Raymond Yongho

ENGLISH 2116
4/28/2015
Reflection Memo
If I had one word to describe myself the first thing that comes to mind is ambiguous. It has
become apparent for me to question the decisions Ive made, which in turn leads me to second
guess myself more than Id like to believe. I came to notice this a lot during the course of this
semester- that unless I actually get a second party to look over what Ive made I am almost never
completely satisfied. But where does this sense of doubt come from? For whatever reason it has
less to do with me doubting my capabilities and more of what I fear will come if what I present
does not fit the standards. It is for this reason that I find technical communication very engaging
because it makes me test myself and in some way assist me in my struggle, hence the name of
my portfolio, Rays Technical Struggle. My problem involves me coming to the conclusion that I
am struggling to decide on a decisive course of action lies in a whirlpool of what ifs. What if
what I do does not match the criteria? What if I fail? What if I dont get a passing grade? All
these lingering thoughts that I have had to face in the past has lead me to waver in almost
everything I do, which leads into my quote: In order to succeed your desire must be greater than
your fear of failure. This quote by Bill Cosby really stood out to me because it was something I
had to deal with very occasionally.

For the overall reflection of my eportfolio I developed an overarching theme which goes hand in
hand with the video I embedded in my webpage. As the video says The standard point of all

achievements is desire something I clearly lack. Its not as though I dont want to do well.
Everyone has a desire to succeed, just some more than others and I am the ladder. Weak desires
brings bring weak results I am not proud to say that I tend to do things half-heartedly. As long
as I completed my work and it fulfills all the requirements then that is good enough for me. Very
rarely do I make an effort to go over and beyond if it is not required of me, which might come
off as a bad habit of mine. Another quote taken from the video emphasizes on how ones failures
can bring them greater success. Although it is true that people tend to learn more from their
failures than their accomplishments, my fear is what I believe is keeping me from taking the first
step. My mock resume is a good indication of that. While other students my age have already had
practice working in the employment field I have barely just begun. The same can be said for my
gap analysis seeing as I had little background in any of the job requirements needed for the type
of work I was looking for. Because this class focuses heavily on revising and updating your
work, as well as making sure others evaluate it for errors, Ive come to develope a better sense of
certainty through this exercise.

When first coming into English 2116 I did not know what to expect. Having taken multiple
communication/English courses I expected this class to be another lecture type course where I sit
and listen while the instructor explains what materials will be covered. I now understand that I
was far off in my assumption. Technical Communication could not be any further from any other
communications course; in fact it is more based off of a flipped course which focuses heavily on
student interaction and having the students research certain topics that they will later be
discussing in class. This has been the case in most of our class assignments, such as proposals,
feasibility reports, and presenting our writing instructions, both of these assignments relied
heavily on the students performance. One instance is when we had to search for any form of a

poorly designed professional document, state the problems found with that document and later
revise it. We measure our strengths through building resumes and writing cover letters for
employment. Through gap analysis and having our peers review our work we discover what it is
we lack and fix our mistakes through revisions. Lastly, some students know more than others, so
because we were able to have those students judge our work we gained good feedback on the
positives and what changes could be made to improve them; this allowed the students to keep a
record of their progress throughout the course.

In the beginning, I found the resume building exercise to be one of the hardest writing
assignment that we were given, and I only say that because by that time I was still unsure in what
it was I wanted to do for the future and I had no references to go back to for support. I had very
little knowledge on how my first resume was to be formatted, not to mention how to distinguish
between a formal resume from an informal one. It did not surprise me that the resume received
the most negative feedback because of how short and unfinished it was. This is where my gap
analysis and peer reviews came in handy. The gap analysis was a significant help. This gave me
the opportunity to point out my weak points which in turn gave me good practice for what it was
I needed improvement on. Whereas the group evaluation gave me more insight on what skills
needed polishing. It was also helpful that I was able to speak with my peers face-to-face when it
came to evaluating each others work. Because class had just started and we were assigned to
give feedback on other students so early in the semester, I did not know much of the students
then so my critique was a little dry. However, during the course of the semester I got to
understand them better by that point and was able to deliver a more detailed critique. This can be
said for the other students who have done the same in evaluating my assignments.

Through the course I have noticed that the feedback I have been given is either more or just as
detailed as the last, which helps me because it shows that I have been improving in my writing
assignments. For example, towards the end of the course each student turned in a feasibility
report to be viewed by our fellow classmates. Because this assignment was similar to one I had
already done I knew what was expected. I received excellent remarks on how my paper clearly
identified the problem it is trying to address and credited me for the solutions I was able to come
up with. The Obtaining Employment assignment was the first in this class and was therefore
bound to have a couple errors. This was very present when I made my resume for reasons I had
already clarified. Granted, my cover latter did not have as many faults as the resume since I
already had some knowledge of what it was I was trying to present. This is what made up for my
work experience and was therefore able to write a fairly adequate letter. This project made it
clear that I still had much to work on when polishing my writing. Next came revising the
professional documents which was not as difficult as the last project because I actually knew
what it was I needed to look for. Rather than focusing on what documents negative point I
learned that it is more efficient to look into the matter with the eyes of the reader. This way I can
imagine that whatever I write I should first look at it through the readers perspective and leave
out anything that might dissuade their interest. Fact of the matter is that I find it unappealing,
chances are that the reader will find just as unappealing or even more.

With the way my writing skills have developed I can confidently say that I have indeed improve
compared to how I started the beginning of the course with my previous writing assignments.
The writing for employment is where I identified my weaknesses and what it is I lack. The

revisions I made to the professional document is where I use what Ive learned to correct those
mistakes. Finally, there was the feasibility report where I applied the methods I gained on how to
write an effective report from my past assignments into practice and my skill level has shown
through the feedback Ive received regarding how I formatted the final version.
As I stated earlier, I was always worried about my work and hence not performing my work
properly. Exactly how does this tie into my theme for my portfolio? I feel as though my fear of
failure outweighs my desire to succeed sometimes and that is what I have been meaning to fix
while in Technical Communications. I will say though, that fear has lessened greatly after
coming to Technical Communications. Of course that does not mean Im going to let this fear
control me, then I would not get ahead anywhere in life. So I will continue to revise my work. I
will continue to accept both the positive and negative feedback of my peers. And I will continue
to apply those critiques to make improvements on future assignments.