Formal Report Draft

In Unit 3, we conducted research to organize and write out formal report draft based on the proposal and outline written in Unit 2.

Conducting the research was quite enjoyable as it consisted of sending out surveys to fellow UBC students. It was very interesting to learn about the view points and perspectives of my peers regarding a topic I am passionate about. In my personal experience, including a short blurb mentioning the survey will only take a few minutes greatly helps with turnaround time. This proved to be true as most surveys were returned within a day of the survey being sent out. Upon reviewing the survey results, I learned that multiple choice questions were more effective at generating interesting data than custom user input questions. While each participant answered every multiple choice question, two-thirds of participants opted to not answer the one custom user input question regarding why they did not always participate in student evaluations. This made it more difficult to collect comprehensive data and apply the findings to a broader population of students. In the future, I would compose this question in a multiple choice style and have respondents choose the best answer for them. Although this style of question may limit the range of responses, most respondents will be more likely to answer the question in the first place.

The process of composing the first draft of the formal report was mostly straightforward. Having done the previous work from the outline, progress report, and the proposal, I had a solid sense of direction on what tasks needed to be completed and how to organize the report. However, the secondary research section took much longer to draft than expected. This was mainly because in Unit 2 I had planned on exploring more topics than I could reasonably discuss in the literature section of the formal report. Additionally, since I had proposed literature review topics before deeply investigating the range of papers in this field, it was difficult to find reliable, peer-reviewed sources regarding some of my initial topics such as determining the style of evaluation at each Canadian university. As a result, I had to deviate from the planned outline and focus the scope of my research to generate a simpler structure that would better support the survey results and interpretation.

Peer Review

In the peer review, I organized my review by going through the formal report draft section-by-section and providing feedback on specific sections. As my team member’s report was missing a few essential components such as the title and conclusion, I was able to provide some suggestions that would hopefully remind him to include these sections in his final formal report.

The peer review process was once again very helpful to identifying areas of improvement in my own report. During this review, I found myself referring to the peer review criteria to edit my formal draft, ensuring I had each component of the report and that it was readable and well-organized.

The peer review of the formal report was also very helpful for cementing the concept of maintaining a YOU attitude in professional writing. As I was able to quickly identify potential areas for correction for my team member, I will be sure to use this skill to aid me in revising my own work for the final formal report.

ENGL 301 Catherine Yu Formal Report Draft

Unit 2 consisted of a variety of assignments that allowed students to expand on existing technical writing abilities and gain new skills in other forms of professional communication such as networking and report-writing. This unit also marked the beginning of creating our formal report. 

LinkedIn

To begin, part of Unit 2 was researching techniques for professional networking and building a professional LinkedIn profile. In this age of social media, creating a public LinkedIn profile is almost essential for building a professional social network and connecting with recruiters and like-minded peers. Although I had previously created a LinkedIn profile, I was not consistently updating my experiences and had not used it as a tool to network and seek job opportunities. After researching and reading tips from other students, I realized the importance of keeping an up-to-date profile and identified several components of my profile that I could improve on. Some of the improvements I made were to use the STAR (situation, task, action, result) method when sharing work experience and to add an engaging ‘About’ section that introduced our professional interests.

The first step to completing the formal report included brainstorming and identifying an inefficiency in a public setting, such as a workplace, volunteer, or community organization. As a 4th year Microbiology & Immunology student, I am very familiar with current student perceptions of the teaching evaluation process and the limitations of term-end surveys. I have consistently heard from peers, as well as personally felt, that term-end evaluations did not benefit student learning and have witnessed a decline in interest in participating in term-end evaluations. Initially, I had some hesitation selecting this topic because I was aware that low completion rates for term-end evaluations have become a university-wide issue but I was not sure if adjusting the timing of  evaluations would be sufficient to address such a significant problem. 

After generating a formal report proposal, we were tasked to produce a formal report outline and a progress report memo. Designing survey questions for the formal report was quite a challenging process. It was surprisingly difficult to compose engaging survey questions without unintentionally inserting personal biases. The Instructor’s Blog was a very informative resource for learning how to compose positive, non-leading questions that would still provoke thoughtful insights from survey-takers. Overall, I am very pleased with the progress of the formal report as I am able to adhere to deadlines and apply feedback from Dr. Paterson and my writing team to consistently refine my writing. After receiving approval from Dr. Paterson, I immediately sent out the survey to study participants and am on track to complete primary data analysis by the date outlined in my progress report.

Peer Review

The peer review process has been very beneficial due to the insight gathered from peers and the exposure to different writing styles. Having another set of eyes has been incredibly helpful in identifying errors and refining our writing. For example, Jenny’s review of my research proposal highlighted several grammatical improvements that would increase the readability and professionalism of my report. Working in a writing team has also allowed me to become a better self-editor. After reading Jenny’s research proposal, I was impressed by the amount of detail she provided and went back to my own proposal to further elaborate on my ideas. By reading other students’ submissions, I was able to learn from my peers and adopt effective writing tips and tricks that I could use to improve my own assignments. I have been most surprised by the diversity of experiences that my peers were able to gain during their time at UBC, and how the differences in everyone’s background could impact our writing styles. Collectively, I believe that the peer review process has made me a more knowledgeable and detail-oriented writer. 

With this said, Unit 2 was incredibly informative and I look forward to the final two units of this course.

301 Catherine Yu Revised Report Proposal 

Jenny Li’s Peer Review