Writing can be challenging when there is no order of ideas or even the slightest interest in gaining such knowledge. It can seem tedious, and reading a passage with condescending language can make it very tiresome to achieve encouraging insight. Writing is translating your ideas in the most respectful and educated manner. Some people are highly proficient with their words, while others, like myself, are more visual and radical with their voices. It is not incorrect to be one way or the other; that would be a very generalized idea of all the types of authors that exist out there. Writing is a skill that requires patience and commitment, which is required of most people in their professions.

Explaining your ideas to an audience can be intimidating, especially as a non-native speaker. I often reflect on the uniqueness of my perspective in my academic writing, hoping that it will be interpreted accurately. As a creative person who usually tries to bend the rules and do as she pleases, following guidelines in any work can be exhausting. As much as I disagree with it, I understand there are guidelines to follow, which is precisely the purpose of courses like this one. 

It can be challenging to find ways to express your voice. For my technical description, for example, I attempted to be more creative and think outside the box by disassembling a digital camera and listing any physical and chemical properties happening inside. I enjoyed doing this since it forced me to look up light, electricity, mechanics, and circuitry information. This action allowed me to appreciate the craft of a simple digital camera. However, as exciting as this was, my work was far from what the assignment required. I was so mesmerized talking about the physics behind it that I completely neglected to specify the action of taking a picture or recording a video. This practice is something I plan to work on in the near future.

For my lab report, I focused more on the rhetorical question and less on analyzing it. I was unsure how to do this since it is very technical writing. However, thanks to the feedback of other classmates and Professor Jacobson, I understood where I deviated from the primary purpose of the assignment. Nonetheless, these practices have helped me find that professional voice I do not know how to vocalize. Lastly, for the engineering proposal,  I have to say that I disagreed with many aspects of our design choice for our idea. There were a couple of communication and disorganization issues, and overall, I had to be more patient and conscientious, and my input was not the only one worthy of consideration. Working in groups can be challenging, but I am glad there was a mutual agreement with all parties involved, and we were able to come up with an idea we were all very pleased with.

In these four weeks,  I have learned to recognize and analyze text paragraphs and graphic design choices in multiple formats. Being more self-aware of how information is presented and to what audience it is targeted is an extremely valuable tool that I hope to conserve as an engineer. I had never used the CCNY library for resources of any kind or even citations, so I am delighted I was able to explore interesting articles about my field of study. I am very excited to implement what I have learned in this course in other aspects of my training. This course taught me more about myself and the difficulty I often have when receiving external input. I hope to improve my writing skills to become a more technical, professional, and considerate writer.