Building a LinkedIn Profile
Establishing a LinkedIn profile was an important step for reflecting on experiences and creating an organized online resume. The process of creating a LinkedIn profile was a great opportunity to review my volunteer and work experiences as well as the honours and awards. While creating the profile, I thought about how each experience have helped me learn new skills and knowledge. Notably, I aimed to write with a specific audience in mind – scientists in my network. To begin creating the profile, a list of all my research and volunteer positions was generated and organized in reverse chronological order. Then I proceeded to brainstorm the responsibilities and skills acquired for each experience. Subsequently, I consolidated my list of experiences through ensuring the use of accomplishment statements for each position mentioned. This included ensuring that both an action and the resulting impact of the action was stated for each statement. Soft skills were also highlighted through describing collaborations and projects I was involved in for each position. Moreover, I listed relevant honours and awards received and made an organized list of projects and courses relevant to my field. Recognizing the potential that readers may not be familiar with the award listed, a brief award criteria description for each award was included. Collectively, while creating a LinkedIn profile, I strived to be as specific and organized as possible to highlight to myself as the ideal candidate for employers. Writing for a specific reader in mind was a crucial for this assignment.
Learning about LinkedIn
Creating the LinkedIn profile was an important exercise in learning how to establish an online professional network. The ‘Best Practices on LinkedIn’ memo was an especially good exercise to begin learning about LinkedIn and thinking about ways to fully leverage the advantages of the online networking platform. Specifically, I learned about the importance of showcasing examples of my work such as past research projects. In addition, I discovered the impact of regularly updating status and posting on LinkedIn to stay active within my network. This motivated me to develop a plan to start thinking about posting about articles, news and other updates related to life sciences research. Perhaps, the greatest challenge to start creating a professional network on LinkedIn has been writing an effective and attractive introductory summary for my profile. It was difficult to brainstorm opening sentences that would uniquely draw the attention of readers. In the end, I began by mentioning my top interests in the life sciences. I look forward to connecting with more colleagues while refining and updating details of my profile,
Writing the Report Proposal and Composing a Report Outline
Preparing the formal report proposal was comparatively more challenging than creating a LinkedIn profile. Brainstorming a feasible topic connected to a workplace, the community, or the classroom was challenging. Since I am currently away on a work term, it immediately eliminated ideas for investigations on UBC campus. Thus, assessing my current work situation and recognizing the timeframe for completing the report, I elected to conduct a study connected to the organization I volunteer with, the Greater Vancouver Regional Science Fair. After narrowing down the topic to “Enhancing Participation of Educators in the Greater Vancouver Regional Science Fair Committee”, it was easy to identify a problem and propose a study to be conducted. Thus, writing the report proposal was relatively straight forward. In addition, the formal report outline was important in organizing the study proposed. By outlining the items that will be covered in the report, I was able to determine the tasks that need to be done ahead of drafting a report. Regardless of whether the outline was assigned, I would have proceeded to create an outline to have an organized schedule and checklist for the project. I greatly anticipate the responses from educators for this investigation.
Potential Challenges of the Formal Report
In progressing through the timeline established for the report, I am confident in producing a professional report of my casual study. The outline, background research and interviews for the report are ahead of schedule. However, I am concerned about the data collection aspect of the assignment. Specifically, I am most nervous about response rates of my survey as that is a huge limiting factor of my investigation. To navigate through this obstacle, surveys have been distributed to a wider audience, including both locally in the Lower Mainland, across BC and other provinces. Surveys for both educators and science fair alumni allow for recommendations to be drawn from different perspectives of the problem being investigated. By beginning data collection early, I hope to maximize response rates and be able to draw meaningful conclusions from the study to enhance educator participation on the science fair committee.
Peer Reviewing Report Proposal
The peer review process continues to be an avenue by which I consciously incorporate reviewing and editing to my writing routine. Peer reviewing my partner’s report proposal was a good glimpse into how ideas for a proposed study could be conveyed in a variety of ways. Indeed, my partner’s writing style for the report proposal was fairly different than my own. Nonetheless, I strived to create a concise and organized peer review, to ensure my partner received an informative feedback of their work. While writing the peer review, I was learning to replace imperative verbs with ‘ing’ verbs. This continues to be an area in which I aim to improve by end of term. In addition, I was cognizant of eliminating pronouns while writing. In addition, it was a refreshing to be able to create a peer review template for the review of our colleague’s LinkedIn profile. I enjoyed designing the template for peer review as it helped me determine the necessities of a LinkedIn profile. It served as a checklist for how to create a complete LinkedIn profile and allowed for assessment of how my writing team members have approached the assignment. I was not surprised to find out that are indeed multiple ways to write a good summary for a LinkedIn profile. By reviewing the LinkedIn profiles of all my team members, I recognized the unique ways in which work or volunteer experiences can be presented to a specific audience. Peer reviewing solidified that writing with a specific audience in mind is key.
Overall Impression of the Peer Review Process
Throughout unit two, I enjoyed reviewing my writing team’s work on the writing forum. I am surprised by the effectiveness and benefits of peer reviewing. I am certainly noticing changes in my colleagues’ writing throughout the term. Overall, I am learning a tremendous amount from my colleagues’ work in regard to diction and organization of ideas. In addition, through reading others’ work, I recognize that my own writing could potentially be more concise. There are several areas of technical writing that I am continuously trying to improve, and I am open to more suggestions in future peer reviews.
Revised Report Proposal can be found here: 301 Janice Pang_ Formal Report Proposal_revised
Peer review of Report Proposal can be found here.