Mikaila Corrigan

ENGL3140
Portfolio Reflection Essay

Overall, I do believe that I grew in my strengths as a writer. Through the revision

process, I believe that I became better at identifying my audience and tailoring my writing to
them specifically. I also became better at organizing my writing which is something I have
always struggled with. Many times, I have so many ideas of what I want to communicate but it
gets mixed up when I put it on paper and doesn’t make sense to others! The revision process
helped me to recognize the organization that made the most sense for each of the assignments.
However, I felt the limitations that were given for topics for the white paper and workplace
correspondence were very challenging. Personally, it was very difficult for me to write both of
these assignments on the same topic as it felt very similar and it mentally was hard for me to
differentiate between the two prompts. I believe this held back my writing abilities for the
workplace correspondence assignment.
My goals for this course were to learn more about technical communication and
improve my overall communication skills. I believe I achieved both of those. I definitely learned
more about technical communication, and I really enjoyed the emphasis on design, layout, and
overall visual appeal through the lecture videos and assignments. Those topics made this class
feel different than other English classes I have taken which was refreshing and felt worthwhile.
Recently, I have felt a development in my communication abilities. I feel that I have become
overall more well-spoken with and my thoughts are more developed when I speak. I believe this
can partially be contributed to the work I have completed for this class. The thorough research I
completed for the major assignments required me to read many different articles and
documents about my topic, and the writing I produced definitely helped to advance my
communication abilities.
I am definitely most proud of my white paper! I truly started from the ground up with
my topic (I knew absolutely nothing at the beginning of the semester) and I believe I produced a
solid document with relevant information that is also visually appealing. I have never written a
document like this before (with pictures and headings, etc.), so it was fun to experiment with
the visual aspects. I also really enjoyed the instructions assignment! I chose a more casual topic
(a recipe) and I enjoyed being able to write something tailored to one of my interests. I am
honestly not sure what assignment I would add. Overall, I felt like all of the major assignments
for this class encompassed many different skills and it was nice not to just be writing papers
consistently. I enjoyed the variety and felt like I grew in many aspects of communication and
technical writing.
As mentioned before, if I could edit any of these assignments, I think the only thing I
would change would be adjusting the topic requirement. Since the prompt is similar between
the white paper and the memo, it was very difficult for me to create a brand-new document on
the same topic. I do not think that changing my topic for the memo would have kept me from
developing my writing skills anymore. Other than that, I overall enjoyed the assignments and I
liked being able to complete revisions to have a visual representation of the growth I have
experienced and the skills I have developed throughout this semester.