This Engl301 Technical Writing course has been extremely beneficial and I am very grateful for the opportunity to learn technical communication skills that are vital to my professional and academic career. In the following, I begin by reviewing all of my assignments from the four modules, reflecting on the purpose and meaning of each assignment in the context of the course content as a whole. I then summarise the strengths and weaknesses of my technical collaboration and the progress I have made during my studies. Finally, I reflected on what the course meant to me and how I would use the content I had learned in the future.

The assignments for this course can be roughly divided into two main components: the main line of content that is being done concurrently with the aim of completing the final project, and other professional writing skills. I began to realize the importance of scoping in professional writing by practicing the three methods of definition in Unit 1, and this gave me a general idea of the topic of the project in Unit 2. The initial goal of developing a proposal is to define the research question and scope. My past experience of writing reports has enabled me to quickly scope the content of a report, but my ability to extract key information when faced with the vast amount of content available on the web could be improved. In addition, learning about LinkedIn skills in this module was a real eye-opener for me. Social media is much more important to the workplace than I had thought. In the future, I will not only focus on my job, but also on using social media and other online resources to help others understand and communicate with each other. In Unit 3 I refined my proposal further by adding a timeline, research methods, and speculation on the results, and then completed the full report. The report process was largely within my control, but the sample size collected from the survey was much lower than I had expected. This was particularly frightening at first, but fortunately, the sample size from the online survey increased after the initial draft report was completed. In the future, I will strengthen my management of survey results and consider the possible outcomes from multiple perspectives to reduce the negative impact of uncertainty on the project. I found that I was able to clearly articulate my claim as a customer in the complaint and response letter writing exercise, but it was difficult to respond to that claim as a manager. This is a result of my lack of understanding of the scope of my role and I need to improve my understanding of my profession and the company.

The peer review that has been a constant part of the project-related assignments has been very supportive. On the one hand, I was able to read others’ work and see what strengths I could learn from, and on the other hand, I was able to give my own advice on the weaknesses of the group members. It was a virtuous circle of behavior.

Overall I am satisfied with my control of the content and the writing process, but diction has always been my weakness and will need a lot of practice in the future. Also, I need to manage the uncontrollable factors better to prevent them from disrupting my overall writing plan. In the future I plan to do research and work on environmental remote sensing after I finish my computing degree.I believe that the knowledge gained in the Engl301 Technical Writing course will be crucial to my future research and communication with other academics.

I am very grateful for the guidance and feedback on my work from Dr. Erika Paterson and members of my writing team throughout the semester. This information has helped me to understand the most professional technical writing techniques, and the feedback from readers from a variety of professional backgrounds has helped me to not write behind closed doors. I will keep this way of thinking in my future academic life and keep practicing it. Thank you all so much!

In Unit 4 of the Engl301 Technical Writing course, students will assemble a portfolio of online assignments submitted throughout the course culminating in a web portfolio. This is the final assignment completed in the course and is used to showcase all of the content that students have completed.

This is certainly one of the more difficult assignments, although I didn’t think so at first. When I really started to organise all the work I realised that I was struggling to remember the content and the thinking that went into some of the assignments at the beginning. I had to work with my recorded reflections and previous outlines to recall some of the things I had learned while working on them. At this point I realised how important a job it is to record reflections and outlines, as no one will always remember these experiences.

But I really enjoyed the process of creating the portfolio, not only did it help me to remember what I had done all over again, but it also gave me new insights. Looking back at everything I’ve done in a few months and tying it all together has given me a clearer sense of my strengths and weaknesses and how I’ve progressed in my writing over the semester. The task of presenting such a piece of work also helped me to remember the effort I had put in to achieve the results.

I think of the online portfolio as a personal showcase of my work. It is important to have a creative design that is relevant to my professional background. As an environmental practitioner, I chose my own photographs of mountains and rivers as the background. The photo was taken in the National Forest where I used to work. I hope you will get a vague idea of where and what I work on from the first moment you enter the website through the atmosphere created by the portfolio.

All in all, it was a particularly rewarding and challenging piece of work to round off my Engl301 technical writing course0

In the third unit of the Engl301 Technical Writing course, students are required to organize and analyze the information collected after completing an interview or survey and use it to create the first draft of a formal report. In my project, I first distributed a survey on the Guixi community’s website through the Survey Mondky survey tool, and then organized and analyzed all the primary data collected. Finally, based on the conclusions of the data analysis, I made recommendations to the Chengdu Urban Planning Institute for road planning.

I was less confident in the early stages of preparing the first draft report because most of the data collection was not completed by the deadline. I received far fewer survey responses than I had expected (63,096 people living in the Guixi community, but I included less than 100 total data collected from the forum and from random interviews). I was afraid that the lack of sample size would lead my analysis to deviate too much from the reality. So I left the questionnaire window open for now and went ahead to finish writing the background information and methodology sections of the draft report.

Compared to that, writing the report was actually relatively easy for me. I had already completed the search for information and the construction of the basic content in the second module and created the outline of the report from it. At the same time, however, the sheer volume of information presented new difficulties for me in writing the report. I had to consolidate and compress all the information and put it all together in one report. In response, I revisited the purpose of my report and tried to put myself in the shoes of my target audience. Writing becomes easier when the central idea of the report are clear.

After completing the first part, I was surprised to find that the sample size of the online survey reached nearly 100, and started to organize and analyze the collected data using an Excel sheet. In order to increase the visualization of the distribution and trends of the sample data, I created some charts during the analysis. The combination of graphs and text makes the report more vivid and can reflect the key points of the problem more directly.

In addition, I found that peer review was actually more important than I thought. Although my partner Daniel and I had completely different topics, I also benefited from the process of reviewing his report. By reading his report carefully, I found that the logical structure of his report was very clear and the language was concise and unobtrusive. Compared with him, I need to strengthen this part. But at the same time, I also found some shortcomings in his report. These common mistakes in the report also reminded me where I need to strengthen my precautions in my future writing.

Overall it was an intensive but rewarding unit. I will summarize all the lessons learned and make final revisions to the report in the coming week.

Appendix 1：Formal Report First Draft

Appendix 2: Peer Review 

In Unit 2 of Technical Writing 301, our task involved creating a profile through LinkedIn and building our own social network on the platform. In addition, we prepared a proposal and outline for our final report. Through these studies, I realized that setting the right goals, finding the right audience, and organizing cordial time management is crucial for all types of tasks in the workplace. Building good social networks with others helps us achieve our goals while deepening and broadening our knowledge boundaries.

Even though I already had and set up my own LinkedIn account, I still gained a lot from the first part of the LinkedIn exercise. On the one hand, I realized the many resources and opportunities that LinkedIn offers to Job Seekers, and on the other hand, it provides a way for users to learn relevant expertise. It is not only a platform for displaying personal information as I once thought, but it is also able to push various kinds of information according to keywords, thus establishing a connection between job seekers and relevant companies. The basic profile page for both parties also provides an easy and quick way for both parties to review the basic profile. In addition, LinkedIn can also enhance our knowledge base by pushing us various expertise based on the core terms of career and interest. And it provides us with the opportunity to interact with relevant professionals. As a result, I realized some of the deficiencies in my current LinkedIn account page and made some corrections to them. I will continue to follow LinkedIn news and update my profile to try to connect with more professionals.

I found the task of creating a report proposal in Unit 2 to be more challenging than in Unit 1, as it was not clear to me at the beginning what kind of formal report would be appropriate for the topic I had chosen. I needed to brainstorm for a short period of time what parts I would need to cover in the final, complete report. I found the instructor’s section on questionnaire design to be very instructive. This way of writing the questionnaire can significantly reduce the psychological burden of the questionnaire on the respondents and thus increase the response rate.

Secondly, what I need to do is not to criticize the authors, but to give some advice on writing techniques for their works. But it was difficult for me to write feedback to my peers in a simple, direct and professional tone, and this assignment was a good exercise for me. At the same time, the feedback from my peers on my report proposal was very innovative. The multi-faceted analysis of my project proposal helped me to understand the strengths and weaknesses of my work so that I could make more targeted improvements to it. In particular, they pointed out the lack of detail in my research methods and the lack of clear references. Inadequate preparation in the early stage of thinking may cause difficulties in data collection in the later stage, which directly makes the plan impossible to implement. I think it is important to learn and practice how to express all the information in simple language in a complete and clear way in this course.

At the end, identify exactly what I need to do at what point in time to complete the report and organize it into a timeline. This breaks down my work into manageable steps, which can greatly ease my anxiety about completing the report at the end of the semester.

Appendix 1: Revised Report Proposal Formal Report Proposal：https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-99a-2021wa/2021/10/15/85813/

Appendix 2: Report Outline：https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-99a-2021wa/2021/10/29/23-assignment%ef%bc%9aformal-report-outline-for-guixi-park/

To: Kitty Yan <yanchorki@gmail.com>

From: Kitty Yan <yanchorki@gmail.com>

Date: Thursday, September 23, 2021

To: Kitty Yan

From: Coco Chen

Subject: ENGL301 Writing Team Invitation

Hi Kitty,

Thank you so much for your invitation, I would love to form a Writing Team with you this semester.

After reading your application letter I found that you are an aspiring researcher. I admire your contribution to the community. Your meticulous social research of over 27,000 residents convinces me that you are a serious and responsible researcher. And our similar interdisciplinary learning experience makes me very excited for future collaboration and communication. I believe your experience in writing research manuals has given you the skills to write key information which can be combined with my information extraction skills to produce a quality report.

Thank you once again for your invitation. I am very looking forward to working with you this semester.

Best

Coco Chen

To:  Zoe <zoemaika@student.ubc.ca>

From: Coco Chen <mengxichen1997@gmail.com>

Date: Thursday, September 23, 2021

To: Zoe Maika

From: Coco Chen

Subject: ENGL301 Writing Team Invitation

I was delighted to read your application letter on your blog, and I wanted to extend an invitation to you to join me, Kitty, and Karen to form a writing team. Eight years of post-secondary education in Arts and Sciences must have given you a unique writing perspective on writing. I have had similar experiences writing reports for the government and would love to have a discussion with you in this area. Based on this, I believe we could work well together.

If you are interested, please let me know. I will attach my application letter for your reference.

Best regards

Encl.Engl301_CocoChen_ApplicationLetter

Coco Chen

53535150

MEMORANDUM

To: Dr. Erika Paterson, Instructor ENGL 301 Technical Writing UBC
From: Coco Chen, Student ENGL 301 Technical Writing UBC
Date: September 20th, 2021
Subject: Letter of Application Posted

I have posted my application letter to my blog in accordance with the course requirements. Please refer to the attachment of this email for details.

The Letter of Application includes:

1. My interest in forming a professional writing team.
2. An overview of my personal experience and work experience as well as a brief description of my personal writing skills.
3. My personal work habits and study philosophy
4. An overview of my strengths and weaknesses in writing and work habits

Please let me know if you need any other information.

Enclosure:Engl301_CocoChen_ApplicationLetter

1697 Marine Drive,
Vancouver, BC, V6T1Z3

September 20^th, 2021

English 301: Technical Writing Class
University of British Columbia
2329 West Mall
Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z4

Dear ENGL301 Colleagues:

I am a first-year BCS student who is taking this class and would like to find like-minded classmates to work together as a professional writing team to complete the writing assignments for the semester. I hope to increase my written communication skills by working together throughout the semester.

Programming is an important skill I am learning, and I am constantly refining my thinking skills through the studies and practice. Prior to joining BCS, I worked on environmental-related research and work. And I plan to work on environmental risk model development in the future. Prior to joining BCS, I worked on environmental-related research and work, and I plan to work on environmental risk model development in the future. As a former Forest technician, I often e-mailed my supervisors and colleagues to report on their work. Remote communication via email is necessary for us as the staff has to summarize the situation in their respective areas at different locations and thus needs to develop master planning standards that meet the development needs of the area in general. The accumulation of these reporting tasks allows me to efficiently extract and summarize effective information. In my role as an environmental consultant, I have written many reports and plans for government agencies. Writing emergency reports has helped me to develop my writing skills, so that I can quickly grasp key information to form the overall structure of an article.

As a lifelong learner, I am eager to interact with people from different backgrounds and with different perspectives to improve my own shortcomings. I am good at recognizing my deficiencies through constant reflection and actively correcting them.

As a non-native speaker of English, I may have some problems with my grammar. But I usually finish my drafts a few days in advance and revise them several times before the actual due date. I am open to criticism, and I would appreciate any suggestions people might have for my writing. I enjoy learning from the strengths of my colleagues during discussions, as writing is an important communication skill in modern society while learning to write is a process of refining my language.

Thank you so much for your consideration. If you are interested in my proposal, please feel free to contact me via my email: mengxichen1997@gmail.com.

Sincerely,

Coco Chen

Enclosure: Engl301_CocoChen_ApplicationLetter

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