City College of New York

English 21007

Professor. Sara Jacobson

May 22, 2023

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Abstract

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Throughout the course, eight learning objectives were taught. These learning objectives focused on the writer’s ability to write, communicate, research, cite, and their rhetorical sense. The eight learning objectives are on the course website. An argument for all eight learning objectives regarding group or individual work is made, and an argument for evolving the writer’s definition of what writing means to them is also made. Therefore the paper will argue that all eight have through the various essays and documents written, and elaborate to what extent.

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Introduction

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To begin this paper, I would like to define writing and how that definition has changed throughout this course. Before taking the course, I defined writing, or what I perceived it to be, as a tool to get points, expressions, and arguments across, voice one’s opinion and thoughts in the form of communications, literally translate speech to words, and vice versa. After taking the course and completing any necessary work, I ascertained that the tone, style, audience, et cetera, can have varying effects on the document and that changing some of the beforementioned aspects will heavily impact the meaning, the reason for its creation, and its purpose. Therefore, the definition of writing I previously mentioned has evolved, and using the learning objectives one through eight: the paper will argue this notion by agreeing or disagreeing with each premise and systematically showing how it changes my perception of writing.

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Group and Collaboration Work

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Throughout the course, there was a collaboration for various reasons: peer reviewing, the group proposal, et cetera. Through group work: learning objectives one, two, four, six, seven, and eight can be argued to have been achieved. Starting with the first learning objective: my peer’s style and linguistic tone varied significantly in the group proposal, which resulted in us having to edit and remediate most of the final draft after gathering everyone’s parts. When writing the different sections for which each person was assigned to do, some used active voice, some passive, some did not include any citations for their works, and others did but did not correctly format them. When compiling everything, the paper looked fragmented and did not flow well; however, from the final draft, I reworded, fixed grammar issues, fragmentations, et cetera, and made the paragraph flow, for which the second learning objective could also be argued here, an example of this specifically can be seen in the silica aerogel paragraph, where originally it was only meant for statics for the properties of Silica Aerogel; however, one person detailed the historical background and creator of aerogel, and another detailed compressive and tensile compressions which resulted in our final draft including all aspects instead of just only listing the properties of silica aerogel (Alam et al., 2023). As aforementioned, our writing styles clashed, as did other aspects of our group work: there was a lot of revising, rewriting, editing, and proofreading. As such, the eighth learning objective could be argued here: I had to reword sources and statics, remove unwanted citations, replace and evaluate citations that had better/stronger information, and find new citations that would fill in missing links or gaps in the writing. An example of this can be seen when talking about the implementation of silica aerogel, where one of my peers detailed how much the cost would be to make/buy a certain amount of silica aerogel; however, this was the cost of silica aerogel that was supercritically dried, making it more expensive. I found another method of drying/creating aerogel that required fewer materials, ambient pressure-drying, which also cost less; I used their citations of supercritical drying and combined them with mine to make an argument about our novelty product and advantages (Alam et al., 2023). Since the group proposal’s main objective was to format and effectively work with peers and as a group: the fourth learning objective can be argued here in two different areas. First, before writing/researching the paper, where we as a group decided on various things: bioluminescent scuba diving gear, hats that can act as headphones, et cetera. And the second: was the group presentation, where we had to decide who was creating and writing which slide, and presenting what, et cetera. My peer reviews and peer editing can also make an argument for the fourth learning objective: since we had to talk, discuss, and peer review each other’s papers, we had to learn how to communicate, leave understanding and helpful review notes, et cetera so that the author can benefit from such collaborative work. Examples can be seen in all my peer-reviewed papers/drafts and emails between them, where I explained why I rewrote and highlighted certain things. Lastly, in the group proposal, the sixth and seventh learning objectives can be argued. Since our invention uses aerogel, especially silica aerogel, I had to visit, read, analyze, and format various lab reports, journals, articles, et cetera from different websites, organizations, and companies. And since we needed to identify and argue a void, we needed to make a stance, something we would support throughout the paper: why our product was better/advantageous (Alam et al., 2023). In both cases, I had to find appropriate resources for my citations and background information to argue my stance/thesis throughout the paper: which argues both learning objectives.

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Individual Writing and Works

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The technical description, letter of introduction, lab reports, et cetera are all examples of individual writing and can be argued for learning objectives three and five. The third learning objective can be argued for in two separate cases and writings. First, the technical description: where I had to illustrate and explain various diagrams, models, specs, and electronic components (Alam, 2023a). And since the point of the research paper was to inform and discuss various unfamiliar topics and objects to most, if not all, readers, I had to use diagrams, labels, and descriptions in order, which effectively informed them. I also had to source various diagrams to show the placement, location, and functions of the various specs such as the buttons, controller PCB, motherboard, et cetera: which was not conventional writing (Alam, 2023a). The second is the lab report: to inform and show detailed compressions of two different lab reports. Such as the first case, the writing had to be understandable to the readers; however, in regards to using the actual lab reports themselves to make points of distinctions and arguments. I had to detail, once again, diagrams, specifics, and various aspects of the two individual lab reports: methodology, results, data analysis, et cetera (Alam, 2023b). I, once again, could not use conventional writing since I was discussing other works, their topics, and subject areas, resulting in having to, once again, use various models to allow my writing goal: to inform and effectively allow the reader to understand the subject matter. In the argument for the third learning objective, I had to change and alter my writing to the reader’s expectations because of the case-specific subjects, technical description, and lab reports, which allowed them to achieve my writing goal: to inform. The last learning objective, the fifth one, can be argued with the technical description: the use of videos, pictures, PDFs, et cetera are all examples of different models that were used in that writing. Within the report: diagrams, pictures, and graphs were used to explain and explore various topics discussed throughout the paper regarding different components, specs, et cetera (Alam, 2023a).

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Summation

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Throughout the course, my understanding of writing and its application has changed. As evident from the arguments made for the learning objectives, through group work or individual projects, each met through their respective means. I have decided to use different documents to argue different learning objectives; however, they are not exclusively mutual and can be used to support other learning objectives I did not discuss: such as the third and fifth learning objectives, which can be argued with any collaboration work. In the group proposal, we needed to inform, but more importantly, persuade the audience to think our product was better, and we did so systematically, reporting about our product properties, costs, et cetera and by using various models, pictures, graphs, and detailed lab diagrams, which explored disciplinary contexts outside of our products subject area, such as the manufacturing process, competing brands et cetera (Alam et al., 2023). Likewise, the same can be said for most of the learning objectives that were argued by collaborating works: they can be argued for by my individual written documents. Objectives two, six, and seven can be argued with by the lab report. Since I needed to find two lab reports to compare and contrast, I needed to efficiently use the various databases and online libraries, make a stance on which lab report had more details and outlines, and argue why that lab report was superior (Alam, 2023b). To conclude, the original statement, my perception of writing has evolved throughout the semester, as proven by the various points made throughout this paper and my writing documentation: my tones, styles, citations, audience, and purposes have changed throughout the length of this course, my source management, stances, and rhetorical sensibilities and situations have all changed throughout the course from document to document, effectively showing my growth as a reader and writer.

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References

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