Dear incoming students,

Hello! My name is Hanny Khairy and I was a student in Writing for Engineers just like you are now. When I first took this class, I thought it was going to be just another regular English class. Boy was I wrong! Throughout the semester, I legitimately learned new writing styles that I’ve already had to utilize for my other engineering course (Structural and Site Planning). I’ve also like to say that the amount of group work is going to be exponentially more than you think it’ll be. So, I would reccomend to know your group mates well and develop a great relationship with them. Thankfully, I was able to do this and we were able to work fluently without any arguemtns throughout the semester. The next following questions will help show exactly how I felt and learned during this spring 2022 semester.

• To what extent have I achieved the course learning objectives? 

Each of the 4 major assignments (memo, technical description, lab report, and engineering proposal) all required me to go through the 8 course learning outcomes (CLO) in my reflection paper. It was to make sure I’ve utilized as many as I can and practices good writing technique. The CLO’s depicted the writing style, research, team work, and rhetorical situation. When writing the third major assignment, my lab report, I’ve realized that my usuage of the learning outcomes has become much better utlized. When reviewing the CLO’s of the lab report, I was able to break down that I used 7/8 CLO’s compared to the 5 I used when writing my first major assignment, the memo. However, not only were the CLO’s were used in the major assignments, I found myself looking at the CLO’s when I was writing my mini abstract homework for the engineering proposal project. I told my group that we should all look this when writing the abstract because our past abstracts were too weak for the professor and had to be re-written. This improved our abstract immensly by providing the right research, team work, and rhetorical elements. Since my utlilization of the CLO’s have increasd, I think its safe to say that I’ve become better at utilizing them for my writings.

• In what ways have my perceptions on what writing is and does evolved this semester?

Before this semester, my original perception of writing was to express informational or argumentative arguements, create a story, or expresing something about yourself. However, these were all written with little rhetorical situations. Throighout the semester, I feel that I was able to evolve better in writing by providing these rhetorical elements. I was able to specify the rhetorical elements properly by sharing the audience through audience analysis and specific rhetorical elements through my reflection paper. It helped show if I ws missing any elements and made me more aware by constantly putting the elements in the back of head. Doing this made me able to accomplish/achieve more things in writing.

• How does the audience impact the content and purpose of text?

In a way, alamost every rhetorical element effects each other. When speaking about audience, your content as a whole along with your purpose can change. For example, on my lab report assignment, I I’ve selected the acting commissioner of the department of design and construction (DDC), Thomas Foley. Considering his educational background, he is highly intelligent in the field of construction and self-claimed to be open minded to new ideas regarding construction. He would be the type of person to read the lab report since he’s in charge of the building/design of buildings. Therefore, I created a report about the possibility of using Douglas Fir wood instead of mild steel for smaller structure buildings such as a three-story house. However, if I were to write to pick someone who works in the DDC but works with the city sewers, that person wouldn’t care about the purpose of the project. It doesn’t directly effect that person or his workforce, therefore, the purpose would have to change to something regarding the city sewer system. The content would change as well depending on if I speak directly to the head of the DDC compared to an account of the company. The accountant would be more interested in the cost difference of the wood compared to steel for a long term use. This would be written in a memo most likely since there wouldn’t be a need in experimenting anything.

•  was there a challenge in writing across genres and addressing specific audiences?

I remember having trouble writing the lab report. In a lab report, youre supposed to keep a passive voice to make it seems as if the experiment has already been done. However, it was difficult to organize the report this way since I was mentally thinking in present tense and got the two tenses mixed. Everytime I reviewed the document, I would see a sentence in present tense that I would need to fix. Additionally, we weren’t allowed to say “I,” “he/she,” “my team,” or “we.” I constantly made the mistake to type out those words and it was just frustrating.

• what happens to the other rhetorical elements when you change one of the elements within the situation? for example, when you change media, do the other elements change?

I do not believe that if one rhetorical element changes, every other rhetorical element would need to change. This only applies for a selected few elements such as the stance, purpose, or auience. For example, if I were to change the media of the engineering proposal, only a few elements would change but other will remain the same. Maybe the audience can gain a more variety of people if I decide to present a powerpoint rather than a 30 page document. However, the way I format my document shouldn’t be able to change the purpose or stance of the issue. It would remain the same because I’m not adding new information that would retract from what I believe in when changing the format.

• After spending the last two years of school online, how was the shift in learning after coming back fully in-person? Which do you prefer?

After spending the last two years of online school, I realized how much I missed in person classes. Sure it was nice to just attend classes while laying in your bed without needing to travel, but I felt that I was learning the minimalist amounts of things. There are also too many distractions at home, whether if it would be the phone right next to you, or your family members, it was never a “school” enviornment. Switching back to in-person felt seemless. Almost everything feels easier now that I got no distractions and can focus on the class itself. The group work was easier as well since they were right next to me so that I can ask them anything when needed. However, I do feel that some classes should stay online such as, this class. Everything done in this class was done digitally and meetings could’ve been done in zoom as well. The liberal arts class should be online as well since the only purpose they serve to me is to gain extra credits.

Through these tough times, we were still able to get a lot done during this semester. Hopefully you all also learn as much as I did, good luck!