Hello, and my name is Jeffrey Chan, a student enrolled in the City College of New York, taking Writing for Engineering 21007. This portfolio represents my work and development throughout the Mechanical Writing course for the Spring Term of 2026. Over this term, we were taught how to professionally create many different styles of writing that can be utilized far beyond this course. With assignments ranging from Resume writing to the creation of proposals that can be utilized even in non stem fields, I have developed a plentitude of skills that I can take forward in life. A main thing that I learned across every single assignment was how to better utilize my uses of technology across different mediums for different purposes. Coupled with that, reading of course was also critical to class, what with it being an English class. Both the course textbook and scholarly sources found in CCNY provided databases aided greatly in this class (with the latter being required for a few assignments). With the generalizing course overview reflected on, I believe it would be wiser to hone in on the specific assignments themselves, as their differences make for development of many different styles of skills.
The first assignment that we had to undertake was the creation of our Resumes and Cover Letters. These were created with a specific LinkedIn job posting of our choosing, though the Resumes themselves did also have to be solid enough to stand on their own. My papers underwent a few drafts before I felt that they were complete enough to be professionally submitted. The drafting process was fairly effective as well, as by reviewing my work with classmates and reading other publicly posted Resumes and Cover Letters, I could see a large jump in quality and coherence. Keeping in mind the audience was also an important aspect of this assignment, as while I have had to write professionally before for emails, this was the first time that I had to create something that would be suitable to send to anything on the scale of nationwide technological companies. As for the usage of technology, I used a few new different applications that had their own templates, before eventually settling on Microsoft Word. While I tend to usually want to stick to Google Documents, I do see now that Microsoft Word may be more suitable for more professional environments.
The second assignment (well I think it was technically the third but the order doesn’t particularly matter) was the lab report. We were free to pick any topic for our lab report, however I elected to do the recommended lab report of Dice Rolling. The recommended report consisted of gathering our own data, before using that data to create a properly formatted lab report, complete with a related scholarly source sited. The scholarly source that I chose to use was accessed via CCNY’s online library. Seeing as how I can’t figure out a way to smoothly insert this anywhere else due it just being an uncommon phase, I suppose that using the online library counts as information literacy. I did also use Google Sheets as my main use of technology, using it to both track and format my data into more professional visuals. The process of combining my data with a scholarly source would also fall under synthesis, as it did result in a lab report. The audience for this assignment was unique as well here, as it had to be written in a format that would be read both by peers and research institutes.
The next assignment was where things started advancing in terms of difficulty: the project proposal. In this assignment, I had to group up with 3 other classmates and write a response to an RFP: Request for Proposal. This RFP consisted of asking for a potential new Student Center for the CCNY campus. A multitude of different skills were required for this project, combining them all fluidly. Firstly, we had to do drafting to ensure that the paper illustrated our vision optimally and realistically, along with being a suitable persuasive essay. Next, we had to use citations and information literacy, getting sources and properly using citations from CCNY’s database to back up statistics regarding the effectiveness of a new student center. Next is the use of technology, as we had to create floorplans, send out digital surveys, create presentations, and format the actual proposal. Collaboration was an important aspect of this assignment, as everyone had to do their fair share while also having our work flow together nicely; one could say we had to synthesize an essay with our combined efforts. The audience here was also key, as it is plausible that we may have to present to such an audience in the future, with it being the audience of potential investors or people in charge of distributing permits and licenses to carry out such a project.
The second to last assignment was our Technical Description. We were allowed to work either by ourselves or with a partner, to produce a posterboard and to then present it in 10 minutes intervals. For the sake of efficiency, we decided that a partner would be best, as our collaborative efforts ensured that we could each use our skillsets to their best ability, as well as having a partner to check our work and offer new perspectives. The audience here is intended to be of people learning of the subject, and as such the Technical Description had to be visually pleasing, concise in information density, but also explanatory enough that someone learning of our topic of Tactile Sensors for the first time would understand them. Drafting was key in this assignment, as the cost and time needed for physical attempts was much larger than any prior project, so we had to ensure beforehand that the size and theming were suitable before physical production. Synthesis was extremely important as well, as to ensure the legitimacy of this, we found many different scholarly sources using information literacy by reading CCNY’s online database. Citations here had to be as brief as possible, but were still integral to the assignment to back up our research.
As for the final assignment, it is what I can currently writing right now: the portfolio. The portfolio one could say is the amalgamation of all of the course objectives, as it required synthesis of all our prior works, keeping in mind the audience that would be either peers or potential hires, all while using technology to its fullest, as this should be formatted professionally and will be able to be publicly accessed. While I have used CUNY commons before in a manner similar to the creation of this portfolio, this portfolio is much more fine tuned than my prior ones were, as both the works themselves and the synthesis are more developed than they were previously.
To conclude, Writing for Engineering 21007 has allowed me to hone many of my writing capabilities, preparing me for the usage of them in a world beyond an educational institution (as a student at least). I had more chances to work collaboratively than I have in other courses, which was a nice and welcome change, along with being able to write in a style other than the same old MLA format. APA format as well as just the different formats required for non essay works was a welcome change of pace. The course itself was also pretty fun, with the assignments being unique enough from each other that stagnancy wasn’t something I often encountered. Two other assignments that I hadn’t mentioned were the introductory paragraph and the Quest (Quiz Test), as I felt that they weren’t all that interesting enough to have a full paragraph dedicated to each of them. They were still helpful though, with the introductory paragraph being good training for an elevator pitch and the Quest just being good review for English rules. Overall, I would say that this course was a pleasant experience, with it’s informative aspects being helpful, along with providing experience for my future writings.
