Researching, organizing, and writing the formal report draft proved to be quite challenging for me. For this assignment, there were several issues I had come across that could have been avoided, as well as issues that came unforeseen.
Even though I had a research schedule planned weeks in advance, I was struggling to follow the deadlines I had set for myself. For this assignment, time management was essential in doing well. Because of a misunderstanding that I had encountered with the ENGL 301 site’s navigation, which resulted in a re-do of my proposal and planning, a lot of my scheduling had to be postponed. As I work 40hrs a week, there were only certain days where I could complete my research, and it became difficult to complete everything according to schedule.
I also noticed that my original planned format for my report had changed drastically by the time I had completed the rough draft. There were several unforeseen issues that I had come across, including altering several of my survey questions to make sure the research I was conducting was relevant to my report. From this experience, I learned that I had to think much further ahead to exactly how I was going to structure my report, and then work backwards to brainstorm the specific questions that were going to be relevant to my work.
Peer reviewing is one of my favourite assignments in this course. I am able to learn from my peer’s writing style and improve my own writing. This time, I had the pleasure of reading Yuta’s report and study how he writes in the “You” style. While giving him suggestions to improve his work, I made sure to also learn from how he structures his paragraphs, and how he organizes his words. One thing he had done differently from me was his use of sub-headings. While I had one general heading for each category (Introduction, Data, Conclusion), he had various sub-headings under each of those major headings so that it was easy to navigate through each piece of information. From what I have learned from seeing his example, I hope to incorporate it into my own writing to perfect the final draft of this report.