Throughout the semester I have seen improvement in the overall quality of my

work. Previously I would use Grammarly to proofread most of my work for me.
While I still use the tool, now I consider the lessons taught in our classroom. My
work is more concise and follows principles of plain language. Additionally, while I
still need to work on my comma splices, I am less likely to make these errors.
These improvements, while seemingly small, mean a lot to me as I’ve struggled
with them into my adult life.

How these improvements relate to my personal goals at the beginning of the

semester is hard for me to say. I genuinely do not recall what goals I set for
myself, but I have seen improvement in my overall design and prose. I know that I
have struggled with many basic principles of writing in the past, especially those
pertaining to the use of commas and semi-colons. Those are goals I would have set
for myself as I entered the course.

The areas where I saw the most improvement and felt proudest of were the White
Paper and Correspondence assignments. The White Paper assignment and the
associated teaching materials reminded me of principles of design I had forgotten,
and in some cases had not known before. Rules pertaining to the formatting of text,
headings, presentation styles were all new to me. With peer-review and in-class
assistance I felt like I learned a great deal. I felt assignment itself demonstrated
understanding of the material even before I received my grade on the assignment.
After grading, any reservations I had lessened when going over the feedback on the
assignment. The Correspondence assignment fostered similar feelings to those I
had with the White Paper. Working on the assignment had me using the teaching
materials as well as researching real-world examples to fulfill the project goals. The
internal email was the easier of the two, but formatting rules still needed to be
applied. The direct request letter was the more challenging of the two, but there
was plenty of material to guide me. Both assignments made me put in more
forethought as I worked on them and I will do my best to see it continues moving
forward. Overall, I feel this class has provided many tools that can help me not only
provided clearer language, but also be aware of what I’m saying. The last point was
especially true for the White Paper and Visualization assignments. Both
assignments had a specific component where it was important to analyze ethical
considerations for marginalized groups. The tools I acquired in this class helped
augment what was already there and merged with my existing notions on ethical
use of data and language.