Christopher Burgos

Professor Jacobson

English 210

8 May 2020

During my time writing and giving peer reviews to my classmates on works such as, the lab report, the technical descriptions, and the engineering proposal. I have noticed a different range of vocabulary potential in all of my peer’s papers, for example, they would use more sophisticated words when it came to describing certain pieces of technology while I would use words that can be seen as more basic. As far as my vocabulary goes, I would say that it has not evolved to the point where I want it to yet. However, I always take these moments to learn from the professor and my peers to incorporate those words into my own writing and evolve into someone with a deeper vocabulary. Furthermore, when it came to editing and revising my papers, I would always use Grammarly to aid me in checking my spelling and making sure what I am saying makes sense. The peer reviews that took place in the classes were extremely helpful because we were all giving each other feedback from the point of view of a student and not a teacher, and the fact that we visited multiple people around the class makes it even more helpful because if you start to receive the same feedback over and over again then you know that you have to fix that one thing every person advises you on. Additionally, my writing goals in papers such as, the lab report and the technical description were to use vocabulary that my target audience would be using.

In the technical description I spoke about how basketballs are made and what are the best basketballs for beginners and the best basketballs for professionals. Furthermore, I was aiming that technical description towards people who were looking into learning how to play basketball so that they are well informed on which are the best basketballs and which ones to stay away from. Unfortunately, I do not think we had the chance to do the peer reviews for this paper, however the language used in this paper was very understandable to most due to the fact that it was focused mainly on the basketball itself, which basically spoke about the process of a basketball while adding what is on the surface of the basketball such as the material that covers the outside such as, leather, synthetic leather, and rubber. When it came to revising this paper, I made sure that my facts were correct because I did not want to misinform anybody on the history of basketball and why it was made as well as the process and which are the best ones based on your skills. Since it was a technical description, I included my very own pictures of the different types of basketballs, but I did make sure to give credit to the sources I pulled from the databases. Additionally, while this paper was a technical description, I did mention how the best basketballs are the synthetic leather due to the fact that they can be used in pretty much any environment. Therefore, when it comes to my audience, I expect most people to understand basketballs because the language used in the technical description paper was meant to inform basketball beginners on how they are made and what their best uses are depending on the environment. During the creation of this paper, I did not use any sorts of library database because I felt like the magnitude of this essay required that, which could have been a mistake on my part. However, I feel like the piece of technology you chose to describe also strongly affects the choice to use a database or not in this paper. Conclusively, the use of a database in the technical description did not seem necessary for the creation of a basketball and its uses.

The lab report proved to be very tedious while writing due to the fact that every database seems to want some sort of payment to access their writings and on top of that, while looking for a website I still did not have a topic in mind. As far as my writing went for the lab report, I had to use language that appealed to that audience, which would be the people who are more involved in cyber security. Furthermore, through revisions and feedback from the professor I was able to make the lab report clearer and analyze the paper more thoroughly. For example, when I had to analyze the title of the lab report I was not clear enough of why I included those thoughts, but the professor made it clear about the confusion and through that feedback I was able to analyze the title of the lab report easier, which is something that I have been struggling with most of my school life. This semester was my first time using the APA citation style, therefore citing pieces of work on the papers was different, especially with the fact that we have to add cover pages to our papers which is something that does not always look very appealing to the paper, but eventually I got the hang of it and learned how to give others credit and make a good presentable cover page. If I’m being honest, the lab report was the least fun paper to write because it felt like a lot of information that I did not care for, which I think showed in the first draft of the lab report and also the added obstacle that came with the topic, which would be the fact that not a lot of people have done lab reports based on the topic I have chosen which left me with a limited amount of topics. Conclusively, the lab report proved to be a challenge, but through feedback from the professors and my the help of my peers I was able to see the mistakes I made in the first draft and I was able to build off that feedback and make the final draft an improvement.

The engineering proposal was the most fun paper and presentation to work on. At the very beginning it was difficult to get a hold on some of my group members, but we ended up connecting. As far as writing the proposal itself, it was a very slow process because we still had to establish some of the components for the groom360. At sometimes it would be frustrating when some of my group members would send things the day before something is due, however overall, we had amazing chemistry throughout the making of this project and paper. When it came to using words that our audience would be familiar with, we made sure that every term some might be confused with was defined. We understood that not everybody can use the product which will cost us due to the fact that this product was aimed towards a small group of people. One thing that I was worried about during the making of this proposal was the fact that this product was not created with the idea of it being worldwide which means that we struggled to make it more suitable for everybody else. However, what we wanted to do with this proposal was to make it fun for us to write about, and I’m confident that it showed in the writing of the proposal.

Conclusively, my perception of writing has shifted into a more analytical way. Meaning that I now like to take precautions when I’m describing a specific piece of technology or creating it from scratch. Furthermore, I still have a lot more to learn when it comes to writing. Before quarantine, I remember the professor telling us to always try our hardest in the first drafts because then you will not have to do as much work for the other revisions, which is something I will never forget and will always incorporate when I’m writing a paper.

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