Category Archives: Reflections

The final unit of the English 301 summer term of 2018 was incredibly busy as everyone in the course was working diligently toward the submission deadlines.  As I press on  toward the goal of completing this final reflection, I pause for a while pondering my strengths and weakness related to technical writing.

Studying sciences and more specifically, dental hygiene, a considerable portion of academic writing is very scientific and matter of fact.  For this particular course, it was necessary to do a complete modification of prior writing practices in order to incorporate more “YOU-attitude.” This was rather challenging since this was not a concept familiar to me.  However, with practice, especially through the peer review process more and more “YOU-Attitude” was showing up on the pages.   This is very exciting indeed!

Writing the formal report was such a daunting task.  This was a huge project and it felt like it was taking forever to complete.  Editing and re-editing seemed to be the flavour of the day.  I found it very challenging to keep the project organized.  The most helpful activity of this assignment was writing and  submitting the progress report.  This provided a glimpse into the state of assignment – more specifically, what was done and what needed to be done!  Even though this was an intense writing course, somehow, by the end of the term, the assignments were submitted.

I am hopeful that, going forward, these newly acquired skills will be useful for  achieving future career goals in addition to supporting my academic pursuits. The summer of 2018 certainly was the summer of “YOU”-Attitude!!!

Developing the Web Folio for the English 301 Technical Writing course in the summer of 2018  supported the  development of my technical writing skills.  Being new to this style of writing brought many technical challenges my way. At times I wanted to reach out to someone for help but was not even sure what I needed to ask in order to receive the appropriate support.  So I persevered by trial and error and eventually things started coming together!

The most important goal in developing this Web Folio is to provide visitors with a positive experience including the ease of navigation around the website.  For this reason the home page provides a list of the pages with a brief description and includes a link to each of the pages.  This allows visitors to quickly identify what they are looking for and where to gain access.  To personalize the website, photos illustrating the profession of dental hygiene are displayed throughout.  Since the official colour of dental hygiene is purple, making the choice to use this for the page colour is befitting a Web Folio of a dental hygienist.

Experimenting with the various themes eventually brought me back to the  Coraline Theme by Word Press.  It has such a clean, crisp professional appearance suitable to my person. Uploading media, learning how to edit images, moving images within the pages, and general organization of the pages and posts in this assignment was the most challenging.  Much time was spent in deliberating over what images to use, why to include one image over another, where to place them, how to make the words flow smoothly, how are the words and images being interpreted by my audience and so on.  The list could go on and on!  As a result, several hours went into the editing process.

The Best Work page features some of my best writing in this course including the  definition assignment that was written for a non-dental audience, a peer review of a classmate’s work, a complaint letter and finally a bad news letter.  Please be sure to visit this page and read them.

Although intense at times, this technical writing course was a positive experience. Completing this project is a great personal achievement considering the lack of technical writing experience and knowledge that was had at the beginning of this course. It is amazing to see the positive improvements to my writing abilities while enjoying my new found passion of creating this online space.   Thanks to great instruction, support and diversity of the material I now have a variety of new skills that will be incorporated into my academic and professional life.

UNIT 3-Reflections

Unit 3 has been the most challenging unit so far.  I personally found that creating the formal report draft was very involved.  The employee application package was more straight forward although I debated a long time over what style of resume would be the most suitable to use. The most enjoyable assignment of this unit was  performing a peer-review of my partners draft of his formal report.  I received huge benefits from reading and assessing my partners formal report since it provided insight into how I can improve the layout of my formal report.    I really enjoyed learning how to write with YOU attitude by helping Evan Crisp write his request as well as writing with YOU attitude in the peer-review of my partners formal report draft.

Research

The research process for my formal report included obtaining primary data and researching for secondary data.  For the primary data, I developed an online survey using a 5 point scale.  This survey was then emailed to each of the dental hygienists working at Laurelwood Family Dentistry to obtain primary data about the types of prophylaxis polish currently in use for dental polishing.  The survey also attempted to identify whether clients were satisfied with the degree of stain removal after rubber cup polishing, the self-reported incidence of the development of dentinal hypersensitivity after dental polishing and finally the polishing technique employed for implants.  The secondary research was limited to peer-reviewed studies that were published in the last 10 years.

Organizing

The organization of my report has been more challenging than I had anticipated,  I am often referring back to the textbook and searching through the course blogs looking for more examples and information to support the organization of my formal report. I am also having some technical challenges with the draft including the creation of a table of contents that links to the content in the document.  I may have to remove this feature if I am unable to have the table of contents link to the headings consistently.  I am also struggling with some formatting issue of the graphs in addition to deciphering where to place them in the report.

Writing

Throughout the process of writing my formal report, I made a conscious effort to try to remain impartial about the strengths and limitations of implementing an air-polishing system for the removal of dental stain. I found it challenging to present the reader with a balanced analysis of my findings using a professional tone that included YOU attitude.  While trying to adhere to the instructions for writing this formal report, I was constantly reminding myself to structure the sentences for my specific audience. As a result, I have discovered that I still need to modify the wording to tailor it more precisely to my audience.

Peer Review

Performing a peer-review for the purpose of providing critical feedback for my partner to be able to improve his writing has been very rewarding.  My partner has done an outstanding job writing his formal report draft and with practice, performing the peer review has become somewhat easier. I found it especially helpful following the ideas presented in the “writing with a YOU attitude” blog.  Conversely, receiving a peer-review of my work has prompted me to be more critical of my writing. I am spending more time and effort re-examining my composition to identify areas needing improvement.  Sometimes the improvements are merely semantics while other times a more serious overhaul of the writing is required.  For me personally, the final outcome of this bidirectional process, is a wonderful blend of benefits to support my writing.

LinkedIn

The process of developing my LinkedIn profile was a bit stressful as well as very exciting.  Completing the research assignment on the top ten best practices for developing a LinkedIn profile was very informative. I have discovered that I am not completely comfortable with having a profile on social media including a professional social media profile.  I do recognize that LinkedIn is a useful marketing tool in other industries but I am not convinced of the benefits for dental hygiene.  Additionally, I feel somewhat vulnerable with having my profile on the internet.  However, as a Registered Dental Hygienist, I recognize the fact that I am required to practice with a certain degree of transparency including displaying my full legal name in my practice.  As a result of completing the LinkedIn assignments, I have gained a deeper appreciation of social networking platforms and have discovered the importance of accuracy of the written word.

Progress Report

As I organized the tasks for writing my report proposal, I was able to get a realistic sense of the work load ahead of me.  I will need to spend a considerable amount time and effort completing this worthwhile project. I have chosen an issue that is a current concern in my practice that needs to be addressed.  If I am able to compile a well written report, it has the potential to benefit the practice, the dental hygienists and most importantly, the patients.

Peer Review

I had the opportunity to perform 2 LinkedIn peer reviews since we had a late addition to our writing team and 1 Research Proposal peer review.  Reading the assignments of other classmates permits me to see various writing styles  and this exposure is helping me to develop my own personal writing style.  As a result of performing these peer reviews, I have become more critical of my own writing.

I have also received valuable feedback to assist me with my LinkedIn profile and to support my research proposal.  Both of the peer reviews that I received were written with a respectful tone and offered valuable constructive criticism. I am really grateful for the feedback that I received since this will support me in becoming a more accomplished technical writer.