My expectations for this class were that it would be easy for me and that I probably would not learn much from it. I already considered myself a strong writer, but I was required to take this class for one of my majors. However, I ended up learning more than I thought I would over the course of the semester.
I realized that this class would be beneficial when our first assignment was to adjust and send our resumes to the professor. I am a graduating senior, and this was a great opportunity for me to update my resume before I started applying for jobs. We also had to write a cover letter a few weeks ago, and now that I am applying for jobs, it was helpful to review what makes a good cover letter.
I am a better writer now because this class taught me to consider the readers of a document before you even start writing it. I usually just jump into writing a paper and do not consider who will be reading it. Taking the time to figure out who the readers of the document will be and considering their wants and needs was a new idea for me. This concept has helped my writing become more reader-friendly and also helps me focus my ideas before I even
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While my documents have always been neat, I now understand that pictures, bullet points, headers, color, font, and other visual elements can help a proposal or technical document stand out. When I am writing a document, I now consider how to make it visually appealing to the reader.
This class also helped me become a better writer because now I carefully consider the best way to present information to readers. Sometimes a memo will do, but other times you need to create a presentation or set of instructions. Through this class, I learned the different ways to present technical information, which will come in handy once I am out of school and working. Overall, this course ended up being interesting and useful to me and I am glad I was required to take
I learn a lot of good ways how business perform in the real world and I my writing skills improve as well too. This class thought me that every business have to write reports and all kind emails. I learn how to use commas and proper punctuation. I am able to
Throughout this course, I was able to assess and evaluate my weaknesses and strengths in writing. This class has truly brought out my ability to write, a skill I did not believe I had. I now know what it takes to become a college-level writer. Also, at the beginning of the course I did not particularly enjoy writing. Now, however, I have a greater respect for
This course was comprised of many learning activities; each was designed to help me achieve the course learning outcomes. I have taken two college English classes in the past; however, it has been several years since my last college class. I have some experience in writing and this class definitely helped me get back into writing. I often have trouble brainstorming and capturing the subject I need to write about. This class definitely helped me overcome the challenges I faced in writing and being able to effectively express my ideas in a clear and concise manner. Not to mention, it definitely helped build my writing foundation through a step by step approach to each assignment. Therefore, this class bolstered my writing and communication skills.
This class aims to address public speaking and I definitely feel more confident when speaking in front of audiences, especially since I now know the #1 rule of public speaking - KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE. I learned about topics in writing and speaking that I did not even know existed even though i saw and heard them everyday. Rhetorical Devices such as Anaphora and Chiasmus are perfect examples of this. Incorporating story into speaking and writing is something that is crucial and I really realized this throughout the semester. This helped me improve my speaking and writing abilities. Even though I despised waking up early for this class, I definitely feel like I gained vast knowledge on speaking and writing. I learned the importance of giving readers a roadmap for them to follow. I noticed a big difference which was also reflected in my grade from my informative speech to my persuasive speech. I was definitely more clear and confident by my second speech. I learned how to make eye contact with my audience while speaking. This class helped me gain valuable insight into my topic - Poverty In India. I found that there was so much more to my topic than just plain facts. In terms of the learning outcomes for this class, I feel i managed to achieve the vast majority of
Charlotte’s cover letter and resume set clearly work together as a cohesive unit, which she achieves by using the same design style for both of the documents. Her resume has blue headings that are clearly distinct from the subheadings and text themselves. This makes for easy satisficing of the document in which the reader can quickly find the sections he or she deems most important because of the clearly delineated headings. Further, Charlotte ties together her resume and cover letter by using the same heading style for her name and contact information, so the reader is able to tell both documents are by her. Also, by having such a boldly colored and distinctive heading on both her resume and cover letter, Charlotte encourages the reader to remember her documents based on her own design style.
I have written more in the past year in this course than I probably wrote throughout high school career. This class made me notice that prewriting really does make a difference in the end result as well as having a peer critique your paper. Instead of writing a quick paper and just handing it in, I was actually forced to take the time out to write a rough draft, read my own work out loud, and revise my work. It helped me make my writing more organized and have a better flow throughout my paper In the future, I will continue to use this method as well as visit the many resource we have on campus that can give feedback what can make my paper better or just checking for grammar errors, spell check, and sentence fragments.
I am much more of a creative writer and enjoy focusing on the content and not necessarily the process of writing. This course has given me insight into developing more of an understanding of the process of technical writing, and that focusing on these processes can help my overall writing skills. I believe that major breakthrough in my development as a technical writer in the area of visuals. Again, I have always been a person of content that text and oral explanation are relatively enough. This course has taught me that visual explanation can add major clarification when explaining complex information to audiences, and since the audience is who are expose to be focusing on then the ultimate goal is that they
I learned a lot in this class during the semester. The first project was our learning narrative, it was not what I was expecting from a writing class. I expected we would be writing a many formal essays in MLA format with lots of sources and research. The first essay being a creative writing project was unexpected. At first writing a narrative from my personal experience was difficult for me. I had not written anything besides formal essays since high school. Writing something that was creative and expressive was an adjustment. After a few days of writing I began to really enjoy my learning narrative. I liked being able to express myself and my own experiences and share them with others.
Before taking this course I was really excited about what I am going to learn. And I was right! This course is not only interesting but it is also helpful. I have learned that the grade I am having right now is the reflection of my try throughout the entire semester.
The course definitely changed the way I approached writing a paper. One day in lecture you quoted Ernest Hemmingway saying, “The first draft of anything is shit.” This changed the way I approached and wrote papers. I used to start papers the night before, barely look over them and making few changes. This course encouraged me to outline, write a rough draft and constantly review then finalization the paper. Peer review before this class I though was pointless because most student hardly pay attention to the paper and usually wrote “good job.” The students in the class actually read my paper and gave honest feedback and ways to improve it. Also to have a teacher read your draft and give feedback with what is wrong and ways to help the quality of the paper helped greatly. This English class was definitely different than high school English.
I feel as though I have really grown as a writer because of this class. Before taking W131, I always had a hard time trying to put my thoughts down on paper in a way that made sense. No matter how many times I would rewrite my past papers I never seemed to be able to convey my thoughts and beliefs accurately. This course really has taught me the importance of prewriting and revising. Before, I would simple sit down and stare at a blank computer screen and just kind of start typing and what I ended up with was extremely unorganized and hard to follow. Now that I have found a way to prewrite that works for me, I feel as though my writing has really improved and become more organized.
I have truly enjoyed writing for most of my life and after this class I will continue to enjoy writing hopefully with more skill. I have always viewed myself as a fairly strong writer and this class has reaffirmed that for me, but it has also shown weaknesses in my writing. As an introduction level class this has been one of my favorites; at some point I will take a higher level, even though it is not required for my major. Even though this class is almost over I am continuing to learn. I also love that this class will help me with literally ever other class in my college career. I am not a particularly strong reader, but as my writing skills improve so do the reading skills. While in this class I have learned a lot about everything from what I can improve, to subjects that interest me, and constructing a successful paper.
I have learned a lot about the career search and the different strategies in going about it in business as well as other professions. This course has been helpful to help me in knowing how to fulfill my overall goals for after college because I have learned the necessary skills to do so. This involves effectively setting goals along with knowing how to take action to achieve those goals, which is what we learned about in this course. The most impactful part of this course was the interviewing skills. The informal interview along with the informational interview assignments truly pushed me out of my comfort zone; morever, they were very rewarding as I have never had any true interview experience before that. Not only did I learned a lot about interviewing, but I also learned a lot during my informational interview about different industries and what it takes to run a business, along with some advice from an expert such as networking and risk
Prior to taking this class, I had very little knowledge on preparing taxes. Throughout the course thus far, I have been able to establish groundwork for building upon in the future. There are many different rules and situations that are treated differently in the tax world. I think I will definitely remember the basics in preparing a tax return, and hopefully some of the other situations such as dealing with a business and/or a hobby. Additionally, I will be able to build upon these ideas in my internship this spring.
Before taking this course my writing styles and habits were very different. I was the typical procrastinator because I would wait until the night before a paper was due to start it. This did not allow me enough time to properly proofread everything, which resulted in getting points deducted for simple grammatical errors that could have been avoided if I would have had the time to proofread. My writing styles have many strengths and weaknesses and I have been able to improve my writing because of them. I have learned from my strengths and weaknesses how to become a better writer.