Reflection Blog – Anna's WebFolio

Reflection:

Writing the first draft of definition: In this assignment, we are instructed to write a definition for a technical term from our fields of study, and we have to compose a situation, a parenthetical definition, a sentence definition, and four expansion strategies including one visual with more than three outside references in either APA and MLA style. It was quite challenging for me even though I have done similar tasks when I was at work, but it was all informal and my audiences are also in the same professions as me. But I find the reading extremely helpful, it helped me learn different ways to explain a technical term, we can use a parenthetical definition which means we can find a synonym for the term, sentence definition which involves composing a sentence to describe the term and it features. Most importantly, the strategies for expansion had enriched capacity when explaining a term. For example, we can tell the history of word origin of the term to further clarify the meaning, besides, negation is also another useful strategy, it indicates what the words do not mean which can clarify some ambiguity the audience might receive, also we can always provide examples which is a powerful way to explicitly perceive the meaning of the term. Lastly, when composing a definition for a complicated term, we should always use multiple expansion methods to give our audience a more holistic view of the word.

Peer Review Process: I was given the chance to review my teammate’s work and offer suggestions, accordingly, I reviewed the work from my teammate Lucy Li. Reading Lucy’s work, further helped me deepen my understanding of strategies in definition expansion, especially for the use of negation and visual, and also the formate when including a figure in a document. I liked her visual presentation, it was clear and explicit, her overall document is well-formatted which is easy to follow. Besides, I learned parts analysis through lucy’s work as well, she did a good job on how to explain the term by illustrating different parts that constitute it and also making it concise. Meanwhile, I found Lucy made a few mistakes as I was going through her work, such as lack of conclusion, repetitiveness in writing, and also ambiguity in explanation, I started to reflect them on my writings, as they are subtle errors that can easily make when writing definition.

Editing Process: I enjoy the editing process more than I expected. I appreciate the suggestions lucy offered, as she identified a few errors in my writing, such as lack of conclusion and situation, format and style issue, and so on. I also learned good formatting, and how to illustrate visual presentation concisely through reading her work. So, with knowing the mistakes I made, I can improve my writing with a more holistic intention. I also appreciate all the positive comments which are reassuring for me in terms of some techniques I used.