In this portfolio, I included my lab report analysis, technical description and the proposal for my groups innovation. I chose to include those writing pieces because they represent who i am as a writer. I did not include my resume and cover letter because those are still a work in progress.
For my technical description paper, the audience does not have a linguistic difference than I do. When writing this I had to keep in mind that the audience was reading in this to hear me compare and contract lab reports meaning I had to use a good amount of compare and contrast words. This helped enhance my use of transitional phrases and help me find a flow to writing, rather than having the essay not sound cohesive. In addition, before I started writing I had made a planning page full of annotations about the both lab reports, I found it easier to write once I had a visual of what both lab reports had in common and what made them different. Finally, to catch all my mistakes I reread my writing piece but I also had the computer read my writing a loud so I can hear what it sounds like and fix it up.
While writing this my goal was to compare and contract lab reports but it was also to show the importance of writing a well-developed lab report. The lab means nothing if the lab report is not understandable and easy for someone else to redo to prove creditability. Since this is a rhetorical analysis my audience expects to hear my voice in my writing and hear me break down each part of this writing while explaining why this is good or bad and what this means. Having the opportunity of peer review made it clearer for me the path I was going in and what needed to be changed or added, having feedback from an audience member just made everything better. Multimodal composition was used in this paper. Photos were not needed in this piece of writing. No genres were crossed in this paper. I did not have a stance in the sense that I was arguing for something, however, I did prefer Gomez’s lab report Doe’s just because I believed her writing was more informative.
For my technical description, the people reading this do not have linguistic difference for me. However, to make sure all my readers understand my topic I had to use simple language and break down everything so that anyone can understand and be informed with what a chime clock does and purpose. This paper enhanced my strategies of being able to describe every aspect of an object that always seemed so simple. Having to write a definition for a clock seemed so simple you know its an object that tells the time but having to talk about all the parts and describe it was more difficult than I expected. In addition, this writing enhanced my strategies of revision because normally I don’t write draft then go back to it but this time I did, and it made me see clearly my improvement and what I need to change. During my thinking process I was only writing with my understanding in mind, I knew that if I said one thing I would be able to understand it due to my prior knowledge but later I realized that am not writing this for myself I need to make sure my audience understands what I am trying to describe without expectations that they have the same prior knowledge as I do. Having the opportunity of peer review made it clearer for me the path I was going in and what needed to be changed or added, I got to have feedback from an audience member and see if they understand. Multimodal composition was used in this paper. Photos were used in order to better explain the item I was attempting to describe. No genres were crossed in this paper. I did not have a stance in this writing piece, the whole purpose of this essay was to describe and inform the audience of a Seiko Chime Clock. Overall, I do think I tried to get my audience to appreciate a clock in general. In this piece of writing I used many sources to increase my knowledge on this topic, this is a very heavy researched based assignment, before being able to write I had look up many things. With most of my source I paraphrased a lot rather than quoting and siting my source, I find it to be easier that way so that my reader can have a better understanding of the topic.
In my proposal my group and I made an interactive app that targeted high school and college students to help them learn. At first, we were going to make an app that let students know when the escalator was broken in the NAC or when something was going on in the NAC that would make you late to class. However, we thought it was difficult to write a proposal on it, so we changed our mind. The app we made would learn students unique learning style with a series of test then teach them the material needed. The app would be called “Smart Class” and the price for the app would range depending on how many classes the student would take. Each class program would last for a semester long. Our inspiration for our app was a program called Alex used for chemistry. Alex is an interactive app that does homework targeted towards the students unique learning style. Every student who uses Alex says they learn more with Alex then they do in class.
Working in a group made this project interesting. The brainstorming part was nice to see all the different way we think. We all agreed on everything, nothing came up that was a problem or a disagreement. We broke down the proposal into sections and assigned each section to someone. My responsibility was to do the process, the labor, the materials and the cost. Finding the cost wasn’t difficult because I found a website that broke everything down and would give me an estimated costed. Labor, process, and material wasn’t the easiest because I was a beginner in computer engineering, so I only know the basic. I don’t really know how to write a program to make an app or what programs is needed. However, luckily my group is more advance than I am, and they knew what is needed and what to do.
If I had to rate my participation in this project, I would give myself a 6 out of 10. I think that I could’ve put more work into the proposal and did more research the same way my group did. In addition, work wise my group gave me the part that had the least amount of work and when it came down to doing the PowerPoint one person in the group did it all and sent it to us to review and give feedback. While we did all participate the work could’ve been divided more.
Overall, this semester has made me grow as a writer. My analysis skills has improved and as well as my skills to peer review. I hope to take everything I learned this semester and carry it on to my career path.
