This group project was really challenging but there were some benefits of doing this.  I got to know other students more and their style of writing that I might use to help me improve my writing techniques.  I sometimes find group projects difficult because you have to hear what other people think and must argue to support your beliefs which would waste too much time and give incompletes to them.  In this project, I came up with the idea of upgrading LIRR stations, specifically, extending the platforms to avoid overcrowding.  My group members loved it and are in total agreement because they also noticed how overcrowding is an issue with LIRR service lately.  My role for this project was submission manager and I had to make sure that everything was done correctly by my teammates so that it looks presentable for others to read it.  I also helped them describe how the benefits of our solutions would help other regional rail companies and filled out important sections including the audience and subject.  The guys did a really good job gathering evidence about the dangers of crowded stations and proposing other ideas for dealing with crowded stations.  Their ideas included safety rails while platforms are being extended and convenient service hours so commuters could avoid being stuck with a crowd to catch their next train.  The only set of difficulties that we had was trying to reduce the amount of space in our memo because a normal memo according to the coursebook shows a memo as one page long.  I think the next time we are in a group, we need to first realize how many pages are we going to write so that it could help us set a limit to how much evidence do we need for our research.

I believe that over the weekend my group would be able to finish writing the final draft of our memo. In the final, we could possibly improve a few things from the spacing to make the memo shorter and get rid of unrelated details that have nothing to with our primary focus.  My group is doing really well, normally when I am doing group work in an English class, we would be struggling in answering some of the problems the Professor would give out last semester.  But in this class, I am with good group members that always complete their tasks and help each other out.  Anyways, the recommendation part of our first draft supports what we discussed for the summary and the evidence provided. All the parts in the first draft are very clear for readers to understand that we are looking for solutions in dealing with overcrowded LIRR stations. I believe that our “Works Cited” page could be improved a little bit with the spacing because it made our first draft go to two and a half pages long. At the same time, it could reduce the number of pages more by about one-third of a page. Overall, the things that my group could improve on for the final draft are spacing and trying to reduce the number of pages after reading the textbook about memos. I hope that these improvements would give my group a good score from the professor when he reads it.

I am so glad to find out that I did everything correct in my technical description assignment and in the first draft of my group’s memo assignment. We really did a good job, we helped each other come up with improvements in our writings by communicating through WhatsApp. After doing all the work my group did, there are possibly a few things that could be improved before writing the final draft. The recommendation part of our first draft supports what we discussed for the summary and the evidence provided. All the parts in the first draft are very clear for readers to understand that we are looking for solutions in dealing with overcrowded LIRR stations. I believe that our “Works Cited” page could be improved a little bit with the spacing because it made our first draft go to two and a half pages long. Maybe if my group changed the spacing for every section in this draft, it would reduce the number of pages even more by half a page. Also, I think in some of the sections, we could get rid of some unrelated details because we want readers to understand our primary focus more. At the same time, it could reduce the number of pages more by about one-third of a page. Overall, the things that my group could improve on for the final draft are spacing and trying to reduce the number of pages after reading the textbook about memos. I hope that these improvements would give my group a good score from the professor when he reads it.

I am so glad to hear that the Professor is going to give us our grades for our first assignment soon. I hope I did really well because I did everything that he and the instructions stated. Anyways, today’s forum is optional and the prompt is to come up with a real-world scenario where our group memos would be taken into account and how would it apply to ourselves. Our group’s discussion is about fixing overcrowded LIRR platforms and why is this a serious matter to be dealt with as soon as possible. We stated a few proposals to fix this issue in our outline. These proposals include either extending the platform length, putting safety rails so that commuters could be alerted that a train is coming and know when to step back, or upgrading the MYmta mobile app so that it notifies you about train status. If these proposals were included in all train lines within the tristate area, commuters would feel more comfortable traveling by train to their destinations. If these proposals were applied to the subway lines, I will get to campus much faster by an hour difference since there would be fewer crowds pushing and shoving each other in the station and on the subway. I live in southern Brooklyn and usually by subway, it takes me up to two hours to reach the campus and back home due to train traffic and crowds. With the proposals, this would reduce my commute in the subway from a total of four hours a day to two hours a day. That’s a huge difference and plenty of time to be at the campus and at home on time. Additionally, these proposals my group came up with would cause fewer accidents to occur after hearing trouble in a few stations from the news a few weeks ago. This demonstrates how these proposals would benefit in the real world not just to me, but to everyone who rides the train to their destinations.

I have been waiting for my grade for my first technical descriptions for like three weeks now. I have no idea why is it taking so long. I am confident with what I wrote after I corrected the mistakes I made earlier. Moving on with today, I am confident that my group is going to do very well with this assignment because we did what we were assigned to do by the Professor. My role as submission manager is going very well. My group got did everything right and on time as well. As submission manager to this group, I have to figure out how everything we did in the outline today would help us write our first draft on the memo assignment. I believe that if we combine our ideas with actual evidence from our sources, this would help the memo gain a lot of attention from many viewers. Other than saying the benefits of the LIRR platform extension, we could talk about other solutions to our problem such as safety rails and mobile apps that encourage riders when trains are coming and when you have to be careful when it approaches the station. We would include actual evidence that supports this from a news article, a scholarly article, or a website that displays riders’ thoughts on waiting at an LIRR train station. Anyways, the outline was very detailed so that the Professor could understand what are we going to write for our first group memo assignment. My group gathered a lot of specific details on the problems with overcrowded stations and came up with good ideas to deal with them. I filled out the summary section, the date, and the audience sections of this outline. The importance of writing this memo is to encourage solutions to current problems so that it would benefit society in some way.

I am still waiting for what my English Professor thinks about my improved technical description.  I am very confident with what I wrote and I hope that he likes it when I installed the improvements that he wanted.  In the next assignment, we were supposed to write a group memo about one problem with the city’s infrastructure.  The purpose of a memo is to inform people about new information, by persuading them to take production or change a current production procedure.  In today’s discussion, all the group members have to pick up roles for writing the memo outline and first draft.  I decided that I wanted to take part in the role of submission manager.  The purpose of this role is to make sure everything is submitted correctly according to the instructions.  In my group, we already established a way that we could communicate with each other.  We did this by developing a group chat on WhatsApp.  I was hoping that we would come up with a catchy name for this group chat but we barely talked about it.  This is where we would ask each other for ideas and help when we start working on this memo assignment.  In the form today, my group agreed that we would talk about the benefits of extending platforms in many LIRR train stations.  We have not decided how the outline would be structured yet.  Hopefully, by the next class, we would come up with a good outline that pleases the English Professor and come up with an excellent first draft of our memo.

I think my English Professor would like the way how I wrote my final draft of the technical description assignment.  I followed all his suggestions and it came out even better than my first draft.  I am just waiting for his feedback and I hope that I gave him what he wanted.  On the next assignment, we have to be in groups and write a memo on a problem or issue within NYC infrastructure that we think could be improved, or explore something that could be a positive addition to the city.  For my group, I believed that for the memo, we should talk about transit systems because it is being discussed all over the news all week.  I came up with the idea after hearing local news that there was trouble with the LIRR service this week.  I suggested that we should talk about expanding platforms in many LIRR stations because many of its stations only allow from four to six cars of passengers to be dropped off and picked up, even though many LIRR trains have from eight to twelve cars.  I also said that If we could talk about the benefits of expanding platforms such as better service in many lines, this would help us gather more research ideas in writing the memos.  My other group members agreed with me saying that expanding platforms not only will lessen the cramped up spaces for passengers to be waiting on, it would also lessen the dangers such as being too close to the tracks when waiting. They also said that LIRR trains have become crowded due to the MTA service cuts that occurred lately.  I am very confident that we are going to get along well in order to complete this assignment.

I think my English professor liked the way how I wrote my first draft.  He said that I have a strong draft which gave me more confidence in writing the perfect final draft.  I followed all of his suggestions to include in my final draft and I have written it according to the instructions on the course site.  I also tried to include some ideas from the optional assignment I have written earlier today.  I talked about how Waze helps people wherever they need to be on time or worried about a police officer catches you speeding. In Waze, it lets you report nearby police, which can help those be on the lookout who are in a rush to get somewhere by speeding. Waze even shows the speed limit in that specific area in the top right-hand corner and flashes red when you’re going above it to let you know you’re speeding. So, if there is a nearby cop, the flashing red light on the screen will help you quickly realize that you need to slow down, especially in that area. Additionally, since Waze’s strongest feature is its community-user base, it quickly calculates the shortest route to take if there is a lot of reports of any traffic jams or any other obstacles so that you could travel to your destination on time. In Waze’s alternative routes section, drivers can pick out whatever route they want to travel on so they could either be at their destination on time or avoid paying car tolls if they want and etc. But the thing is that Waze always gets instant updates from its users that are near you as you are traveling so the alternative routes might either be the one you do not like and pick or just disappear. This demonstrates how Waze’s strongest features help users to be focused on the road more and help its drivers get to their destination on time and how it helped me write out my final draft.

After doing the first draft of the Technical Description report I felt even more confident with my work than last week. My detailed outline really helped me a lot when it came to creating the essay because I already knew what I was going to say for the most part and I had a lot of time to look over it and see what to include. I do not know what exactly more to add, so I’m just waiting what my partner’s thoughts on my piece to see if there are things that he thinks would be beneficial to incorporate into my assignment. When I read my partner’s first draft, everything looks really good. This skateboard he described looks awesome and l love the idea of a remote-controlled skateboard so that you do not have to use your legs when turning. I liked the fact that he used more than one image in his first draft. He also did a good job describing all the different parts of the electronic skateboard from the batteries to the tiny wheels and the slide-in leg straps. He filled up all the requirements for writing this report and there are some add-ons he could include if he wants to in his final draft. In the report, I noticed that he only included two sections from the same site in your Works Cited page. I believe that visiting other sites that talk about this skateboard more because hearing other viewpoints of what everyone else thinks about this skateboard helps get into some specifics more such as the cost of the skateboard and the batteries from different shopping stores and sites. Secondly, he had to come up with a better title so that the professor and others would think your report stands out more. Overall, my partner did an excellent job writing out the first draft and filling in all the requirements.