Steven Taylor

ENC 3250 Professional Communications

Dr. Kailan Sindelar

29 April 2024

Final Reflection

1. I do not particularly see my overall writing skills having improved, though I think that is

mainly because I consider myself a proficient writer rather than any shortcoming of the

course, but I have learned more about the standards expected in professional writing,

which would mean that my writing skills have improved in that aspect. My skills in word

choice sentence structure is probably on the same level as before the class, but my

knowledge of the formats used for professional documents has improved very much. I

would say I learned these mostly in the email and memo unit, where we had to craft very

real world documents in a format that is not used as much in casual communications. I

think more assignments along these lines would help further the skills needed to write in

these professional styles that you need in the professional world.

2. My goal was to learn how to write professional documents to a standard that they would

be accepted in a workplace, such as making resumes, writing professional emails, and

reports. I would say this has been a success, since we went over all these things, but there

were a number of topics that I did not expect to cover in this course, such as writing

instructions and making augmented reality experiences. I only had a rough idea of what

to expect from this course, so it is no surprise that there were topics that I did not expect.

The white paper was a whole format of writing that I was not aware of, and I am glad to
 have learned it here. I hope these writing skills will prove useful when I move on to

working in a professional environment.

3. I quite like the instructions assignment, as I felt what I had made was concise and very

clean looking. I may also be biased since it was about yo-yoing, which I enjoy a lot, but I

actually think it was some of my best work. Writing instructions was pretty simple, but

the difficult and satisfying part is tweaking them to address issues that may arise at each

step. The engagement project also came out very nicely. I did not expect it to turn out

looking as nice as it did, but the scan of the tree in my back yard made a really cool set

for my miniature game/informational experience. I tried to take inspiration from the

augmented reality games I have played on my 3DS a long time ago, where you have to

move around a small scene sitting in front of you looking for targets. I will admit that I

am not sure if the AR project really fit in with what I expected from the course, it was

fun, but I’m not sure if it is entirely relevant to communications. In terms of improving

the course, more assignments focusing on documents along the lines of memos, email,

and common documents used in businesses day to day would be the most helpful in my

opinion.