In the third unit of ENGL 301, students were required to dedicate a lot of their time and effort into the process of researching, organizing and writing their formal report drafts. Essentially, the focus was to take the next steps towards the formal report project by conducting research and compiling data into a draft version of the formal report. Next, each student was required to peer review a writing team member’s formal report draft to provide constructive feedback. Below are my initial goals and thoughts on: the process of working through the formal report draft, and the peer review process.
The Formal Report Process:
Initial goals: complete the research required, conduct all the interviews, select and create the required visuals, and draft the formal report by using the formal report outline as template.
Completing the draft of the formal report was a major challenge for me. As a computer science student, writing a twelve to fifteen page formal report draft did not seem like an easy task. One of the most challenging parts of the formal report draft was conducting interviews as my primary source of research. Setting up the interviews was time consuming and somewhat troublesome at the start. It was difficult to organize the interview times to accommodate everyone’s availabilities. There are definitely times when tasks become more challenging than expected; therefore, it is important to be prepared for the unexpected obstacles at all times. After some time, I was finally able to organize a time to meet with all the interviewees. Although setting up the interviews was quite challenging, conducting the interviews was definitely one of my most enjoyable experiences in ENGL 301. The problem I chose to address was a very important topic to the people I was interviewing. Thus, the people I interviewed were all so passionate about the topic and were fully engaged in all their responses to my questions. I noticed that in the first steps of the formal report process, ENGL 301 students were all asked to conduct interviews or use surveys as a primary source for their research. Now I understand the reason behind this requirement. In the case of my research, I noticed that conducting interviews is a very hands-on kind of research that takes into account the opinions of the people who are directly affected by the problem being researched. I believe this is a great aspect of the formal report, as it engages the students directly in the problem they are addressing rather than just sitting in front of the computer screen and researching publications.
When I sat down to start writing my formal report, it took me a while to actually begin writing. I was not sure how start. Therefore, I looked for some help from some of the previous assignments I have completed in the past couple weeks of the course. Using my formal report outline from the last units of the course as a template made the process very simple. Even though a few aspects of my formal report have changed in the last couple weeks, the formal report outline was very helpful in guiding me through the different sections of the formal report draft. This clearly shows the importance of the previous assignments of the course. A formal report is not an easy assignment that could be completed in just a few hours or even a few days. It is definitely a process that will take weeks or even months to complete. For this reason, I am very thankful that the structure of this course has prepared me to work systematically through the formal report process. Essentially, instead of having to write a twelve to fifteen page formal report draft, I just had to effectively combine the previous work I have done in the formal report process with the new data I recently collected. Realizing how simple it is to systematically come up with such a complex and effective formal report draft, I will have a more systematic way of approaching some of the technical writing assignments I will be completing in the future. Technical writing is a very effective way of communication and will often require many steps.
The Peer Review Process:
Initial goals: provide constructive and balanced feedback, study more professional editing techniques, and take into account the qualities of content, organization, style and design during the peer review.
At this point in the course, I am very confident when completing peer reviews because of the amount of practice I have had throughout the course. At the beginning of the course it was very challenging to peer review another student’s piece of writing. There were various instances where I wanted to provide suggestion to help improve my classmate’s work but I was having trouble getting the message across without insulting my classmate. Providing constructive and balanced feedback is an essential part of peer reviews; thus there has to be a way to give constructive feedback without directly telling the writer what he/she has done wrong and what he/she needs to do to improve their writing. This is where the writing with you-attitude proves to be very effective. Having learned the writing with you-attitude and its importance, I no longer have trouble providing feedback to my classmates. I have learned that as long as I use a tone that reflects the writing with you-attitude, I will be putting the focus on making suggestions for the piece of writing being reviewed rather than directly addressing the writer or telling the writer what he/she has done wrong. For instance, when reviewing my classmate’s formal report draft, I noticed that the conclusion section of the report was not completed. Only an outline of the conclusion was provided. Instead of directly addressing my classmate by saying that he did not complete the conclusion and that he needs to complete it, I simply mentioned that the completion of the details of the conclusion is an essential part of the report that should always be included. I know writing with you-attitude is not easy to master; therefore, I will continue to practice using writing with you-attitude techniques in hopes of improving my peer reviews.
There was also another challenge I came across in writing peer reviews at the start of the course. There are so many different writing styles out there and I feel like I was not exposed to many of them before this course. Being aware of the different writing styles and being comfortable with understanding various types of writing is essential in order to construct effective peer reviews. Therefore, peer-reviewing pieces of writing that were very different than my own writing style was very difficult. However, now that I have read and peer reviewed my writing team members’ assignments for a couple months, I have been exposed to various writing styles. Consequently, I am now comfortable with peer reviewing pieces of writing that differ from my own writing style. I believe that I have fully taken advantage of the writing team aspect of this course. The writing team forum has provided me with opportunities to communicate with my classmates to improve my own technical writing as well as help them improve their writing techniques.
After completing the peer review of my writing team partner’s formal report draft, I came up with a new potential idea for improving my own technical writing. I thought it would be a good idea to try and review my own writing assignments as if I was peer reviewing another classmate’s assignments. I believe that this may be a very effective approach because it could give me a chance to look at my own writing techniques from another person’s perspective and provide suggestions for improvements. Peer reviews are a lot more powerful than I thought at the start of the course.
I have really enjoyed working through this unit and I am very excited for the final unit of the course. I really look forward to completing my formal report based on the feedback I receive from my writing team partner.