When I first joined English 301, I was skeptical of having an online class where assignments took place entirely on blogs, but it seems that my fears were unfounded. The UBC blog system has been an intuitive and simple way for turning in assignments, and it is set up so you can continuously revise your assignment to create the best possible product after instructor, peer, and self reviews.

The peer review process is something that I have always appreciated and always felt that I was good at. However, in this course I was made to realize that I can be overly-critical lkasjdflsjfd. For example, in response to the letter from the student asking if he can get into a full section, my letter offering advice came across as condescending and rude. When my peer review pointed this out, I was able to change the wording for a more positive message that more closely resembled a You-Attitude. Then, when I was actually peer reviewing my teammates, I could stop and think about the words I was saying and how they were coming across. It doesn’t matter how I perceive my words to be interpreted; it only matters how they perceive it!

Further, I found the peer review process beneficial to my skills as a writer in general, and I know that my skills have substantially improved in this course and will do so as long as I continue my efforts. Avoiding imperatives was a big wake-up call for me; it made me realize how authoritative and standoffish my writing could be when consistently using imperatives in my correspondences. However, I think one of the greatest improvements in my writing is conciseness. I had a tendency to use far more words than were necessary to get the point across, but now I find myself understanding the oft-said phrase “less is more”. In peer reviewing I was able to identify run-on sections of my teammates writings, and in doing so, find similar sections of my own work.

Practical applications of this course mainly pertain to professional correspondences, specifically gaining and keeping employment. I say keeping employment because communication is essential for a professional career, and a good way to ruin a career is through consistent miscommunication! For gaining employment, this course focused on letters of reference, professional social media, resumes, cover letters, and interactive online resumes hosted on web pages called web folios. Writing assignments and peer reviews of these literary mediums cemented the importance of professional technical communication.

I will miss my professional writing team, Team Victory Lap. We came from a diverse set of backgrounds and worked well together, learning and improving our writing styles as a team to produce well thought out and meaningful work. And thank you, Dr Paterson, for a great term. I hope you all have a great summer!

The web folio has been useful to help me see what I have learned in this course. Having all the best works, reflections, and pertinent job application resources in one location really showcases the effort put into the course over the semester. It also helped me see my progress of writing style. Reviewing the old assignments and updating them to have You-Attitude shows what I learned and how my writing style improved. I thought that my writing was at a good level, but just three months later I see that there is still improvements to be made. In the future, I will be sure to continuously improve my skills and never stop learning.

When designing the web folio, I put a special emphasis on ease of navigation. For this reason I included detailed breakdowns of each page, easily accessible pages located at the top of each page, and plenty of descriptions of each element on each page. The last thing I would want to happen is to have a potential employer get frustrated at a website that has an unintuitive user interface with not enough information. A webpage that is informative and easy to use shows that I am detail-oriented, patient, and empathetic because I understand the importance of other people’s time.

The most important part of the web folio is how it is intended to help students gain meaningful employment. Too often universities gloss over how students are supposed to be learning useful life skills for progressing careers. This assignment has helped me realize the effort that must be put into the job hunt, and how continuous self and peer reviewing can greatly improve the final versions of resumes, cover letters, social media pages, and personal letters.

Lastly, my favourite aspect of the web folio is how it is personalized. I added an additional page that showcases a couple of personal software projects that I have completed, which is very applicable for my career aspirations in the software development industry. This pictoral breakdown is better than a resume as a picture is worth a thousand words, and better than raw code on GitHub because the reader can easily see what the end result looks like. I know that it is a great personal detail to include that adds considerable value for parties interested in hiring me.