Cody Gagnon’s ENGL 301 Blog

At the beginning of this semester, I had little experience with conducting surveys and writing formal reports. Luckily, I had recently done both tasks in CPSC 344 Introduction to Human Computer Interaction, so I was not completely unprepared. Yet, I felt a little intimidated when preparing and posting my survey to social networks, especially when my requests for participants went unanswered. I have written a few formal reports before, but they still feel a little unfamiliar to me. With some hard work and the help of my peer reviewer and Dr. Erika Paterson, I think it has come together alright.

I also had little experience writing for the web. I had written a blog post only once before. I am happy that my reflections for units one through three have been well received.

Writing peer reviews presented me with some challenges. As a former college professor and writing consultant, I have considerable experience with providing constructive criticism. However, I had little experience providing such detailed criticism in writing. Phrasing criticism delicately and couching it in compliments requires practice. I believe that I have improved in this area over the course of the semester.

When I lost marks on assignments, failing to edit out pronouns was most often the reason. I am now more aware of when and how I use pronouns in my writing.

Overall, I am very confident in my writing, as I feel I should be, given my professional experience and education. I believe that strong communication skills are invaluable. My ability to write persuasively and to convey my intended meaning accurately has helped me countless times in the past and will assuredly help me countless times in the future.

Communication skills are particularly valuable in software development, my chosen industry, because software is most often developed in teams. When working in a team, to communicate effectively, one must consider the various personalities and perspectives of one’s teammates. I believe that this is especially true when working remotely, as I have been doing since March. When working remotely, more communication is written than would be otherwise. Moreover, developing software involves writing technical documentation, which presents a unique set of challenges. By its nature, technical documentation must be detailed and precise. To incorporate an appropriate level of detail, technical documentation must consider its readers, who may vary greatly in their subject knowledge. Thankfully, ENGL 301 has provided me with some practice in these areas.

ENGL 301 has kept me busy this summer. With my writing team, The Ramblers, I have produced a sizable stack of documents in a short period of time. I would like to offer my thanks to Dr. Erika Paterson and to each of The Ramblers for the critical feedback that they have provided me.

Creating this web folio provided me with an opportunity to revisit and revise past assignments, which is an important and undervalued aspect of writing. Writing is an iterative process that involves repeated drafting and editing to produce a final, polished document. I hold an Honours Bachelor of Arts in English literature, but I have taken very few courses that place as much emphasis on the writing process as ENGL 301 Technical Writing as taught by Dr. Erika Paterson.

Over the course of the semester, I have had to write six peer reviews, each of which served as an opportunity to reflect on my own writing. Of course, I have also read six peer reviews of my writing, which has provided me with insight into errors and opportunities for improvement. In addition, I have had to write five reflections, which again underscores the importance of thoughtfully considering one’s writing. Given the focus on drafting, reviewing, and reflecting in ENGL 301, creating a web folio seems a natural and appropriate end to the course.

As a software developer, I have wanted for some time to create a professional website to showcase my work. Having created this web folio, I feel a little closer to that goal, as I have now produced much of the content that I would like to feature on my own website. By creating my own website, I could use the website itself as evidence of my ability to work with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Creating this web folio has given me a better idea of how I might structure my own website. I hope to work on this personal project soon.

The summer semester and Unit 3 of ENGL 301 Technical Writing are both coming to an end, so I am writing another reflection blog to tell you about my experience researching, organizing, and writing the first draft of my formal report.

I had some difficulty recruiting participants for my survey. I posted a link to the survey in a Facebook group and a Piazza page for students in my program (Bachelor of Computer Science), but neither post seemed to attract any attention. Luckily, when I asked friends at UBC directly, quite a lot of them completed the survey. I also emailed 16 of my past and present professors with a link to the survey, and I was pleasantly surprised that half of them promptly completed it. In total, 21 students and eight faculty members completed the survey.

I am glad that I asked numerous open-ended questions in my survey, because they yielded terrific and sometimes richly detailed responses that I could not have anticipated. However, tallying information from these written responses to create quantitative data was a chore. In retrospect, I could have included some multi-select questions to lighten my analytical workload. I also wish that I had asked whether students and faculty members would prefer digital tools to be collected and accessible via a central learning management system. As I wrote the first draft of my formal report, this question became increasingly important. Luckily, I asked other related questions that help to mitigate the absence of a more direct question. Finally, I am glad that I asked survey participants to identify as either students or faculty members, because some of the data collected revealed disparities between the two groups.

While conducting secondary research, I fortunately stumbled upon UBC’s Learning Technology Ecosystem: Developing a Shared Vision, Blueprint & Roadmap. This document included important information that became central to my formal report. Having discovered this document, I decided to pivot away from my original plan of researching scholarly journal articles and learning management systems used by other leading universities. Instead, I focused my secondary research on official UBC websites, the student newspaper (The Ubyssey), and r/UBC (an online community of UBC students, staff, and faculty members).

In organizing my formal report, I was surprised that my initial outline, submitted on July 8, changed as much as it did. From the Introduction, I eliminated definitions, histories, and descriptions with which my intended audience (the User Committee within the Learning Technology Hub) would no doubt be familiar. I also reorganized the Data and Analysis section to better reflect the structure of my survey.

I enjoyed reviewing Geneviève Bolduc’s formal report draft, as it helped me to reflect on my own report. For example, I learned that I should not include an Audience section in the Introduction of my report. My review of Geneviève’s formal report draft is quite long, like the report itself, but the extra effort will be worthwhile if it helps her to make revisions. I am looking forward to revising my own formal report and completing Unit 4 of ENGL 301 Technical Writing.

As we are now in week 10 of the semester, and as it has been more than a month since I posted my last reflection, I would like to share a few thoughts about my experience in ENGL 301 Technical Writing. In week eight, I had the opportunity to review and update my LinkedIn profile. My LinkedIn profile was already mostly complete, but I updated my headline to include my current role and I added an About section. For several years, I avoided writing an About section, because I made a major career change at the end of 2016. Until now, it has been difficult to summarize my education and work experience in a coherent and positive manner. I am happy that four years after leaving a career in teaching to pursue a career in software development, my past and present experience finally seem to make sense. I am also happy to report that, according to LinkedIn, I have now completed enough profile sections to be considered an “all star.” I think that the changes and additions that I made to my LinkedIn profile could help me to find my first job as a graduate, which now seems tantalizingly close.

In week six, I submitted my formal report proposal. For my subject, I chose to investigate how UBC’s Learning Management System could be improved to create a better user experience for remote teaching and learning. I am glad that the progress report assignment prompted me to create a writing schedule. I am now keenly aware that the next few weeks will be extraordinarily busy. I am a little concerned about my primary and secondary research plan. My survey may not draw many respondents and I may not be able to find many scholarly journal articles on the subject of remote teaching and learning. Following my writing schedule, I should have an answer to the latter concern by the end of the coming weekend. I hope that my research is successful.

In my review of Geneviève Bolduc’s formal report proposal, which I submitted in week seven, I offered suggestions regarding audience considerations, metaphorical or figurative language, formatting, consistency, commas, word choice, and content. I know that good grammar, sentence structure, and precise expression of meaning are not valued by all people equally, but I believe that these are important considerations, and I hope that Geneviève found my suggestions helpful.

Geneviève’s review of my formal report proposal was brief, but offered a couple helpful suggestions and reemphasized areas for improvement that Professor Paterson had identified. You can download my revised formal report proposal here.

I think that the peer review process is very valuable. An author’s peers are often able to notice small errors or other considerations that the author may have overlooked, despite repeated proofreading. I am looking forward to receiving more feedback on my writing from my peers. And I am looking forward to unit three! You can look for my next reflection blog post here on Monday, August 10.

Having completed the first unit of ENGL 301 Technical Writing, I would like to offer a few thoughts on my experience in the course so far. This past week, my writing team and I worked on an assignment for which we wrote three different definitions of a technical word specific to each of our chosen professions. If you are interested in reading our definitions, you can find my writing team’s page here: https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-98a-2020sa/category/team-forum/the-ramblers/.

For my assignment, I chose to define the word agile, because I had difficulty understanding exactly what it meant when I first began studying computer science. If you are unfamiliar with the term, you can find my revised definition of agile here: https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-98a-2020sa/2020/06/12/revised-definition-of-agile/ or here. Agile is an often-used word in software development, but it is implemented in a wide variety of ways, so it can seem to mean different things to different people. What’s more, terms such as Scrum are sometimes used interchangeably with agile in casual conversation, which can make the true meaning of agile even trickier to grasp. Unhappy with the word’s seeming ambiguity, I thought I would seize this opportunity to pinpoint its meaning for myself, and possibly help students new to the field of computer science in the process.

Geneviève Bolduc’s review (https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-98a-2020sa/2020/06/09/peer-review-for-cody-gagnon/) of my assignment was very helpful, because she suggested that I might improve my definition by explaining that agile was developed as a response to the limitations of the waterfall approach to project management. Initially, I chose to exclude historical information about the development of the agile methodology, because practicing agile does not require knowledge of its history. However, Geneviève’s suggestion made me realize that I could include a little history without going into great detail. In addition, I now recall a lecture that focused on the agile methodology in CPSC 310 Introduction to Software Engineering; the lecture included historical information about agile and waterfall, which I found helpful at the time. I think that my intended audience (first- and second-year computer science students) will likely find it helpful, too.

I hope that my review of Geneviève’s assignment was helpful to her. I found it challenging to provide constructive criticism in writing and I hope that I have avoided causing offense by being indelicate. As a former Writing Consultant at UBC’s Centre for Writing and Scholarly Communication (CWSC), I would have much preferred to discuss the written draft with its writer. At the CWSC, I would meet one-on-one with students to discuss their writing in half-hour time slots, which provided the opportunity to consider together the possible approaches to the subject at hand. Unfortunately, discussion and conversation are, of course, not possible in a written peer review. However, I tried throughout my review of Geneviève’s draft to emphasize that I was offering suggestions and opinions and nothing more.

All in all, I found the exercise useful, because it has exposed a weakness in my writing of which I was formerly unaware. I hope to improve my ability to provide constructive criticism in writing before the course ends.

Subject: Team Formation Proposal

To: Siddhartha Gupta

Dear Siddhartha,

I am interested in forming a team with you in our ENGL 301 Technical Writing course. I think that your teamwork experience and technical writing skills would be an asset to our team.

If you accept this proposal, I believe that we will work well together, because I, too, learn best when I engage in debate and discussion. I think that an open and honest approach to discussion is essential to successful collaboration. I believe that your experience working on team projects and using business communication platforms will be invaluable. As we are both computer science students, we may have a lot in common; like you, I also enjoy solving algorithm problems on LeetCode.

If you would like to learn more about me, you may find my letter of application attached. Please let me know if you are interested in forming a group together. I hope to hear from you soon.

Thank you,

Cody Gagnon

301 Cody Gagnon Application Letter

Subject: Team Formation Proposal

To: Geneviève Bolduc

Dear Geneviève,

I am interested in forming a team with you in our ENGL 301 Technical Writing course. I think that your teamwork experience and dependability would be an asset to our team.

If you accept this proposal, I believe that we will work well together, because we are both students in the Bachelor of Computer Science program and we are both at a similar junction in our lives. Beyond our similar educational and career aspirations, I believe that we may have a lot in common. For example, I love standup comedy and I try to attend shows whenever possible (although I have never produced one!).

If you would like to learn more about me, you may find my letter of application attached. Please let me know if you are interested in forming a group together. I hope to hear from you soon.

Thank you,

Cody Gagnon

301 Cody Gagnon Application Letter

Subject: Team Formation Proposal

To: Matthew Shen

Dear Matthew,

I am interested in forming a team with you in our ENGL 301 Technical Writing course. I think that your experience in business research and writing would be an asset to our team.

If you accept this proposal, I believe that we will work well together, because we both have experience in business and we both value organization and attention to detail. Although we work in different industries, I think that we may have a lot in common. For example, in describing your learning philosophy, you emphasize the importance of “discovering and paying attention to constraints.” Consideration of constraints is an important aspect of computer science, which is my field of study.

If you would like to learn more about me, you may find my letter of application attached. Please let me know if you are interested in forming a group together. I hope to hear from you soon.

Thank you,

Cody Gagnon

301 Cody Gagnon Application Letter

Memorandum

To:                       Dr. Erika Paterson, Sessional Lecturer, Department of English Language and Literatures, University of British Columbia

From:                  Cody Gagnon, ENGL 301 98A Student

Date:                   May 22, 2020

Subject:              Application Letter

As requested, I have written a letter of application for the position of Professional Writing Team Member.

The purpose of the application letter is to:

• Summarize my professional experience, academic achievements, and volunteer involvement.
• Communicate my writing accomplishments and strengths.
• Describe my learning philosophy and work habits.

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments. Thank you in advance for reviewing this document.

Encl. 301 Cody Gagnon Application Letter

Cody Gagnon

123 My Street

Vancouver, BC V6T 1A1

May 22, 2020

ENGL 301 98A Students

123 Your Street

Vancouver, BC V6T 1A1

Dear Classmates:

I am writing to apply for the position of Professional Writing Team Member, which was recently posted to the ENGL 301 98A Blog on UBC Blogs.

I am a Software Developer and a fourth-year student in the Bachelor of Computer Science (BCS) program at the University of British Columbia (UBC). This semester, I am working remotely with a team of graduate students at the Centre for Digital Media to build an educational mobile game for children. Recently, I completed an eight-month internship as a Full-Stack Software Developer with a startup software-as-a-service (SaaS) company. In my spare time, I volunteer as a Project Lead with the Code the Change Foundation. During the 2019-2020 academic year, I led a team of five developers to build a web application for a local nonprofit organization.

Prior to enrolling in the BCS program, I was a Professor in the School of Business at Centennial College where I taught business communications. In this course, I taught professional writing skills, interpersonal communication skills, public speaking and presentation skills, and the preparation of business documents. More recently, I worked as a Writing Consultant at UBC’s Centre for Writing and Scholarly Communication. In this position, I helped students to develop their writing process, offered revision-focused feedback on written drafts, and taught students practical strategies for proofreading and revising their writing. In addition, I hold a certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and an Honours Bachelor of Arts in English literature from the University of Toronto.

I approach life and learning with curiosity. I ask a lot of questions and I aim to thoroughly understand new concepts. I have a growth mindset and I believe that learning is more dependent on hard work than innate intelligence. I also believe that learning often involves failure. As a former educator, I enjoy sharing the lessons that I have learned with others.

Regarding work habits, I do my best to stay organized, manage time effectively, and communicate clearly with my teammates. I keep a weekly to-do list, I track deadlines with a four-month wall calendar, and I schedule meetings and other commitments in my Google Calendar. I enable notifications for all communication platforms on my phone and I strive to respond promptly to any messages that I receive. When communicating in writing, I strive for clarity by using complete sentences and plenty of emojis to compensate for the lack of tone, body gestures, and facial expressions. During working hours, I am always happy to chat on a video call.

I believe that I am a strong candidate for this position. Thank you in advance for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Respectfully,

Cody Gagnon

cody.gagnon@alumni.ubc.ca

Encl. 301 Cody Gagnon Application Letter