Reflective Self Assessment

Reflective Self-Assessment The focus of WRTG 3030 was to convey learning objectives, such as primary rhetorical considerations, medium and performance considerations, audience considerations, genre considerations, information literacy, reasoning and argument, the writing process, and writing mechanics. Comprehensively these goals each have some value for a technical writer. Each of the considerations within the learning objectives revolve around the writer’s agenda. This agenda is displayed to a targeted audience through any number of mediums, which can host a myriad of genres. Whether or not that targeted audience is receptive to that message is dependent on the quality of the rhetoric, which is composed of the aforementioned elements …show more content…
Rhetorically considering a stance in which I could sell my ideas through the use of logos and pathos was probably the strongest aspect of my writing at the beginning of the class. On the other hand, the act of establishing my ethos and selling myself as a reliable and appealing character for the audience was a feature of my writing in which I struggled. As of right now It still is not the strongest aspect of my writing, but it has gotten better. I have found that the establishment of one’s rhetoric is important for every literary and non-literary piece of work, and in my case it was inhibited by my writing ability. This is demonstrated in the first draft of my personal statement for my NSF Grant Research Proposal. “Efficiency is a large issue in this regard, simply because there has to be waste when things aren’t 100% efficient, which is never the case.” This sentence is supposed to display my intellectual competency, establishing my ethos as a worthy recipient for the grant. However, its jumbled grammar and passive voice detract from that purpose. I was truly able to convey my ethos when I revised this section. “Efficiency is a large issue in this regard. Think of it this way, in order for something to not produce waste it needs to be 100% efficient. This is rarely the case especially in the power and energy industry.” Each sentence is direct and …show more content…
It quickly became apparent that different forms of communication had different expectations from their audiences. The deviations in formatting and visualizing data and information was astounding from one document to the next. I believe the conference caper and the resume are the best examples of this. It has always been my understanding that these two types of documents should be text heavy and for lack of a better term boring. However, that contradicts their purposes. Slide show presentations are meant to supplement the knowledge of any one presenter. If a slide has all the information needed by the audience, then there is no reason for the presenter to be there. This is why there are little to no words in my conference paper slide show. I used my information literacy and reasoning skills to establish that I was the primary source of information for the audience, and I only used the slides to support that fact. A resume, on the other hand, is meant to catch an employer’s eye, enticing them to pick it up. I ended up converting my existing, black and white, over cramped resume into an appealing page that demonstrates a good use of white space, color and font size. Both of these examples have me establishing a rhetoric with my audience, and it is because of this that I have come away from the semester with a better understanding on how to technically