Writing with clarity and preciseness is my biggest weakness. I also do not have a lot of experience in writing in a professional tone. However, things changed after taking this course. One of the most important lessons I have learnt is how to write with the You attitude. I tend to use imperative verbs and I did not even notice how rude and forceful it sound when I write. I hope that I didn’t offend anyone in the past and I think I will be more equipped for the workforce once I graduate soon in June.

Throughout the course, I wrote a few peer reviews where I examined other team members’ work and provided them opinions. Providing feedback is hard for me because at first, I was not able to point out anything particularly meaningful. However, as I looked at the instructor’s blog and observe how other classmates did it, I slowly understand and got better at it in the subsequent peer reviews.

Another thing that I have to mention is the final report. The initial planning phase was tough as i scramble for ideas that I am able to write. I understand that I am not a fast writer but it took me lots of time to get the task done. I should practice more to improve my writing skills. However, once I got the direction of the plan, writing the report was manageable and the course schedule definitely helped me stay on track. This lesson taught me how to write a proper final report for professional use and all the key elements to help support my report. Overall, I have learnt lots of writing skills through reading the textbook and from comments provided by our professor. What a way to end the term with all the courses being taught online.

For the final assignment for the English technical writing course, students are tasked to create a final web folio. In this web folio, I am going to include key information that is required to showcase my work to my potential employer. I have no experience in creating a web folio and this is quite a new experience for me.

In this web folio, i have included my resume, cover letter, reference letter request letter and some of my best works on the website. What is the most challenging task in this task is that I have to highlight my marketable skills that are relevant to my career choice in a logical and creative way. I have done research online searching for examples and photographs for inspiration but I don’t seemed to have the expertize to achieve such sophisticated level of website interface. However, I have tried my best to set up a web folio with the exisiting resources and time I have right now.

In the process of making this web folio, i find that organization of the website is one of the most demanding tasks as there are lots of materials I have to present. It took time but I sorted them out eventually.

In my opinion, I do not think a web folio is that important to me as a business student. A LinkedIn profile has a lot more importance than a web folio because it basically serves a similar purpose to showcase your achievements. Unless I have multiple projects to showcase such as art works or interior designs, I may not need a web portfolio since most job opportunities did not ask for one. Nevertheless, this is a solid learning experience and an important skills to have in my back pocket. I can organize my work and reflect on my personal work and past experience and see if I was lacking anything that I am suppose to have in order to be successful in the job market.

To: Dr. Erika Paterson, ENGL 301 99A Professor

From: Barton Lui, ENGL301 99A Student

Date: November 13^th, 2020

As per the course schedule, below is my progress report of my formal report on how to encourage Vancouverites to consider using a more environmentally sustainable method of transportation.

Purpose

The purpose of the report is to explore whether or not Vancouverites can use rely on a sustainable transportation method.

The audience of the report

• Mayor’s Office of Vancouver- The mayor has the power to influence a lot of major decisions regarding infrastructure, legislation, bylaws and policies.
• CEO of Translink- Currently this position is vacant but the most recent holder of the top executive position is Kevin Desmond.
• Daily Commuter.

Significance of the report

This report will investigate why some people are not using sustainable transportation methods such as bikes and electric cars to get to work/school. By knowing what is preventing them from doing so, we can provide recommendations to the authorities to make some changes to the existing situation.

Research Plan

• Problem: Can Vancouver use a more sustainable method of transportation?
  • As the population continues to increase in Vancouver, more people will be required to travel around which in turn will generate more pollution. We have to explore the behaviours of commuters and implement suggestions to encourage positive behaviours that will benefit the environment.
•  The primary data source will be from the online community, family and friends
• Interview with Translink management team for insights, current plan and future plans to address the problem
• secondary data

Writing Schedule

• Nov 16 2020: Start emailing friends and family. Send them the survey and start emailing Translink managers for interviews. Post survey link on Facebook groups
• Nov 19 2020: Begin secondary data collection
• Nov 20 2020: Interview with Translink managers
• Nov 27 2020: Use the collected primary and secondary data to start writing the report
• Nov 30 2020: Final revisions of formal report draft
• Dec 1 2020: Post formal report draft on the team forum
• Dec 4 2020: Write peer review of formal report draft
• Dec 9 2020: Post peer review of teammate’s formal report draft
• Dec 12 2020: Revise the formal report draft based on peer review
• Dec 15 2020: Make final revisions to the formal report
• Dec 17 2020: Formal report deadline. Post as .pdf or .doc on the team forum

Survey link:  https://forms.gle/eZZz4r6aqJyEVkHj9

Engl 301 Final Report

As more businesses moved online, there is definitely a need for me to have a professional LinkedIn profile to present myself to potential employers. One thing I need to improve in my profile is to find an opportunity to replace the current photo with a professionally taken profile picture. Now that I have a LinkedIn profile being set up, all I need to do in the future is to update it whenever I need to apply for a job or connect with people.

The process of brainstorming and preparing my report proposal and outline was complicated but definitely helped me organized my ideas and thoughts. I am grateful that I spend the time on it and Professor Paterson’s feedback was very helpful for my writing. Thank you!

The peer-review I wrote for Phoebe Wu was about the decrease in enrollment rate of Pott’s Education Studio. I noticed that the statement of problem needed some refinement and I gave her some suggestions on how to improve it.  Overall, she has a good sense of where the report is heading and has some really good solutions including a marketing plan that can potentially solve the problem. When writing the peer review, I learned about how concise and simplicity is always beneficial to the reader. Too many unnecessary words will hinder the understanding of the article. Peer reviewing also forces me to think critically about the issue and whether each part of the proposal makes sense. I am able to learn from this experience and use it to proofread my own work in the future.

Here is the revised version of it. https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-99a-2020wa/2020/11/09/barton-lui-assignment-2-3-formal-report-outline/

Link to the peer review: https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-99a-2020wa/2020/10/19/formal-report-proposal-peer-review/

In the first unit of the course, I have learnt how to write specific documents such as letters, memos and emails in a professional manner. After that, I set up my very first personal blog where I can post my reflections, reviews and assignments. I also formed a writing team and wrote an assignment defining the term “absorption rate”.

The definition assignment was challenging to me as I had to explain a term that I understand and use it often but never thought about actually having to explain to someone else who is not familiar with the term. The steps of explaining a term using parenthetical definition, sentence definition and expanded definition made the process much more systematic and logical for me to organize my thought and this requires me to think and learn the term carefully so that I can complete the assignment. One major problem I am particularly struggling with is to write precisely as I feel like I have to include more words in order to explain fully. I understand why it is not correct anymore as unnecessary words will make my writing really difficult to understand.

I found the peer review process very helpful and I was able to learn from my team member’s writing. In my opinion, Jessica’s examples are very well formulated and the attached visual illustration was helpful. After reading the peer review, I will have to better utilize the expansion technique to explain my term and include a visual aid in my definition. Other than that, I was not able to catch a few of the other errors. The parenthetical definition is missing parenthesis and the sentence definition was not in one sentence.

I adapted my team member’s opinion and I have implemented those points into editing my definition. I have changed the situation and audience to better reflect the specific audience.  I have added a work cited list as well as a visual presentation and a proper conclusion.

 

Link to the revised definition:

https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-99a-2020wa/2020/09/29/1-3-definitions-and-peer-review/

Link to Jessica’s peer review of my definition assignment:

https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-99a-2020wa/2020/10/01/assignment-1-3-peer-review-absorption-rate/