Luis Cortazar              5-14-18                       English 21007

          Over the past semester as a student in a Writing for Engineers class, I found that I’ve been pushed to limits to deliver work that has met the criteria laid out before me. This has forced me to rethink the way I write and present information, preparing me for future endeavors in my engineering studies and professional career.

         Engineering is an area of study where communication is highly critical to the success of any project. Depending on the audience, we may have to adjust our language and use of professional terms. If we are trying to describe a process to a consumer, we would be more passive and describe each procedure in detail. If we were to speak to someone willing to fund our company, our linguistics must convey professionalism, mastery of the subject, and attractive statistics and projections to convince them. These fall into the category of linguistics, and as Engineers, we must understand the range of the linguistic abilities of others and ourselves. Drawing on the strengths of our individual linguistics played a heavy role in my Technical Description.

         I had chosen to make a stereo cassette player, the focus of my description. An item that is complex in its structure and components, as well as its history. I also found myself deciding what my writing goals were. My audience was my professor, but I cannot assume that she knows the background of what I am discussing. In the context of the criteria presented, no matter the simplicity or complexity of the object, my goal was to guide the reader through the object’s history, its function, and importance as a part of technological innovation. I had to write as if I were there with the reader, carefully explaining it through clear and passive writing. Although my tone would waiver from time to time due to my fondness for the item in question, I never let it impair my evaluation of the object’s impact, function, and its flaws. The interior components were difficult to translate, in terms of describing how each piece plays its role. Knowing that the reader might be overwhelmed by the information I had to explain the functional aspects in a way that made sense to anyone. There was also the task of remaining professional and avoid saying stuff like “pressing Play allows the user to listen to the tape”. Instead, I described the process as “The Play button brings down the Tape head and starts the reels of the player. The pinch roller and capstan feed the tape from one side of the tape to the head which reads will read the magnetic strips. The tape head is a type of transducer that converts magnetic fluctuations to electrical signals and vice versa.” Overall the experience has taught me to think about the audience and their linguistics range as well as what would be required of the writer ‘s linguistics and purpose in writing.

            Acknowledging our limitations and mistakes is one of the virtues of being a writer, as owning up to them does not come easy. Rarely hitting it out of the park on my first strike, I find myself just short of reaching all the benchmarks that were asked of me. But that is all apart of the writing process, it doesn’t end when the assignments are due. Reflections are one of the best ways to look back on areas where you were weak on and understand what needs to be done so that the same mistake is not made twice. Every time I begin the process of writing one of my assignment reflections I think about the grade I received, what the criteria entailed and where I fell short. Often, I find myself removing a burden on my shoulders as I try to incorporate what I learned from others and myself into other assignments. Reflections, writing reading, and drafting doesn’t apply to our work alone, as we can learn from other people’s work as well. The overarching theme of the Lab analysis was to categorize the strengths and weaknesses of labs as per the standard Lab report technique/style. Reviewing each lab, I was able to acknowledge the difference between faults of oversight and carelessness versus faults in relation to the standard guidelines. Not all Labs follow all the same steps as the standard Lab report guidelines and they vary based on their content.

            One of the benefits of being a part of the writing for engineers’ class was that we got a glimpse into our future careers and who we would work with. The collaborative and social aspects of writing were a present theme throughout our days, but this would come to its head when we entered our project proposals. I formed a team of writers who were eager to work and dedicated to putting their all into their work. Once we had the idea in mind we would proceed to look at our problems and solutions through different perspectives. Sometimes ideals would clash but it would always be for the sake of what we were creating. Instead of working separately then fitting all the pieces together, we worked on one google drive account at the same time, for all other members to see. We were able to keep tabs on each other, build on other people’s ideas and asked questions when we needed clarification.

            Each set of disciplinary contexts has their own form of writing required, and as engineers, we must write carefully in each genre. Our Proposals had to be professional and persuasive, as such much of the language present had to do with the images and statistics present. Our solutions also had to make sense in relation to the evidence we found. The technical description required me to describe each part of the entire apparatus in an understandable manner and forced me to use evidence to prove the relevance of the object to history. The Lab analysis was different, I was evaluating the work of three labs done by people whom I never met, and I was to be evaluated based on those observations. I wrote as if I were the instructor, given criteria and forced to asses, but at the same time, I also explained why their choices made sense in the context of their writing.

            Scientists, when they commence an experiment, establish their variables and from experience formulate a conclusion to test a theory or finding. We also learned how to formulate a stance through our writing. Whether it is on the position we have on the best way to solve an age-old problem, or when it comes to deciding the outcome of an experiment we perform ourselves. The Lab report is the best example, as the experiment was straightforward but most of us had never done them before (however we had an idea of how it would turn out). I hypothesized that refrigeration would be the best way to preserve bananas. However, after the experiment concluded my hypothesis was disproved, as it turns out freezing the banana was more effective. What is most important when it comes to formulating a stance is that it is done so through logical assumption, and experience. Even though the hypothesis was disproved, our stance remains as the byproduct of such a thought and served to find an answer.

            Having the ability to use all the resources at your disposal to strengthen the credibility of your work is what determines a good writer/researcher. Untrustworthy researchers will only show a single part of their evidence or fabricate their own to making themselves look good. Sometimes, however, it may seem challenging to locate reputable sources. This is where libraries, online databases, and trusted government websites come in handy. Using them makes us look more professional and more likely to be trusted in the future. Even if the evidence may not prove to be in our favor, we cannot ignore them and pretend they hold no weight. It exists and there must be some way to solve it or an alternative. This is best reflected through our presentation, as it is the culmination of the research we obtained and improved on the way we use our findings. In our presentation, we used direct information on the starting salaries of the diverse types of workers under our employ to establish our labor budget. We used smog statistics to emphasize what causes this problem, whom it most effects, and what the consequences are. Because the concept of air filter drones is not so discussed, the most challenging task was to use data from UAV drones, and other sources for smog detection and green initiatives, to construct an arguable concept of a solar-powered air filter drone. This project was one that pushed our research skills up a notch by venturing into unknown territory, however common sense and facts helped to prove our case as a credible solution to an incredible problem.

            Writing is a method of transcribing thoughts, ideas and facts in a way that can be stored and understood by others who want to understand the content. As engineers, we have to learn how to convey these thoughts in relation to the context of our products. What writing does is that it allows us to communicate thought to one another, and depending on how it is written, the same idea presented to the same person may take on different forms. This is achieved by using our writing skills to acknowledge an audience as a person who wants to understand what we have to say. Writing for Engineers has improved my skills in an area where I saw difficulty, communication was a weakness which I am turning into a valuable asset.