can have an easier time writing like the resume and
cover letter assignments where they list out the actual current identity and ability to the audience.
These are my option as someone who has a hard time writing with an imagined situation where I
have a solution to something for someone. Overall, I think the course serves its purpose of
improving student abilities in technical writing with these assignments.