WHAT TO EXPECT IN ENGLISH 2311: TECHNICAL WRITING WITH PROF. Z. LEWIS. Texas A&M International University

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1 Running head: WHAT TO EXPECT IN ENGLISH 2311: TECHNICAL WRITING WITH PROF. Z. LEWIS 1 WHAT TO EXPECT IN ENGLISH 2311: TECHNICAL WRITING WITH PROF. Z. LEWIS Texas A&M International University

2 WHAT TO EXPECT IN ENGLISH Table of Contents What to Expect in English 2311: Technical Writing with Prof. Z. Lewis ABOUT THE COURSE... 3 ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR... 4 ARTICLE SUMMARIES... 4 CHALLENG(ING & ES)... 5 DREAD... 5 DROP THE COURSE? FORGET ABOUT IT!... 5 ELI WRITE, REVIEW, REVISE... 6 IT S DIFFERENT... 6 MYTECHCOMMLAB... 7 NEW TOOLS... 7 RESOURCES... 7 REVISION & PEER REVIEW... 7 SPAM... 8 TEAMWORK... 8 THINGS I DIDN T KNOW... 8 WORD TO THE WISE... 9

3 WHAT TO EXPECT IN ENGLISH What to Expect in English 2311: Technical Writing with Prof. Z. Lewis Following are excerpts from students reflective essays Fall Semester I feel better about writing papers worth reading, not just worth an A. This class has prepared me for the real world. ABOUT THE COURSE Learning how to make a proper memo saved me countless times over the semester. Any time I needed to schedule an appointment with a professor, or I needed to ask a professor about an important issue from class, I could easily write up a memo that explained exactly what I was asking for. ENGL 1301 and 1302 did help improve my writing abilities but I must say ENGL 2311 definitely made the greatest impact. Since the beginning of ENGL 2311 the focus of improving our technical reading and writing all around was clearly emphasized. Along the path of this course I can justly say that the road was not easy but challenging; but then again, with determination, time and the correct knowledge it was well worth it. I feel that this course has definitely prepared me for any future writing assignments I may have, and that I will have the tools to approach these assignments in a professional manner. One of the challenges I faced in this course was visual rhetoric. It has always been hard for me to make something visually appealing because of my personal preference of things being simple. However, because of this course, I learned how to use document elements such as pull quotes, drop caps, and formatting titles and a Table of Contents using Microsoft Word Styles. I feel that this course has definitely prepared me for any future writing assignments I may have, and that I will have the tools to approach these assignments in a professional manner. After all the hours I spent on this class, I am going to make sure that not one of the writing techniques I ve learned goes to waste.

4 WHAT TO EXPECT IN ENGLISH ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR I had a brilliant instructor that cared about my involvement in the class, which made learning all the more fun and interesting. Thanks to Professor Lewis I will never forget how to write memos, memos, and more memos! Professor Lewis may be a hard teacher, but most certainly she is the most effective one. I was not accustomed to turning in so many assignments in such a short amount of time and I m grateful I enrolled in this course. I thank my professor for being strict and making us learn the hard way. I took this course with Professor Z. Lewis in my final semester towards my degree. I think I would ve avoided some trouble with my writing skills if I had taken this course with Professor Z. Lewis before. With the help of Professor Z. Lewis, her material, and the assignments and projects, I believe my writing assignments and work force related writing tasks will become easier to accomplish. Professor Lewis s Technical Writing class definitely helped sculpt me into the writer I am today. Because of this course, I was able to better my presentation skills, and ultimately acquire a position in an organization that I ve wanted to join since I began my journey at TAMIU. All in all, Mrs. Lewis has influenced my ways of writing, reading, and analyzing in ways I never thought of. I am grateful to have enrolled in this course because I believe that I will take everything I learned and use it in my graduate courses. Overall, through the course of this fascinating class, I can proudly say that I appreciate everything Professor Lewis has taught us and put into this course. I am very glad I took this course with such an inspiring Professor who always gave it her all to help us learn and grow as a writer and individual. ARTICLE SUMMARIES The journals assigned to relate to your major greatly increased my knowledge not only about my interested engineering fields but also others I had not considered.

5 WHAT TO EXPECT IN ENGLISH By summarizing the scholarly journals it helped me to be able to better summarize what I read and focus on the important aspects of the article. Before taking this course I did not know how to prepare a proposal for projects that I would want to be considered by my future employers. CHALLENG(ING & ES) The materials covered challenged all of the students to actually think about what they were writing and to make sure the reader got everything they needed. When the day comes when I graduate and am facing the real world, I can thank this course for making the challenges that lie ahead less difficult to handle. Another challenge I encountered in this course was the quickness with which Ms. Lewis demanded our class to submit assignments. In some cases, Ms. Lewis would assign us in class assignments to be submitted before the end of class and it was difficult for me to submit the assignments on time because I have always taken my time. Another factor that challenged me during the course was the deadlines. The professor was always very strict in implementing that there would be no late submissions or resubmissions. I learned to become responsible in that aspect. This course and the materials challenged me in a way that I hadn t experienced. DREAD I still remember the first days of nausea as I read over the syllabus for this class. It just seemed like so much work. During the first weeks of her class I thought her course was going to be the death of me. DROP THE COURSE? FORGET ABOUT IT! I thought about dropping the class in the beginning because I missed an assignment that had brought my A in the class, to an F. When I saw the F, I freaked, but before I did anything I went to talk to Mrs. Lewis. She calmed my nerves down when she said if I just continued to work hard at what I was doing, that I would be able to pass, and even maybe with a B if I aced everything. Quitting wasn t an option, and I stuck it out and am able to say I survived technical writing with Mrs. Lewis!

6 WHAT TO EXPECT IN ENGLISH Despite the fact that I learned a lot in this class, I admit it was not my favorite. However, I feel privileged to have had Professor Lewis as a teacher. This course has not only taught me about memos and writing but it has also taught me about responsibility, challenging myself, and not giving up on the first failure. Throughout the entire semester I had an F in the course. I had an advisor call me and meet up with me because they were concern about my grades in this class. The advisor recommended for me to drop the class but I said no! I wasn t going to give up so fast. Life is all about challenges and this course was just one more of them. I challenged myself to pass this course and I did. I brought that F up to a C and all because I didn t give up on myself and neither did Professor Lewis. ELI WRITE, REVIEW, REVISE The ELI Review system used in my class was also a great way of understanding the different way my peers wrote. The system was relatively easy to use and provided revision possibilities to your paper by incorporating the feedback of your peers. One of the most helpful activities was using ELI REVIEW to analyze other classmates work and help them with revision. A couple of our assignments were submitted to the online source ELI REVIEW and we were able to create revision plans to help improve our assignments. Using ELI Review allowed my peers and myself to share constructive criticism with each other on our individual work. Peer reviewing was an eye-opening experience because my peers did excellent jobs of identifying mistakes that I overlooked. IT S DIFFERENT In English 1301 and 1302 it would be the same thing; you have to write a memoir, a critical essay, an argumentative essay, etc. and what was cool about this course was the challenging topics like the technical description. I was so accustomed to my other English courses and having to type extensive detailed papers that this class caught me by surprise. I slowly started understanding that it wasn t always about the length of the paper but the quality of it. I was not prepared for the workload that I was about to experience, but I was taught very well with clear directions on how to complete every assignment.

7 WHAT TO EXPECT IN ENGLISH I have taken courses in which I am more than sure that the content will never be used in my life again; the story is different for Technical Writing. MYTECHCOMMLAB My Tech Comm Lab was one of the main factors that assisted me in improving my writing skills. Making students log ten hours or complete the study plan is a great tactic in helping students advance. The completion of the MyTechCommLab program helped me a lot with sentence structure and punctuation. This activity showed me how to write paragraphs and sentences correctly. The fact that it allowed me to view the correct answers at the end of every question helped me realize what I was doing wrong. Mytechcommlab helped me with my grammar a lot. I learned rules of grammar that I was not familiar with before. NEW TOOLS The fact that I managed to learn a new branch of writing that applies directly to the real world is extremely beneficial. When used correctly, technical writing is a powerful tool that can be used to get important things done in the real world. I now feel that when assignments are forecasted, my preparation for them should be too. I no longer feel the need to wait until the last minute because I genuinely feel I have all the tools to start immediately. RESOURCES Professor Lewis would give us a resource the assignment that was supposed to be turned in next. I am sure this helped everyone in the class and allowed us all to write better papers. I d like to thank Professor Lewis for always providing so many resources to the class and assisting me with any issues that I would be having in the course. I learned a great amount in this course and feel a lot more prepared to tackle on any writing assignment in the future. REVISION & PEER REVIEW Speaking of revision, one of the things that made revising easier was getting peerreviews from classmates through Eli Review. Eli Review helped me in a way that not only made submission easier, but when it came to revising it it helps having someone letting you know what was missing and whatever else comments they decided to

8 WHAT TO EXPECT IN ENGLISH include; it wasn't the same old check for misspellings or run-ons. Although peer-reviews are a great help when revising a paper, getting feedback from your professor is even better. I honestly appreciate that because many professors don't really take the time to give you any feedback at all on the first draft not the final draft but simply give you a grade. Her comments on what would be missing and how to improve the assignment really helped me understand why it was wrong when it'd be wrong and what were some good ways to fix the errors. Without a doubt what has helped me the most throughout this course was the peer reviews. SPAM The most helpful strategy Professor Lewis gave us was the SPAM. This was an easy way to help us outline our memo. I also liked that we were given examples for every assignment we had to do. I began by learning and perfecting the SPAM and TRAy processes. Because I was expected to state the subject, purpose and main point in every memo that was due, I will carry that over and use it in other writings I may have, and no how to properly do so. The TRAy process is: thanking the reader, re-state the main point, and anticipate, has taught me how to properly and thoroughly close out any paper I am working on. TEAMWORK Being part of a team ended up working in my favor because they helped me become a better writer and took some pressure off of me for the group assignments. As a whole, working in groups has assisted me in growing as a writer. THINGS I DIDN T KNOW You have to be aware of syntax, word choice, format, color, organization, and a million other things. It is really easy to take for granted how challenging being a technical communicator can be. I had previously never sought out help from the Writing Center, but because of the requirement from this course, I learned that the tutors there are very helpful when it comes to improving my writing.

9 WHAT TO EXPECT IN ENGLISH I chose to speak about skateboards in my technical description and learned that there are a lot of mechanics and physics to such a simple looking object. WORD TO THE WISE "Procrastination Nation" is probably the worst thing you could think of when being enrolled in this course, or else you'll be a part of the "#TeamNoSleep" group. When I registered for this course I thought to myself, This is going to be cake. By midsemester, I was literally crying because I had a miserable F. Where did this entire brash attitude go? I ll tell you where it went, to the black hole of Professor Lewis s classroom, the point of no return, or so I thought.