Throughout my life writing has shaped who I am as a person. With it being in almost every aspect of my life. Whether that be at home in school or just in my personal life. There is a form of writing everywhere I look. That can be through texting, making list for my parents or writing papers for class. I don’t have the best relationship with writing. I don’t necessarily like doing this particular activity, but it is a necessity in my life. A perfect example is writing this very paper you’re reading. I don’t necessarily enjoy it, but I would like to get a good grade in my writing for engineering class.

            My writing process is not very complicated. Although it does take me a while to start, I have two processes depending on the type of writing it is. When the paper is informative and research based, I usually like to do all my research beforehand. Getting a clear idea of what I’m portraying is important so that I not only sound like I know what I’m talking about but also actually know what I’m talking about. This allows there to be no discrepancy when the information is presented whether that be the credibility of the information presented or the order it is presented in. This also allows me to think beforehand and visualize how I would set up the paper in my head. When it is creative or expressive, I tend to just let my thoughts flow. The more I think about it the harder it becomes and then I can’t process what I want to talk about. However, one thing is common for all paper’s I right. I must get something down on the page. Something I can work off of or build and idea off of.

            As the class progressed, I feel as if I’ve kept mostly the same format of writing. I start my papers the same way with the same thought process. However, I feel as if this class has given me the tools to make components of my essay better. Whether that be with how I site my sources or analyze the sources I’m taking information from. What helped with this first especially was the library database. It gave me access to a large amount of information while also citing sources for me and showing me the proper way to do so. With each essay and the more classes I went to it evolved my understanding of formatting and processing different information throughout my paper. I feel what contributed the most was our unit on paraphrasing. In class we were able to as a class go through multiple quotes and paraphrase them while keep the integrity of the original quote. We also did this individually. This allowed me to format my papers differently. With the ability to paraphrase it allowed me to write more freely and chain together different ideas with said quote while allowing me to not plagiarize. All of this is accomplished while still citing the source with the use of APA format. I will refer to this and provide context of this later in the paper.

            These processes have also helped and shaped how I write in other classes as well. This class gave me a head start on how to use APA formatting correctly. When I then used it in papers for other classes it felt as if I had been doing for a long time since I had practice beforehand from papers with this class. I think everything I’ve learned in this class is applicable in any other form of writing. Whether that be with writing a letter, research paper or a simple short response for a discussion board. I feel as if once u know how to write and are able to learn different aspects of writing, you can translate that to any situation that requires writing and effectively portray a thought idea or message.

            Now let’s look at the papers that contributed to my theory of writing the most. The first paper is my technical description. For this paper I was tasked with make a technical description of a certain innovation or object. I chose my headphones that I wear everyday which are the apple air pod maxes. My process was the same as usual gather information and process it while deciding how to format it. However, something specific to this paper added to my usual process which was a table of contents which u can see below.

Table of Contents

Introduction                                                                                                                 3

            Components                                                                                                                4-8

            Exterior Components.                                                                                                 4-6

            Interior Components                                                                                                   7-8

Conclusion                                                                                                                  9

            Works cited                                                                                                                10

What I take from this and added to my processes is that any paper regardless of the type of paper can be divided into a table of contents. However, with papers that are not technical descriptions I do this process in my head. The course learning outcome this relates to the most is “developing strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing.

For my second major paper I wrote an informational report. For this paper I used the same processes except I needed to brainstorm and idea first. The thing I was most interested in at the moment was how to improve New York City’s flood and drainage system. So, for inspiration I looked at Japan as although it is a larger city New York is similar in the sense that it has large bodies of water surrounding it. I researched their drainage system in depth and went about my normal process of writing. However, there was a lot of technical information that I had to either say in my own words or cite. Lucky for me this was around the time we learned how to paraphrase and cite properly in APA format. Below you can see how this helped.

While New York has “one” of the best water management and drainage systems in the world, Tokyo literally has the best for any city in the world. They are the golden standard. What makes Tokyo so special is that they have tons of major rivers and waterways running throughout and always surrounding them. Not only this but they also have a large history of typhoons. So, when heavy rainfall occurs flooding is a given problem they have constantly had to work around and solve throughout the history of the city. As stated by Shingo Ito “In Tokyo alone—a city cut through by more than 100 rivers” (Shingo Ito,2020). But because of their system and ingenuity “The reservoir has helped reduce the number of homes affected by water damage in nearby areas by around 90 percent” (Shingo Ito,2020). Let’s look at the system and how exactly it works.

As I said before this allowed me to chain together my ideas more freely and cite properly all without plagiarizing. The course learning outcome that this falls in line with is “composing text that integrate your stance with appropriate sources using strategies such as summary critical analysis, interpretation, synthesis and argumentation”.

            The final paper that contributed to my theory of writing is my technical innovation proposal. Since it is on the same topic as my informational report there wasn’t a lot of excess research needed. The components of the paper were clearly labeled, and all information had been gathered. However, this paper was to be written in a group and at the time of me writing this paper the paper I am referencing isn’t finished. However, what I’ve learned from this paper is how to work and progress with an idea in a group. This course learning outcome this coincides with is “engage in the collaborative and social aspect of writing processes”.

In conclusion this class has taught me a lot. It has provided so much to my theory of writing and because of this I have accomplished many course learning outcomes. The ones I would like to improve on is:

1. Practice systematic application of citation conventions.