Personal Reflection

Since my enrollment at George Mason University in the summer of 2002, I have written many documents, most in the fields of English and Psychology.  I have written many research proposals and reports, data analysis, and journal critiques.  However, none can be compared to this course of Technical Reading and Writing.  I am very delighted to be a part of this course.  This class has provided me with educational and career tools that were not anticipated.  Over the past two months, I have learned a variety of technical writing skills, which ranged from writing various documents to editing and critiquing.

Furthermore, this course has been most enlightening to me because it has provided me with the knowledge and opportunity to create an e-portfolio/website. This e-portfolio was created to display my ability to write intelligent and fluid documents.  The portfolio is intended to present different samples of my writing to employers and friends. During the course of the semester, I reviewed and re-wrote several documents.  Most of these documents referred to the tasks that I performed.  I used drafting and editing techniques from the text, Technical Communication, used in class.  In fact, I applied these techniques to my samples just prior to presenting them in my e-portfolio.  Significant changes were made, including grammatical errors and errors involving sentence structure.

During the construction of my e-portfolio, I was very skeptical of my ability to produce an efficient website. However, by the end of the semester, my abilities have increased tremendously. I am able to use the Netscape composer to format, edit, fill background colors, etc. The main difficulty I encountered during the construction of my e-portfolio was the transferring of my files from the zip disk to the website. I have learned how to transfer/upload my files with minimum difficulty. I am very delighted to have composed this e-portfolio because the lack of this ability at one point limited my employment prospects.

In conclusion, this course has been very time consuming and mentally draining, but I have gained valuable skills from this course, primarily skills that are essential as a technical reader and writer.  I am impressed by my ability to utilize these skills in my revision of the Northern Virginia Family Services Volunteer Handbook.  The numerous homework exercises have been very beneficial to me.  I have learned and developed my knowledge on the common errors that are present within my technical communication.  Overall, this course has enhanced my skills in reading and editing, designing documents, and scrutinizing the ethos and pathos of technical documents.