Hello everyone!

I am excited to announce that I have officially completed my technical writing course! What a journey this has been, and for that I am grateful. As you all know from previous blogs that this was my first ever semester of University and wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. It has been noted that English is definitely not one of my favourite subjects, but I must say I really enjoyed this Technical Writings course taught by Dr. Paterson. It’s funny to me, as now in my mid 20’s I just figured out that not all English courses are horrible- woohoo! I wasn’t a fan of high school English, because I feel like you got marked on your creativity with story writing, and I do not have much creativity in me when writing- so I never felt like it was for me. With taking Technical Writing, it helped to change my mindset that not all English courses are brutal – and some can actually be very enhancing to your professional career.

Looking back on this whole semester, I have seen quite a change in my writing (both in the course AND in my professional world!) I believe that my strengths coming into this course were being able to peer edit and provide constructive criticism as well time management. My biggest weakness coming into this course was the fact that I had no previous university experience prior to this, so I was very nervous and doubtful of my skills and wondered how I would compare to all my classmates. Now that I have completed all units, I can confirm that I wasn’t as great at peer reviewing as I thought I was, and I didn’t stick out like a sore thumb when in contrast with all my peers!

I trust that throughout this term my learning process was strengthened by the amount of time and effort I dedicated to completing all assignments. When knowing an assignment was due, I would make sure that I read and understood all the readings (not going to lie, some classes in the past at college I would just skim through the readings) and actually be aware of the learning objectives. With being this dedicated to a course, it helped to strengthen not only my learning process, but my self-confidence and techniques of learning! I believe that a weakness of mine throughout the course was worrying that I didn’t complete certain assignments to the best of my ability – sometimes I felt like I was lacking that ‘special touch’. This could play on my low self-confidence as a first term university student. By about unit three I felt much more confident in my writings, as well as communicating and providing feedback to my peers!

With having the ENGL 301 Technical Writing course under my belt, I believe this will greatly enhance my professionalism in the world of my dental career. I now have confidence in memos, application letters and resumes, social networking, formal reports, peer reviews and web folios! This course has helped me to strengthen many skills including time-management, technicalities of writing different documents, peer reviewing and online communication- which is all very beneficial to me as I begin to make advancements in my career. I believe that with completing this course it has given me the abilities to communicate and collaborate on more of a professional level. I am excited to be able to use my new-found strengths and skills in technical writing as I move forward in my career as a dental hygienist!

I would like to thank my Pencil Pack team, as well as Dr. Paterson for getting me out of my comfort zone in an English course and pushing me to do my best!

Thanks for reading and all the best,

Meagan Rosenberg

Hello fellow peers! I have officially created and completed my very own web folio! This project was very fun to organize and complete. When reading over this lesson back in September, I remember thinking ‘that sounds like a lot of work, what is the point of even having a web folio?’ Well let me tell you, I see this is a VERY important and unique way to let the audience chosen to view who you are- not only in a professional way, but personal way because you get to add your own touches. I am very pleased that my attitude changed about the web folio since starting the course, because mine looks great and I am very excited to be able to use it for my professional endeavours.

Before diving right into the creation of my web folio, I acted diligently and read through the Technical Communications textbook chapter on the process of creating a web folio. The most pertinent information taken from the text, was that the web page design for a web folio is just as important as the actual content! With this in mind, I knew I wanted to go with a sleek, simple design that was easy for a member of my audience to navigate and appreciate. I didn’t have to think too hard about what platform I was going to use to host my web folio- it was a very easy decision to pick the UBC blogs. I figured I haven’t used many other platforms and I am now familiar with UBC blogs and know blog support is always on top of things If I were to need any help.

It was valued how our instructor, Dr. Erika Paterson had laid out the expectations of this assignment in an easy manner – but also gave us ample opportunity to make it unique with our own design and additives if we so choose. As some of you are aware, I am always ‘on top’ of things and my time management skills are top notch (if I may say so myself)- so I had started the process of creating my web folio earlier than the start of unit four. I believe this helped as I have been able to self-edit over the weeks and revise certain aspects that didn’t quite seem right in my mind.

Filling in and creating all the expectations for our web folio assignment throughout the weeks was rewarding. I really valued the ‘best works’ page as it was fun to see the different assignments I had completed over the term and how far I have come writing wise. I feel this is a very essential part of the web folio as it gives my audience more understanding of how I can conquer different projects – not just clean teeth! The biggest challenge for creating the web folio for myself would have to be the formatting; it definitely had me frustrated a few times over the process of creation, but I was able to keep my calm (for the most part haha) and carry on getting it to all come together!

I must say I am very thankful to be provided with the opportunity to make myself a web folio. It was a different experience than what we have been doing throughout the term in ENGL 301 and I really enjoyed the ‘creative’ part of this. I am looking forward to sharing this in the future so my audience can see that I am ‘hip’ and have my own web folio!

Thanks for reading,

Meagan Rosenberg

During unit three of ENGL 301 Technical Writing, we were engaged in drafting our formal reports and reviewing one of our peers formal report. We also had the opportunity to look through job postings to begin the process of drafting our application package. Below is my reflection after completion of unit three.

Hiya fellow peers!

I have just finished up unit 3 of our technical writing course and I must say- it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be! I remember reading through all the course information, including the schedule and lessons in the first week of the semester and feeling VERY overwhelmed. Especially with this thing called a ‘formal report’. In all honesty, I had no idea what a ‘formal report’ was before starting this course but now I can add it to my list of writing capacities and knowledge! I am super proud of myself for all the time and effort I have spent drafting my formal report. It was definitely a long process, but well worth it as I have learnt the individual steps needed for the creation of a report.

I’ll start at the beginning, with my endeavour into the world of research! After getting my approval from Dr. Paterson to begin my research, I felt SO excited- which I never thought in a million years something like this would excite me, ha! I printed off my surveys right away and arranged some interviews with the people I had in mind, and everything went very smoothly! I think it was a big help that the participants for the surveys and interviews were my work colleagues- who are all aware that I am continuing my education, and I always have had their best interest in mind when it comes to their health and safety. It took me about a week and half to collect all my primary data, as the dental office I work at has many employees, some who are just there once a week for a short shift – so we don’t always run into each other. I am glad that all the participants were so open to helping me out and participating in my survey and/or interviews – I am forever grateful for my fellow employees!

After all the data that was collected, I felt the daunting task of analyzing and organizing it creep in to my head. I had no idea where to start, or how to even create a graph on Microsoft Word. So, I continued my readings that Dr. Paterson had set out in hopes of learning how to analyze and put the data together and along with a couple YouTube videos on how to create a graph – I got it done! It was time consuming, but the result of seeing all the data analyzed motivated me to keep plugging away at finishing the rest of my report. The analytics of any report I feel, is the most important aspect and I wanted to take my time and do it right!

Completing all aspects of the formal report draft went exceptionally well. As mentioned a few times above, it was fairly time consuming drafting the formal report. It wasn’t as difficult as I expected it to be because I had all the information that I needed, and I just had to write it out! I was surprised on how well everything flowed together as I was writing- it just seemed to make sense. I figured it was because there are many pertinent steps before starting to write it out, that the writing of the draft is actually the easiest part of it all!

The peer review aspect for this unit was very engaging for me. I thought it was really neat that I got to review my peer Jenny Z. formal report as I was the one to review her proposal! It was definitely cool to see all her hard work she has put forth into her formal report. The process of the peer review was like the others I have completed previously, but this one took a bit longer as I wanted to make sure I had given her a very thorough review as this is one of the biggest assignments we had to complete. While going through the different sections of Jenny’s report and making suggestions- I was also going back to mine afterward and self-editing again. This peer review seemed to help push my critical thinking skills forward and be very diligent with the advice I was offering!

The experience and skills I have gained from researching, organizing and writing my formal report is substantial. I would have never thought that I would be able succeed as well as I have with my formal report project. Sure, I have learned the ‘technical’ aspects and steps of drafting a report, but I have also learned that a formal report has MANY steps, and that attention to detail is needed for every aspect of writing one. I have learned that patience is key, and if you make good progress every week the outcome of it all will be worth it. I am grateful for my new-found knowledge and confidence on formal reports and am excited to add it to list of works!

Thanks for reading,

Meagan Rosenberg

Enclosure: 301 99A Meagan Rosenberg Formal Report Proposal

Unit two of ENGL 301 Technical Writing included writing of our formal report proposal, creating a LinkedIn profile and writing our report outline. We also had the chance to review a peers proposal and LinkedIn profile, all while practicing our memo techniques. Please see below for my reflections after finishing unit two.

Hello fellow peers! I hope everyone’s semester is off to a great start. I cannot believe we are already half way through it- this makes me both excited, and nervous as Christmas is fast approaching! I am very happy to report that this English course is going a lot better than I expected it to, I guess it helps that I am self-disciplined so staying on top of things are no problem. For unit two I got to polish my skills with memorandums, which is now an easy concept for me! I also completed my report proposal and outline, questions for my survey and interviews for data collection for my report, and my very own LinkedIn profile. During unit two I was able to peer review two different colleagues works including a report proposal and a LinkedIn profile page.

I must say before starting the course the one thing I was really looking forward to was creating my own LinkedIn page. I am not a social media person at all, so in some ways it was a bit of a challenge for me to navigate through their platform – but I am happy with the end result! LinkedIn was very helpful as it had pop ups and reminders for me to complete my page, and to add things to this section, etc. so it was nice to have the help from their end on what I all needed to add. The thought of having a professional social media network does make me feel a bit anxious when I think about it. I just don’t care for people I don’t know to see all my qualifications, etc. but I do understand how and why networking is becoming a real thing in this day and age and I’m hoping I will feel a bit more at ease when I get more comfortable using it!

When brainstorming an idea for my formal report, I felt defeated. I was very unsure of what topic I would choose. It took me a good couple of days pondering over the ideas in my head and bouncing ideas back and forth with my mom! I knew for sure I wanted to do something in the realm of my career at the dental office, so I went over many options. It almost seemed like a light bulb went off in my head when I said the title out loud ‘How to decrease needlestick injuries at Arden Park Dental’. After this, it was apparent that this was the right topic for me to report on because so many ideas came forth of what I should include. The proposal and outline for my report were fairly easy to complete as the topic I chose was something that I am familiar with. It did take a bit of time to do the readings for this section, as expected but they helped me to succeed in completing an outline and proposal. After creating the survey questionnaire and interview questions for my data collection, it felt good as I now had everything I needed to do my memorandum for my progress report. I am definitely the type to stay on top of all tasks and it was great to do the progress report memo to see a layout of my writing schedule. I feel like this visual helped me a lot to see where I must manage my tasks and time. With saying this, I am pleased with the progress I have made this far with my report and can see how it will all come together! I am actually excited to hand out my surveys and conduct my interviews, as I know this is going to be very beneficial for my place of work.

The peer review process for unit two was a much easier process, since we had some practice in unit one already. I really enjoyed getting to read over my teammate Jenny Zhang’s report proposal for the first peer review, as it was neat to see what someone else chose for their topic! (at this point I was kind of sick of reading over my own proposal, so it was a nice change!) I feel like my peer review was positive and had a few points of constructive edits to help my team mate out – these points included a few grammar and punctuation corrections, as well as adding in-text citations. For the second peer review I completed for unit two was for the LinkedIn profile for my teammate Janice Pang. This was a cool and unique task as it was different as I had to create my own form and template to review it in the first place. I thought it was an interesting approach because it felt like the actual peer review process of Janice’s LinkedIn page was easier for me to complete as I knew the criteria I was evaluating. With doing the peer reviews for unit two I learnt that everyone has different writing styles, and everyone’s writing needs reviewing! After reading through my team’s forum, I believe it has helped me to become a better writer. It’s very helpful to have my teammates and seeing how each of them bring something different to the table with their writing styles and experiences. I graciously accept any feedback they have given me with the peer reviews, as I understand how some of my writings may need revision. I don’t necessarily feel surprised by any of the works I have read from my team mates, as mentioned before it’s nice to have four different writing styles on our team! I think now that I have a couple of peer reviews under my belt it has helped me better to self edit and revise my work before posting, which is great as I feel like it has strengthened my writing skills.

All in all unit two has been very informative for me as a professional. I enjoyed all aspects of this unit and am glad that I have gained more experience with strengthening my skills. Now that we’re half way through the course I can’t wait to see how much my writing has improved by the time we’re finished. I am looking forward to what else is to come with this course!

Thanks for reading,

Meagan Rosenberg

Here is a link to my colleague’s review of my report proposal:

https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-99a-2019wa/2019/10/11/peer-review-of-formal-report-proposal-proposal-for-decreasing-needlestick-injuries-at-arden-park-dental/

This is my revised report proposal:

301 99A Meagan Rosenberg Formal Report Proposal

Unit one of ENGL 301 is an introduction to the course, textbook and classmates. We had the opportunity to write an application letter to be accepted into a writing team, practiced using memos, created a document with three different definitions and had the chance to do our first peer review. Below is my reflection blog after finishing up unit one.

Hello ENGL peers! Now that I have (almost) successfully completed the first unit of Technical Writing, I can pat myself on the back! As mentioned in my home page – I’m not the biggest fan of writing or English courses in general. So, for me to complete the first unit of this course and it being in my first semester of university I feel pretty darn proud of myself. Throughout the first unit we had to set up our blog and add a biography and home page to introduce ourselves and describe in our own terms what we’ll be learning and taking away from this course. We also got to practice writing an application letter to find teammates for our writing group for the semester. I honestly didn’t know there was a difference between a cover letter and application letter before doing this, so that was new, and I learnt the difference between the two! From there I had to e-mail prospective teammates, (of course using a professional tone) and indicate why their credentials interested me to reach out to ask them to join my team. I believe this was one of the biggest challenges for me in unit one as it was hard to organize a people together when everyone is on different time zones! I had faith throughout that week that everything would work out for me to be on a team, and it did! I have a wonderful writing team named “The Pencil Pack” that I am so happy to be a part of, they are all so supportive and helpful with my writing. In the third week of unit one we had to do a small assignment on definition writing. Our Professor, Erika let us pick something of interest to us in our field to do this assignment on and I think this made me kind of enjoy writing (for once!) Once we had our definitions assignment posted on our team forum my writing team partnered up and peer-reviewed each other’s work. I will go into more detail in the next paragraphs about what I have learnt from the definitions and peer-review aspect of that assignment.

As I mentioned above, writing the definitions assignment was a good experience for me. I really enjoyed how Erika let us pick something that was related to our field – because that makes it so much easier to write about! I am questioning now; do I just have a negative judgement on writing and English courses because I never could write about something that really interested me!? I guess I’ll know after I complete this course. I chose the term ‘dental radiographs’ or x-rays known to most because I figured everyone has probably had some taken at some point in their life. It was cool for me to be able to write out different definitions of this because when I am at work, I always say the same thing to my patients when they ask what a radiograph is– and honestly it gets quite boring and repetitive. From doing this assignment on that term, I think I will now be able to give my patients a more ‘in- depth’ definition or at least different wording! I believe my style of writing for this assignment was pretty straight to the point because I learnt with definitions you shouldn’t add anything that isn’t related to the term.

With having to complete my partners peer review next, I was nervous. Knowing that everyone in my team has had a few years of university under their belt and I had none made me feel anxious about peer-reviewing their work. I took a chance to read over my partners work a few times before I even looked at what was expected for the peer review portion. Once I grasped the idea of what term she was defining it became easier for me to relax and peer review her work as a classmate. At first, I picked up on the spelling and grammar errors that I was aware of, and then continued to look through the document to see if there was anything I didn’t quite understand or words that I was unfamiliar with. Having the Technical Communication textbook helped me to lay out and construct my peer review to my team mate.

Once my team mate had posted her peer review on my assignment, I was excited to see what she thought of it! I was happy to receive any constructive criticism she had for me because I knew she has a great background that could help me with my writing. The first thing my peer had proposed that I change was my introduction; by stating what role I had at the dental office and why I am the one who must explain the use of my term to my patients. I thought this was a really good idea as I knew my team was aware of my profession, but not the fact that I was the one who took the radiographs. The next suggestion by my peer was to change or elaborate on a couple of the words I used (periodontium and periodontal) as she mentioned that being a non-technical audience member, she did not have any idea what they meant, and it was a bit confusing. After reading over her peer review, I happily went back and edited my document with her recommendations. I also added my in-cite references as well, because as mentioned on the chat by another team member this is what we were supposed to do!

With doing the definitions assignment, I am pleasantly surprised with myself. I feel like if I know what the objectives are and there are examples (textbook) then I should be able to conquer what else is coming in this course. I learnt that my writing isn’t bad as I thought (I hope), and maybe I can enjoy writing if it’s something I am passionate about! With having access to all my peers’ definitions assignments, I learnt that everyone has a different style of writing, and no one’s skills are the same, which makes me think that I may fit into this course, just fine.

After the insights and values gained through unit one, I am excited to see what the next unit brings! I have already put in numerous hours into unit one and am glad for what I have learnt and practiced, as I know someday this will be very helpful in my career! I have been starting to brainstorm through this week about what I am going to write about for my formal report and am so thankful that we can write it on something that we pick!

Thanks for reading,

Meagan Rosenberg

Here is a link to my peer’s review of my definitions document:

https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-99a-2019wa/2019/09/25/peer-review-of-definition-assignment-dental-radiographs/

This is my revised definitions assignment:

301 99A Meagan Rosenberg Definitions