Farha Zaman

Crystal Rodwell

Writing for Engineers

April 30th, 2019

Reflection of Technical Description

A technical description is a broken down written and visual representation of an object, a piece that breaks down every part, every subpart, and every piece even smaller. It describes the subject’s parts’ shape, size, color, pattern, design, material, and purpose. Engineers have to do this often, where they must communicate all of these things to an audience who may not understand the technical language in the engineering field. It is very difficult to create this kind of document when I’ve never seen one before.

Firstly, the purpose of my paper was to create a technical description of the original Magna Doodle, in which i will illustrate how this product works and what its components are in easy to understand language for those who may not understand technical terms. This is supposed to help me acknowledge others range of linguistic differences, which i can use as a resource to develop a rhetorical sensibility. In the first draft of my technical description, when i first wrote everything down, it was hard for me to turn what i was researching into a language that more people could connect with and understand.  However, after much revision and re-reading, I was able to turn my technical descriptions into a technical description.

I was required to create a stance in my writing, a thesis, which has always been easy for me. However, I wasn’t sure what a thesis looked like in a technical description, where im really just discussing a certain product, in which case i had to figure out, what is my thesis. After much time in thought, i realized that my thesis is supposed to be about my argument, and in this case, that is that Magna Doodles are an amazing toy and worthy investment. The thesis is easily identifiable, clear and straight to the point, although it may not be the most sophisticated of thesis’s.

The transition and organization of the technical description was basically just a list of the parts of the Magna Doodle. In each part, i discussed the subparts, but other than that, it was in no clear order. Each part of the Magna doodle had its own paragraph and that was very clear in the topic sentences throughout the entire paper. The transitions from paragraph to paragraph were basic and didn’t demonstrate much professionalism nor sophistication, which really held me back from getting a good grade or impressing my reader in this case. I failed to include a table of contents, which is really a shame considering that is literally one of the easier parts of the essay. I’m really disappointed in myself for forgetting this simple part which is really helpful in helping a reader find a specific part of a text and jump to it. I don’t even have subheadings which introduce those new parts of the technical description. Overall, this part seems rushed, and over-looked in comparison to the rest of the paper, especially considering these are easy and simple steps in ensuring a better experience for a reader who may want to read my technical description.

The logical aspect of this assignment was quite simple, because there wasn’t a big emphasis on the argument I was making, so long as I completed the technical description. I say that Magna Doodles are a worthy toy to have and I back it all up by describing what it is, what people say about it, where it comes from and how far it has gotten us. I am able to show that the toy has come a long way and I successfully stay on topic, which of course is easy considering that all I’m talking about is the Magna Doodle.

Like the Lab report analysis, the Technical Description left me no choice but to learn how to conduct online research and find credited online databases, articles and websites for the information I would use to create my technical description. That really helps me as a writer as I can use that in my future writing career and for any other classes, I may take in my future where I may need to conduct my own research.

As difficult as the technical description may have been, it was really fun to research and learn about the Magna Doodle. It was very interesting to learn the process of hunting down resources online, as well as learning to properly cite them. I have made mistakes like forgetting certain components of my technical description, but at least I learned to double check my work before handing it in. The technical description has also taught me how to turn future works i may receive and turn it into something the ordinary person could understand.