Monthly Archives: April 2022

After finishing all the assignments by the end of the term, when I look back now, I have to say it is a really intensive course, we have two assignments to finish each week and many readings to finish before starting the assignment, this course is more intensive than I expected at first, but I do learn a lot, such as how to write a memo, give feedbacks, generate report proposal and formal report, and writing-with-YOU-attitude. I like it practicality of the course content!

Strength: During many years of my student life, I found myself always fascinated by new knowledge and concepts. In ENGL 301, I am really interested in learning so much knowledge in technical writing which not only enable me to achieve higher writing standards but also lay the foundation for my future career development. Also, I am really glad that now I can write more constructive feedback for my peers.  I was not comfortable giving others advice but gradually I find it very interesting and I enjoy that my suggestions can be helpful to someone else. Besides, I was able to perform creatively in some work yet still in an intuitive way, such as when I was writing the complaint letter, it feels very intuitive but yet I still corporate some skills learned on readings, which is really satisfying to apply knowledge on the book to real life. Lastly, I found myself enjoying the self-paced learning method as I am good at time management, which largely increases my study efficiency. 

Weakness: Even though I enjoy learning new material but I had difficulties in finishing assignments with excellence, my marks were often deducted due to grammar or typo mistakes, even though I double-check my work I still miss some mistakes which are caused by my weak English grammar knowledge. Besides, I am too fixated on assignments and do not want to turn them in until the last minute even though I finished them early, I think that is because I am not confident in my work, so I feel reluctant to turn it in early. Another weakness in technical writing that I have is that I used to write a research paper, and turned out my formal report looks a bit like a research paper instead of a report, which is not ideal. I was also having some trouble with writing-with-you-attitude, I find it hard to situate myself in one side of the story thus I always gave a neutral tone when I was writing, but I am aware that is not what we should do in technical writing.

Overall, I find myself more comfortable writing in a professional style with more skills involved, also, which is also what I want to achieve when I joined the course.

I choose my web folio reader to be students who are considering taking ENGL 301 or other students who want to learn some technical writing skills because I feel like the documents here are useful for them, I hope my web folio can be helpful. Also, because I am neither going into the job market nor applying to graduate school, this web folio is more suitable for my situation. The reason I chose the UBC blog platform is that I think most of my readers would be UBC students so this platform is more accessible to them.

While organizing some work done this semester for the web folio I feel a sense of achievement, from the first assignment of the introduction of oneself to the last assignment, each assignment marked a new step in learning technical writing which is fruitful. Also, this course requires much teamwork and provides students a chance to learn from others’ work, I am really grateful to my teammates for the efforts they have put in reviewing my writings, I have learned so much from them.

To be honest, creating a web folio is a bit intimidating because I am never a designer or a good organizer, but I like that instructor gave us instructions on the required pages which gives me a clue to start with. I do not like web pages that have too many colors or graphics, because I think that would take away the importance of the content so I keep them minimal. Also, I think web pages that contain too many words are a bit overwhelmed for the reader so each of my pages is not sentences condensed, and I shortened each hyperlink to make it look better.

I must say I did not enjoy organizing the web folio on the UBC blog platform. Mainly because I find it a bit challenging to use while creating a customized page, as the format is limited and there were not many resources on the UBC blog to use. Also, the overall user interface of the blog is really confusing, I feel like I am spending more time learning to use the website than actually organizing my works. I won’t recommend anyone else to use this website for displaying their works, I think there is definitely a better choice than using this website.

Overall, though it is not an easy job to start, once I pieced each part out, it is more interesting to work on. This would be my last work for ENGL 301 99c, hope this web folio can be helpful.