Formal Report

Formal Report
To: Dr. Rybas
From: Ryan Sandwisch
Date: 4/14/2015

This formal report of English 310 offers the chance for me to reflect on all of the assignments
and skills Ive completed so far this semester. In this report I will touch on how Ive improved
upon my writing skills in a professional setting. This course has also allowed for the
imporvment of multi-media writing, multiple software, and oral presentations. Finally, by
incorpering on all these elements into my writing repator, Im confident in my ability to produce
any type of poresstional document.

Formal Report

Assessment of Skills:
Formal Report
Abstract:
Throughout the course of the semester I have no proper knowledge of
what went to a professional documents. Setting that fear aside I dived
headfirst into every assignment. After completeing a couple assignments I
was able more confidence and able to complete any assignment in the
class. After learning about all of the techniques and design elements of
professional writing, the rest of the course became manageable. Without all
of the assignments completed in this class, the growth as a professional
writing wouldnt have occurred.

Introduction:
Starting off, the real reason why I took this course was to fulfill a
requirement for my major. However I was really glad I took this class due to
the fact that it opened my perception of what different types of media
writing could be put into. For example, some assignments that put me out
of my comfort zone would be: the Instructions project, Critical
Autobiography, and the Career Related Project. By completing these
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projects, the students had to think outside the box and construct
assignments that untilized alternate forms of media. Also these
assignments had to have a purpose in a workplace setting. This class was
very informational and provided me with the tools to break out of standard
Microsoft Office format of writing.

Core Concepts
Throughout the course of this semester Ive learned three main
concepts that should always be considered when drafting a professional
document.
Audience is one of the most important components in professional writing.
When any document is created with no regur for an audience, it will hard to
find its target demographic. Also documents that require exstensive
knowledge to understand terms with in them, the pool of reader is greatly
reduced to the difficulty of the piece. Finding the middle ground between
readability and a target audience is the effeienct way to create a power
document. Lastly citing sources is very important in avoiding plagerism.
Design is as equally as important as the audience when constructing a
document in multiple forms of media. The standard format of Times New
Rowan and 12 point font dont leave as much of an impact. By playing with

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different fonts, colors and the amount of white space on the page, a
document can be transformed into something that is very pleasing to the
eye. Documents that contain copious amounts of text need elements, visual
or audio, to break them up so readers arent tasked with reading large
amounts of text at one time. Also the typology and kerning play a
subconscious role in what documents we find pleasing to the eye. Serif
fonts are good for large groups of text; san serif fonts are very useful for
titles. However these fonts do have limitations, by adding to many creative
elements could be distracted. Moreover, different design choices can
convey a message or certain mood for the whole document. The design of a
document will play major role in weather is popular or not, so it is up to the
designer construct visually pleasing products
Deviation shouldnt be feared but embraced. Throughout my entire
educational career thus far, Ive always use created everything either on
Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, or Excel. Now, I want to put all of my
documents into other forms of media, be it though a webpage, blog or via a
visual rhetoric. Also these types of documents will help individuals stand
out to potential employer.

Main Projects Within Course

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With English 301 numerous types of projects that challenged they way
I traditionally created documents. A Resume, a Critical Autobiography,
Technical Definition, Instructions Project, Visual Rhetoric, Proposal,
Collaborative Project, a Career Related Project, Software Presentation, and
Class Facilitations would be all of items completed this semester.
The Resume was a fairly easy project the complete most because I all
ready had a fairly good resume constructed before the course. The only
major points I had to play with would be the design of my resume. Also
bullet points shouldnt be over used in a resume because they create to
much white space on the resume. Finally positioning oneself is highly
important to put your best foot forward.
The Instructions project allowed the freedom to pursue topics that
pertain to ones career. This was the project where I started to put my
writing into different forms of media. I had many options to choose from,
but I decided to make a poster in Publisher.
The Visual Rhetoric project was by far my favorite one this semester.
Proper to this course I had no idea that agruments could be expressed
through images and a caption. It was also interesting to see how people
interpreted the same image. Finally I loved the creative aspset of this
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project, with relatively no borders and the freedom to pursue as topic as a

nice chance from all my other courses.
Other useful pieces of professional writing would be memos and
proposals. Dr. Rybas did an excellent job at introducing these papers to us
and how they are written. Whether they are formal or informal memos and
proposals play a crucial role in how information is relied in the professional
world.
Finally the Class Facilitations and Software demos were an interesting
dynamic to this course that added to the overall experience. If I was asked
by anyone to talk this class I would recommend it based on the fact they we
did these presentations throughout the course. Nevertheless, the class
facilataion I prepared with my partner was over plagerism in a business and
multile media setting. And the software demo was a tutorial over how to
manipulate photos in photoshop. I really enjoyed the software demos if I
had to be honest. They were a nice addition to the class and allowed me to
step out the box and try new software programs.
So opsicales that I faced in this class would be my ability to finish
projects at the last second and my hectic schedule. All throughout and so
far into college I have been no stranger to procrastion. One tactic I wish I
implemented in this course would be to manage my time more effiecently.
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After that I wouldve been able to work on my projects more, and add more
creative elements or word variety. However Im very happy with the work
that Ive completed in this course over the semester with my jam-packed
schedule.

Projects in Depth
The Critical Autobiography like I stated above really pushed me
outside of my comfort zone. I am a very stairght forward type of writer in
the sense that I have a topic to write about I will research it a write in. The
project was different because I had to take what Ive acheieved in my entire
life and weave a story. With freedom of design and a focus on ones life
achievements, this project became very personal. For me this project was
very hard to wrap my head around, so with some directions from the
professor the autobiography basically wrote itself. After finding what to put
into the paper the rest of it was very easy to write. However I do wish I
wouldve incoprated more creative elements in to the document.
The insrtuctions project was also a project that I strugged with quite a
bit. I knew what I wanted to write about, but I had great difficultly trying to
find what type of media format to put it in. With a large option pool the
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choice was actually difficult due to the fact that the choice of the wrong
media would bring the project down. After consulting Rybas I narrowed
down my choices and created a great poster.
Finally the career related project was the highlight of this course. As a
science major I often fell out of place in an English class, but I was very
excited to write about my future career. Also this project felt like the least
amount of work because I enjoyed working on it so much. Every thing that
we had learned in this course was incorporated in this project as well.
Manipulating all of the creative elements was the best part in my opinion.
My career related project was a webpage; which as a giant step outside the
box, and Im glad to the experience to create a webpage that many
individuals will one day see.

Conculsion:
Upon review the past semester, Im sad that that this class has been
completed. This was one of the only class were I was able to be creative
with all of the writing assignments. I also greatful for all of the skills and
techniques Ive learned in this class. Breaking away from old habits is often
hard, but with a gentle push many accomplishments followed. Finally one
last thing that Ive learned in this class is that it is ok to ask for help when
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Im struggling. Whether it is asking help for a professor or from classmates

anyone can provide you with helpful advice.