Youssoupha GUEYE
ENGL 21007
Professor Zlontnick
Due Date: Sunday, December 8, 2025
Self Assessment Essay:
This semester has been a long long journey of challenges and new skills learned down the road. We have done four major assignments which are the job packet, the user manual, the research essay, and the digital portfolio. Each of these assignments leave me with a more understanding of rhetorical writing. I will go over each of them listing the challenges and the skills learned from it.
The job packet, during this project, I was able to search and apply for a job. Thus, there were a lot of steps we went through which were, creating a resume and cover letter, writing a reference request email, and finally how to manoeuvre a company website which will help you toward applying for a job for that specific company. Each one of these steps reinforce me in terms of writing in a professional level. For instance, going through a company website will help you so much when writing your cover letter, because you would know their expectations which you could use in order to attract the manager. Overall, this project was very interesting and will guide you after graduating from college.
The second project, which was the product documentation, another major assignment, left me with a deep understanding of how communication could be a major issue if not done right. During this phase, we created a user manual, where we were able to guide the audience in order to use the product. It was a very challenging project because guiding someone to set a product is not easy. However, with the help of the professor and the video we watched, I was able to set my first ever user manual. This project will help us in the future as an engineer on how to be very mindful of guiding and not just building, because if the guide is not clear, the product would become useless.
The third project, which was the research essay, was a very thoughtful assignment. During this project, I was able to improve my research skill by going over the library and investigating through these sources. For instance, the annotated bibliography helps me so much to read deep into these sources and understand exactly what the author is explaining over an article. Using the APA style was also a skill that I learned in order to write my reference page. It was a very interesting project in terms of researching and improving my critical thinking. However, I was facing a lot of challenges over this project due to its enormous research and writing.
Finally the last project, which is the digital portfolio, takes us into the world of digital. We are able to create our own site where we will expose our journey along this semester. This is such an interesting project which we could use after graduating to expose our product as an engineer and label in a way where the audience will find everything they are asked for. Well, it is a bit challenging due to the fact it is my first time creating a site. Thus, I do not have a lot of skill on editing and stuff, however with the help of the teacher and going over youtube videos, I will be able to manage.
Overall, this class was such a very intuitive class, which reinforced how to think critically. It also improves my writing and be more mindful of my audiences. I was also able to improve my research skill and learn the APA style for reference pages.