Ayisha Riaz

Doctor Kailan Sindelar

English 2116: Introduction to Technical Communication
June 27th, 2022

Reflection Essay

This short semester taught me so much in the world of technical writing. This is the first
English class I have taken where creativity is given less priority than information. From filling
out my document development expositions for each major project and reflecting on the work I
have done in this course; I learned a lot more about technical writing than I realized and for that I
am extremely grateful. I will be able to use these skills in my future classes and career in
computer science. I have a creative background and this course really helped me develop my
technical writing skills by forcing me to focus solely on essential information. In school we are
usually taught to add “fluff” or sentences to describe the topic in detail. This course taught me
that I don’t need to add those unnecessary words and that I can still describe my topic using
intentional prose. I was able to trim each draft of each project to only include essential details.

Remaining factual, on-topic, and straightforward to persuade my readers are skills I will
keep forever. This was my main goal for this class and I believe it laid a strong foundation for
me to be successful in a technical field. This course also required a lot of research, especially for
the white paper project. That was a challenging assignment and I struggled with it, but it was
also extremely valuable because it taught me how to conduct credible research to find a practical
solution to a very real problem. This assignment helped me develop research-based writing skills
by writing a lengthy paper without any excess information. This assignment also helped me in
the design space as I learned how to incorporate images in an academic manner. Instead of using
pictures to take a break between reading long paragraphs, I learned to reference them and support
my arguments, making my report stronger.

The assignment I am most proud of is the “workplace correspondence” project. This

project took me by surprise. I imagined writing a professional email would be much easier than it
was. In fact, it was so much more difficult to write a short email to get my points across than I
thought. It was a challenge to condense such an important and multi-faceted problem into around
200 words while also presenting a solution. I don’t think I fully understood the assignment until
the final draft I submitted with my portfolio. I connected this assignment to my white paper by
using the same problem/solution/how the solution will solve the problem format, and then it all
clicked. As a creative individual, I am used to thinking outside of the box. The biggest lesson I
learned with this project is that in the workplace, it’s important to remain practical and present
real solutions to real problems. This is a skill that I will use when writing emails in the future.

If I could add or modify any assignment in this course, I would add more to the final
portfolio project. The internet is a vast place and there are infinite possibilities when it comes to
website design and usability. I would love to experience more elements of website building and
creating a user-friendly webpage. Of course, due to the time frame of this class, I understand
why this wasn’t added. I would also have loved an oral presentation to help build my public
speaking confidence in a professional setting. Overall, I am thankful for the skills I learned in
this course and know they will help me be taken seriously in any professional setting.