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.

Unit three of English 301 began with learning how to write with a “You-Attitude”, progressed with writing professional communication on both ends of an issue, and finished with writing and peer reviewing the first draft of the formal report.

We began the unit with learning how to write with a “You-Attitude”, which was primarily used to offer constructive criticism in a non-offensive manner. I found this particularly challenging as my natural writing style could be construed as standoffish or even rude. I quickly realized how many aspects of my writing conflicted with “You-Attitude”: I often used imperative verbs, I would critique other’s work without offering solutions, and my tone overall was not always friendly. Learning how to write with a “You-Attitude” has helped my writing improve and will lend me credibility in the workforce.

Collecting data for the formal report was a new challenge that involved surveying UBC food vendors for what kind of single-use disposable items that they use – cutlery, takeout containers, plates, bowls, cups, etc. Simply collecting the data was a lengthy task that had me interviewing workers at multiple locations around campus. In order to adequately represent all food vendors in a statistically significant manner I had to carefully choose which food vendors I would survey. I ended up choosing five vendors out of a possible 44: Pacific Poke, Starbucks, Agora Cafe, Ike’s Cafe, and Bento Sushi. I collected samples of any plastic items, weighed them at home, and constructed approximate yearly plastic usages by weight based on the store’s hours and average hourly customers. This final piece of data is shocking – thousands of kilograms of plastic are used at each food vendor each year. I’m truly appreciative of the skills learned here that allowed me to discover this data and I’m optimistic when thinking about how I can use these skills in the future.

I found the process of writing the first draft of the report difficult and challenging. I found myself often rewriting passages because I wasn’t writing with a “You-Attittude”, but more often still was rewriting passages to increase readability and conciseness. Since the beginning of this course I have noticed that I add in extra words and sentences when they are not needed, and in this formal report I have been striving to reduce this textual bloat. Writing the first draft of the report has been a rewarding experience because it is easy to see the improvement in my writing style. My writing has gotten more succinct, professional, and readable, and I’m excited to see how well I will be able to craft the final draft of the report.

Reviewing the draft was much easier than previous peer reviews because of the experience gained with writing with a “You-Attitude” and in reviewing other’s work in general. I was able to read through the report draft and immediately identify use of pronouns, imperative verbs, inconsistencies in tone, and informal speech. The peer review process has given me an appreciation for others work and allowed me to be a better self editor along with being a better peer editor. I have been lucky to have dedicated and intelligent teammates with professional and inspiring writing styles, and I’m happy to say that reviewing their work and having them review mine has made the quality of my work substantially better.

I have included a link to the draft of my formal report below. Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts, and I look forward to presenting the final draft of the report.

301 Brent Hanover Final Report Draft

Unit Two started two major sections of the course: the report and our LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn profiles are necessary to obtaining jobs in a social media centred society and it is important to ensure that your profile is as appealing as possible to potential employers. We completed the proposal, outline, and timeline of our report this unit. This report will be an excellent exercise in not only technical writing, but surveying, interviewing, investigative reporting, and data compiling.

Unit Two was more rigorous than Unit One for several reasons. The formal report proposal was especially challenging. I have strong opinions on the amount of plastic waste produced by our country, but I wasn’t sure exactly how I wanted to proceed. I decided to tackle the manageable task of recording what plastic waste is produced at UBC food vendors and offer recyclable or biodegradable alternatives. After peer reviewing, my peer reviewer pointed out to keep the subject specific to Canada and focus less globally because my readers will only be able to affect local waste. With his advice my report became more succinct and realistic.

A LinkedIn profile is a necessary evil in a modern world. Social media has consistently been shown to increase anxiety and depression, but not having a Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn profile can make a person look like they’re not part of society. Job seekers with updated social media pages simply do better in job searches than those without. I understand the importance of a LinkedIn profile and will be working to maintain the better standard that my page now has because of the peer review process. With my reviewer’s help, and advice from my team’s best practices blog posts, I cut a lot of unnecessary filler from the page, rendering it more concise and readable.

My personal peer review process was challenging but less difficult than the previous unit. While my partner for the LinkedIn page review had excellent content, her page was lacking involvement, specific details, and qualifications. I made recommendations to her to try to be more involved in LinkedIn by ‘following’ pages and ‘liking’ articles to show that she is active on the website. The review process for the formal report proposal also went smoothly. I was able to make good suggestions to my partner to detail exact surveying techniques and overall increase the conciseness and clarity of his report. Again, I was able to make these suggestions in a positive and constructive manner as specified in the textbook.

Overall, I believe that peer review was a valuable experience for improving my writing and I look forward to the learning objectives in Unit 3.

Below I have included links to Henry Lee’s peer review of my report proposal, and my revised report proposal.

Henry Lee’s peer review of Brent Hanover’s proposal

ENGL 301 Revised Report Proposal

Unit one of English 301 is comprised of three different weeks, which required the student to set up their blogs, create teams by writing professional memos, draft an assignment by writing three methods of definitions, and peer reviewing their teammates definition assignment.

A vital aspect of being employed is the ability to communicate professionally, which can apply to providing a clear and concise description of a technical term to an individual without a technical background. During the definitions assignment, we learned how to properly explain a technical term in three different ways, all of which should be easily readable. Technical jargon should be avoided; simpler terms are a preferable option. I appreciated the exercise in which we explained terms that we were familiar with, and how to extend that to an audience with a non-technical background.

Another part of being a working professional is the ability to provide constructive feedback to one’s peers and coworkers. The textbook provided helpful insight for how to provide constructive feedback by providing it most positive and helpful way possible. Feedback should be expressed as how you interpreted the person’s work, you should use specific examples, and tangible improvements should be suggested. This is very different from degrading or insulting the individual’s work, or suggesting vague improvements. Criticisms should not be made if you do not also have a suggestion for improvement.

Peer reviewing assignments helped me find issues with my writing that I would have otherwise overlooked. Jennifer was able to help me provide more clarity in my writing by pointing out ambiguity in a sentence where it was difficult to tell what the subject of the sentence was. After I realized I had made that mistake, I went back and combed over my assignment to not only make sure that there was no more ambiguity, but also to check to see if I could eliminate any use of passive voice like the textbook recommended. Another important note was that the purpose of the assignment was to provide a non-technical reader with a simple explanation of a complicated term. I realized that I had including technical jargon in my original report that someone without expertise in the area would not be able to understand. I remedied that by breaking it down into simpler terms, which made the definition more verbose but clearer.

Below I have posted a link to my original definitions assignment, attached Jennifer Macfarlane’s peer review of my definitions assignment, and attached the revised version of that assignment.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-99c-2018wc/2019/01/18/assignment-1-3-definitions-3/

ENGL 301 Brent Hanover edited definitions ENGL 301 JM peer review of BH definitions

ENGL 301 JM peer review of BH definitions

Hi Professor Paterson,

I have posted my letter of application on my student blog. I have also included a link to it at the end of this email for your reference. To summarize my letter:

• Worked 2 years in the UBC earthquake lab while obtaining my degree in mechanical engineering
• Worked for 4 years as a manufacturing engineer for Philips
• Currently studying for a second degree in computer science
• Interest in technical communication stems from a realization of a real-world need for it

Please see the below hyperlink to access my application letter.

Kind regards,

Brent Hanover

ENGL 301 Brent Hanover Application Letter

Hi Bara’a,

I would like to extend to you an invitation to my professional writing group for English 301. After reviewing your blog and reading your letter of application, I think that you would make an excellent addition to the team.

My first impression of your letter of application was being impressed with your major and minor. Having a team member majoring in psychology and minoring in creative writing will be a great way to round out a team with two science and one arts degree. I was also impressed by your volunteer and professional work where you would manage staff and act as a caseworker, and of course your career aspirations in publishing or editing is another point in your favour for an already strong consideration.

Please see my attached letter of application, and feel free to contact me if you accept my invitation to my professional writing group.

Sincerely,

Brent Hanover

Hi Jennifer,

I’d like to extend you an invitation to my professional writing group for English 301. After viewing your blog and reading your application letter, I decided that you would be a great addition to the team.

I first noticed that you are also pursuing a second degree in computer science. This demonstrates a hardworking and dedicated character and I know that you would bring an excellent work ethic to our projects. Another strong aspect of your application letter was demonstrating that you have your initial degree in English; having a member with a degree in English to help round out those of us with degrees in science and applied science is a fantastic way to diversify our group.

If you are interested in joining the group, please don’t hesitate to reach out via email. Please see my attached application letter for reference.

Kind regards,

Brent Hanover

Hi Henry,

I’d like to extend to you an invitation to join my professional writing group for English 301. I reviewed your blog and read your application letter, and have decided that you would be an excellent addition to the team.

I first noticed that you previously completed a bachelor’s degree in biology and are now studying for a second degree in computer science. This demonstrates a studious work ethic and a dedicated character. Your real world experience working as a software developer shows that you understand the importance of technical communication in a professional context.

Please see my attached application letter for reference, and feel free to contact me with your decision on joining the group.

Regards,

Brent Hanover

To my classmates of English 301:

Please consider my application for acceptance into your professional writing team for the duration of the semester. I graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering from UBC in 2015 and have come back for a second degree in computer science with an anticipated graduation date of December 2020.

When I was studying for my first degree I worked in the University of British Columbia Earthquake Engineering Research Facility as a research assistant. In my time there I assisted in laboratory testing and prepared techincal reports for the professional engineers.  Since graduation I have worked as a manufacturing engineer at Philips where I have developed manufacturing processes, implemented waste reduction initiatives, and established communication lines between departments. This experience, combined with my studies as a mechanical engineer, has given me a technical and practical understanding of what it takes to be a skilled writer.

My interest in technical communication not only comes from my technical background, but it also stems from my real world experience. It is extremely important to have communication skills that will set you apart from other prospective applicants in job searches. Quite often the only thing that sets a person apart from another resume in a pile is how they’ve presented themselves in their CV, so it is quite a vital life skill to have skillfully honed communication skills.

If you find my skillset suitable for partnership in this course, please feel free to contact me at brenthanover@gmail.com.

Sincerely,

Brent Hanover