Introduction

This unit was overall very rewarding. I was able to see how my writing developed to include what I learned from the first 3 units and my peers. While reviewing my reflection, I am able to understand the entire process of writing my formal report and what it takes to refine a piece of writing. This overall gave me a sense of accomplishment and taught me the importance of reflecting on my personal work.

Researching for the Formal Report

The research process was quite long and arduous as I had to include background research, an observational study, interviews, and surveys in my report. In terms of background research, it was very doable as I had previously researched related topics. However, when it came to the primary research, there were a lot of challenges due to current COVID restrictions in the American club. I was unable to go into the gym at certain times since there was a capacity restriction, so my findings may not accurately reflect the gym environment when there are no restrictions. Further, I was only able to find 2 interviewees and a few participants for my survey due to the huge decrease in members at the club due to the pandemic. Despite these challenges, I completed my research. Although there are a lot of limitations, I was able to get data that reflected what club members generally thought about accessibility in the fitness space.

Organizing the Formal Report

When organizing my final report, it was initially difficult integrating all my primary research with the existing literature. I believe I structured it more like an essay due to certain points about ethical issues and design thinking I had to define and clarify. With the help of the textbook, I was able to create a logical flow of my report, leading from existing research to primary research to implications and recommendations. However, there is work to be done improving the structure and flow of my report to cater to the intended audience.

Writing the Formal Report

With the outline and research finished, writing the final report was not very difficult. Thanks to the outline and proposal I created prior to starting my research, I was able to integrate all the points I needed in 15 pages. On the other hand, it was a challenge to write my report based on the intended audience, rather than writing a descriptive paper to a general audience like in my previous classes. Hopefully, through this peer review process, I will be able to gain some insights from my peer’s works and revise my report accordingly.

Reviewing My Peer’s Formal Report

My peer did an excellent job writing his final report. I was very impressed by the overall structure, conciseness, and clarity of his report. There were only a few changes I suggested that I found helpful in strengthening the argument in my report, such as providing interpretations of graphs and figures and clearly stating the negative effects of the problem. Performing this peer review made me realize certain changes I should make to my report: reorganizing certain sections, removing repetitions, including more illustrations and tables, and providing clear recommendations for further action in my conclusion.

Conclusion

Overall, the process of researching, organizing, writing, and peer-reviewing the final report allowed me to understand feasibility reports on a deeper level. I was able to recognize what I did well and what I was lacking in my report, steering me in the right direction to revise my draft.

301 Ashley Yuan Formal Report Draft

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Introduction

In this reflection, I was able to learn my strengths and weaknesses in both the professional field and my writing style. By reflecting on this reflection, I am able to understand my thought processes in creating my LinkedIn profile, drafting my formal report and peer reviewing my partner’s work. It allows me to identify the weaknesses I have improved on and those that I still need to work on.

Creating a LinkedIn Profile

Before the course, I already had a LinkedIn profile to start with, but I never researched how to make my profile stand out. Through the process of revising my profile, I learned the specific algorithms in LinkedIn and how you could make your profile pop up for recruiters in more related fields. For instance, before I did not know that writing a summary with specific keywords would allow recruiters in related fields easily see your profile. I also took the time to update my profile to include my current degree and the work I did in the past year. Overall, this assignment was really useful in helping me understand online job networks and how to best present yourself online. This is a useful skill especially with a lot of jobs looking to LinkedIn due to the pandemic.

Brainstorming and Preparing the Report Proposal and Outline

When I started brainstorming my topic for the formal report, I was struggling with coming up with something tangible I could do due to the pandemic. However, I thought a lot about my past undergraduate degree and what I am qualified to do, and decided to do something for a community that I have been a part of since I was young: a club for international people in Taipei. In the process, I also had some trouble thinking of the scope of my research and how to frame it as a formal proposal. To solve this, I found that looking at examples in the textbook and talking to my group members helped a lot. Having the report proposal checked off before completing the outline was also helpful in initiating the research process, as it was easy to write the outline based off the proposal. So far, these assignments were really useful in getting my research plan organized. A question I still have is: since I have so many parts of my primary research, how am I supposed to clearly integrate these in my official report?

Reviewing my Partner’s Proposal & The Peer Review Process

Reading my partner’s research proposal gave me a lot of insight into how to write concisely, but hitting all the important points. After reading my partner’s proposal, I immediately took note of things that I could change in mine, such as condensing my sentences, changing my phrasing from the negative to the positive, and reorganizing some parts of my proposal. In this process, I was able to see how others are structuring their proposals given their respective research backgrounds and suggest a few changes, based on my understanding of research.

Reading my group’s work opened my eyes to the scope of the formal report. It allowed me to see what fields others are interested in researching, especially during the pandemic. For instance, one of my group members has based her research on the challenges working at home during the pandemic. I thought that this direction was excellent given the circumstances and I am excited to read her findings, since it is so relevant during these times.

Conclusion

Overall, I think the peer review process allowed me to see the flaws and strengths in my writing. Rotating partners was especially helpful when peer-reviewing as many people have different perspectives and point out different issues in my writing. Also, being able to read others’ writing gave me a lot of ideas of how I could change mine. I believe my biggest issue is writing concisely, but I struggle less with the organization of my thoughts. Thus, peer-reviewing gave me a better idea of what I need to work on and how to expand my writing style to match the intended purposes.

301 Ashley Yuan Formal Report Proposal_Revised

Jonathan’s Peer Review

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Introduction

The Three Definitions assignment allowed us to explore the different ways we can define terms and when we should use each definition. It also gave us the experience of writing peer reviews and editing our own work. Throughout this assignment, I learned a lot about the process of writing a decent piece of work as well as the importance of collaboration during this process.

Initial Approach to the Three Definitions Assignment

When I initially wrote my three definitions on the term, “neuroplasticity”, I found it difficult to explain a term that I studied in-depth with simple, lay-terms. At first, I tried to make my expanded definition as detailed as possible to grasp the whole concept, but then I realized that the intended audience did not need a complete understanding of the term. As a result, I changed my definition for simplicity rather than detail. It was difficult to know exactly what questions people would be asking, especially from the perspective of someone knowing the term. So, I used more anecdotal and broader descriptions of the term, as I thought about it in the view of the audience who only wants to know the general idea of “neuroplasticity”.

Peer Review Process

For the peer review, the team partnered up  depending level of knowledge for each term, based on lack of knowledge. Initially, I went through the expanded definition in the perspective of my peer’s intended audience. I found this particularly useful in suggesting any additions or improvements to the definition. From my experience of writing an expanded definition, I suggested specific aspects I had that my partner missed. This process also opened me to different ways of defining something, such as providing multiple examples. Overall, the peer review process allowed me to identify things that I was missing in my definition as well as share my ideas from a different perspective.

Editing Process

In the editing process of my definition, I took all of the suggestions in the peer-review as I thought they were valid points that I had missed in my original writing. For instance, the organization of the origin and development of the word made a lot more sense, in terms of flow and readability, when it was put before the “What is Neuroplasticity?” paragraph. I also took my peer’s advice of breaking down my sentences. Additionally, I took the ideas from my review of my peer’s definition, and added it to my own. For instance, I created a description for my image and provided more examples in the definition.

Conclusion

Generally, I thought the whole process was very useful and important in creating good writing. It helped me gain a lot of different perspectives by reading someone else’s work as well as knowing what others thought of mine. Thus, I was able to approach my original writing with a fresh mind, given a different perspective. The textbook reading on editing also helped a lot when providing suggestions to my peers as well as editing my own work. I also learned that people have various ways of approaching a writing prompt. Having that collaboration aspect and revisiting the same piece is very important, especially when you are writing for a specific target audience.

301-Definitions-Peer-Review-Jonathan-Ho

301 Ashley Yuan Revised Three Definitions

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