Month: April 2023

Self-Assessment Reflection

ENGL 301 taught us the guidelines of technical writing, allowed us to practice those guidelines, and enabled us to teach and learn these guidelines from our peers in the class. Upon completion of this course, I feel I have greatly improved my technical writing skills, as well has highlighting my strengths and weaknesses which will enable me to further develop as a writing and aid me in a professional setting.

Strengths

Throughout ENGL 301, I have recognized three strengths in my learning process and writing. My first strength comes in the form of organization and a systematic approach. This was highlighted in the Formal Report process, having to write a proposal, an outline, and progress report helped me structure my writing for a fifteen plus page report. Revising through each section and having a clear outline enabled me to write efficiently and effectively. My second strength comes in the form of professional emails. Having learned the proper etiquette and structure of an email, whether it be providing an update or making a request, the skill of email writing imposed to me by this course is extremely valuable. I am thankful to have employed it already in an email correspondence with Dr. Paterson not as part of an assignment. My third strength is my ability to receive and apply feedback. This course offered feedback via instructor grading, peer revision, and self-reflection. In each case I was grateful for the feedback I received and happily implemented them to improve my work.

Weaknesses

Reflecting upon the ENGL 301 experience I have identified two weaknesses to my learning process and assignments. The first weakness I identified is providing peer feedback, particularly without using imperative verbs. I find it difficult to convey extremely accurate feedback to my peers as I feel I am constantly balancing the line between constructive criticism and offensiveness. Moreover, in some of my peer revisions and the Evan Crisp assignment I caught myself egregiously using imperative verbs, something that I have started working on removing towards the end of the course. Another weakness I identified is my lack of patience. This primarily manifests as a less thorough proof-reading as I am too eager to submit my work. Furthermore, my lack of patience sometimes arises when I begin an assignment. I will catch myself writing headstrong without a plan or structure, only to realize and have to heavily edit or start over, something that is counter to my learned strength of a systematic approach.

How My Strengths Support my Future Goals

My long-term career goal is the enter the tech industry as a software developer. From my brief foray into software related courses, a systemic approach to any problem is the most effective way to tackle an issue. Working through a problem stepwise will prevent me from feeling overwhelmed and present me with a clear plan of work. Furthermore, e-mail and digital message correspondence is rampant in any industry, so being a strong technical writer and maintaining and air of formality in my messages and requests will serve to better me in a job environment. Lastly being new to the tech field, I will eagerly be looking for mentors and other experts to provide me with valuable feedback on my work. Feedback which I will willingly accept and hopefully apply to my work to become a better software developer.

Overall, ENGL 301 has served as a great foray into the world of technical writing. I am grateful for this introduction. The overall course structure of online delivery, team-based learning (with peer reviews), and a chance to constantly revise and update work has served to enhance my learning of the technical writing and allow me to enhance and develop many skills. Skills, which I know I will employ for many years to come.

Web Folio Reflection

In the final unit and one of the final tasks of ENGL 301 we were given the assignment to create a Web Folio. A Web Folio is the opportunity to recognize and display our past works, as well as make it a custom representation of ourselves. I decided to build my Web Folio out on our original UBC Blog website.

Similar to the Formal Report, the Web Folio served as a daunting task. However, by applying a systematic approach I was able to accurately organize and structure my Web Folio in a meaningful way. I started by creating the pages I needed and the pages I wanted to include in my site (Best Work, Resume, etc.) and from there I provided guidance for a reader’s journey through the Web Folio. Like the Formal Report process it served as a great reminded of organization and structure serves as the building block for any project.

One of the key steps in creating my Web Folio was determining an audience or purpose for my page. I decided to take the approach that this Web Folio will serve as an adjunct to my resume. Where a resume provides a snapshot of one’s career and academic achievements, this Web Folio would provide a live look at my writing and organizational process. Additionally, I chose to offer personal elements as well like a link to my movie podcast (a hobby of mine). The intention is that this Web Folio serves as an extension of myself and allows any reader (or employer) the opportunity to get to know me and my personality, beyond the resume.

Creating the Web Folio has been a rewarding and rather addicting task! I am finding myself making revisions, adding pages, and removing pages. It has served as a great exercise to reflect and review my work throughout ENGL 301. It has also highlighted an overall positive trend in the quality of my writing over the course of the term. Moreover, the process of creative design has allowed me to make a professional website whilst still maintaining personality and uniqueness.

The Web Folio process is a disguised vessel for self-reflection. Self-reflection has been a consistent theme throughout ENGL 301. It allows me to think critically about my work, edit and revise, and consequently, improve my writing. I know I will continue to employ self-reflection in future writing, coursework, and beyond.

Unit Three Reflections

In Unit Three of ENGL 301 Technical Writing course, we had the opportunity to craft a memorandum to a fictitious student to help correct a professional email, we had to construct a formal report draft, and lastly provide a peer review of a classmate’s formal report draft. Each of these tasks provided a chance to practice the technical writing skills we have developed in this course as well as reach beyond our learning, and research for our formal report drafts.

Memorandum Demonstrating You-Attitude

In this exercise we aided mock student Evan Crisp in tailoring a more professional email to a professor. This task highlighted the importance of using a You attitude, that is putting the reader first, especially when enlisting the help of a superior. This idea of addressing the reading in a more personal and respectful manner goes a long way when asking for help and maintains and air of professionalism. Furthermore, this task taught me about avoiding the use of imperative verbs when providing feedback. I initially struggled with using too many imperative verbs, however, the feedback from this task helped me greatly when it came time to peer review my partner’s formal report draft.

Formal Report Draft

In the second task of this unit, we were challenged to write a first draft of our formal report. At first this tasked seemed daunting as the target length of the report was the longest assignment yet. However, using the outline I had provided in Unit Two along with taking the time to map out the structure of my report I was able to build a first draft that I am quite proud of. My biggest takeaway from this process was how the investment in time spent ensuring that the report would follow a logical flow, maintained a structure that told a story, and kept the target audience in mind enabled me to write efficiently and with passion all to enhance the reader’s experience. Moreover, I was able to further develop the skill of creating and integrating graphics to add more brevity to my report. I am becoming more confident in writing longer proposals, and I am looking forward to polishing up my final report.

Peer Review of Formal Report Draft

In the final task of this unit, I was given the chance to peer review Corbyn Kwan’s formal report draft. Corbyn has a unique proposal, and his draft covers a variety of topics all the while maintaining a logical structure so the me (the reader) does not get too confused. Corbyn’s report did have some issues particularly in the Data section relating to figures and the data presented. This review process providing me the opportunity to build on what I learned and feedback I received from task 3.1. I was able to offer suggestions without the use of imperative verbs in a way that I believe will improve Corbyn’s report. Reading Corbyn’s report with a critiquing lens also helped me analyze my report further as there were various organizational structures present in his report that could be beneficial in mine. Corbyn provided a review of my report, this is my second peer review from Corbyn, and I am always grateful for his feedback, he often catches my grammatical errors and overuse of technical jargon. As always, the peer review portion provided valuable feedback.

Overall Unit Three was the most challenging unit thus far. I was challenged to apply a new technique in the You Attitude assignment and I was challenged again in developing a draft of my formal report. I learned the importance of not using imperative verbs when providing feedback and I employed this knowledge when giving my partner a peer review. I tackled my report from a systematic point of view, and this helped me write in a more meaningful way. I look forward to continually using these techniques in future writings.

Formal Report Draft: Feasibility Analysis of Increasing the Student Transportation Methods on UBC Vancouver Campus_Draft 1