Aaron Hibyan

English 2116

5/8/2018

Course Reflection

Throughout the course I was actively working to improve all aspects of my writing, from
the planning phase all the way to the final draft of each paper. Although I improved some I wish
it had been more noticeable as I felt that I was still writing in the same manner although it was
a technical communication course. An area where I see room for improvement is the topic
analysis quizzes at the beginning of the semester. The information contained in them and the
related readings was helpful but I wish that time could have been used on small writing
assignments leading up to the white paper packet. Changing my writing styles from a normal
research paper tone to a more formal one was more challenging than I expected it to be. I am
unsure how this can be solved but it was defiantly something that I struggled with the entire
semester.

My main goals for this course included being able to write in a more professional
manner when needed and make sure I am addressing the correct audience when I write.
Figuring out who the audience is and how to best address them allowed me to make the tone
of each paper unique depending on the audience. I achieved this goal by focusing a lot on the
planning phase and making sure the intended audience was going to be addressed properly in
the paper. Also in the textbook the section on audiences helped a lot as it contained a lot of
helpful information on audiences. Writing in a more professional manner comes along once you
know how to properly address your audience, though I feel like I made less progress on this.

Of all the assignments we did throughout the course I am the proudest of my White
Paper report. The topic I covered, mountaintop removal, is something I did not know a lot
about and this allowed me to dive into the effects it has on the environment. If I were to add
any assignments I would add two or three small assignments, roughly 500 words, before the
white paper packet. This would allow students to be more prepared when the start working on
their white paper packet. The white paper packet being the first real writing assignment we did
in the course made it challenging since we had no other assignments as practice. I would not
change any of the assignments as they all seem to fit their purpose the way they are. The order
in which the assignments are assigned could be altered though so maybe the recommendation
report would be before the white paper packet since the white paper packet is the most
challenging.