Autobiographical Essay

Writing Assignment #1: Autobiographical Essay
Writing assignment #1 will be an essay in which you describe an event or person you have encountered in your past work experiences or experiences in your community. This essay is informed in part by an article from Mark Gellis, “Autobiographical Writing in the Technical Writing Class.” That article is in the ereserves section of this class.
A Brief Introduction to the Strategies for this Essay:
In his essay, “Autobiographical Writing in the Technical Writing Class,” Gillis writes that “An essay…is written not only to explain, but often to record and reveal the author’s personal interaction with the subject” (p. 326). You will accomplish these steps in your essay. You will record and reveal your interaction with the topic about which you are writing.
Gellis notes on page 327 that writing a story or narrative of one’s past can help one’s professional growth. A goal of this essay is to help you understand your goals in pursuing the degree you are pursuing at UMUC by describing and analyzing a work or community experience you have had in the past. Examples of previous students who have written this type of analysis are given below.
Overall, if you read the following article by Gellis in our ereserves section of the class, you will have a good understanding of how to approach this assignment. The article is “Autobiographical Writing in the Technical Writing Course.”
Organization:
In this essay, you will have the following:
• an introductory paragraph with a thesis statement
• body paragraphs that support the thesis statement
• a concluding paragraph
In addition, the paper should be formatted according to APA style in accordance with the video tutorial you observed in class, How to format your paper according to APA style.
• Use one-inch margins.
• Double space.
• Use size 12 Times New Roman font.
• Include a running head.
• Include page numbers.
• Include a title page.
• An abstract is not required.
Note that Gellis cautions on pages 329-330 that students have the tendency to “go broad but not deep” in this type of essay. With this caution in mind, please analyze your topic with a sense of depth, not covering too many years or too many incidents. Covering too many years or incidents can result in a fairly shallow or broad coverage of your topic.
Some possible topics on the essay include the following:
• A situation you encountered at work or in your community that involved a failure
• A situation you encountered at work or in your community that involved an important victory
• A person (a supervisor or co-worker) who has contributed to your growth as a professional
• A person or event that represented a negative example of professionalism
• Your first day or week on a particular job and what you learned from that first day or week
• A situation in which you had to make an ethical choice at work or in your community
Please observe the following examples from Gellis’s article:
• Ellen (328-329) described the work environment at her first job, and she expounds on what she learned from having been exposed to this work environment.
• Steve (page 329) elaborated on how his co-op job changed his views of professionalism.
• Dave (page 330) wrote about how his mentor influenced him during his work experience.
• Mike (page 330) wrote about the complexities concerning union employees and management during a company strike and what he learned from the experience.
• Frank (page 331) wrote about a nonwork experience in Haiti, incorporating dialogue into his description
• Richard (page 331) noted his experience in diagnosing a problem related to radiator cores at his job. The methods he went through in testing the testing process are quite humorous.
Also note Gellis’s observation on page 332:
While the average 18-year-old has had a wealth of experiences, and has the intelligence to explore and comment on those experiences, juniors and seniors have usually had an additional 2 or 3 years to mature, and are usually capable of more sophisticated judgments.
The student body at UMUC is typically represents the older student that Gellis describes here. For this reason, it is hoped that the essay provides you, as a UMUC student, the opportunity to make sophisticated judgments and thorough analyses of a previous work or community experience.
Point of View:
For writing assignment #1, you will write in first-person point of view for much of your analysis. In other words, you will feel free to use “I” and “we” in describing your work experience. While you may have been discouraged from using first-person point of view in previous classes, please note that this essay is one that lends itself to first-person point of view.
However, you should not write in second-person point of view. In other words, you will not write “to the reader” by using the pronoun “you” in referring to the reader.
Length and Due Date
Length: 800-1200 words.
Due Date: to be determined by the instructor