Welcome to my blog about ENGL 301 – Technical Writing, a course taught by Erica Paterson and offered online by The University of British Columbia.

ENGL 301 is a popular course that teaches the principles of written and online communication in a professional context. This 3 credit course allows the student to work with a myriad of professional methods of communication from text and emails to reports and proposals. A substantial part of this course also allows the student to have an online presence by constructing a website as well as a LinkedIn profile. Because of its wide-reaching effects, this course is of great interest to a variety of students from various disciplines.

ENGL 301 is divided into four main units, each of which consists of three lessons:

• Unit One will start off with an exciting task of making the student build their own website and will include collaborative work on the genre of business correspondence.
• Unit Two will introduce the student to online resume-building and exploring the LinkedIn website, included with a peer-evaluated report writing lesson.
• Unit Three is where the student will begin working individually after gaining all the basic skills and will apply them to two objectives. The first objective will be to design a report outline and the second is to build a resume, polishing their job application skills.
• Unit Four will finish off the semester by focusing on the final draft of the formal report as well as developing networking strategies.

As a Computer Science student who will be applying for co-ops and internships starting next year, this course is of special interest to me. I hope to use the skills this course teaches me to ultimately overcome the hesitation I face regarding technical communication. Eventually, I anticipate creating a stellar resume along with an engaging blog to impress future employers, and I hope that you, as a reader, benefit from my journey as well.

Enjoy~