During the course of my academic career, I have frequently prepared presentations and reports to communicate with experts within the field. This definition assignment was a great exercise that helped me learn the strategies involved in communicating to a non-technical audience. From doing this exercise, I learned the difference in levels of detail between a parenthetical, sentence and expanded definition. In addition to understanding the different types of definitions and when each should be used, I also practiced using definition expansion strategies such as etymology, examples, visuals and operating principle. From reading my peer’s definition, I realized the effectiveness of these strategies in guiding a non-technical audience to understand a technical term. As a reader with limited computing background, I was able to follow my peer’s definition of shell because of the expansion strategies he implemented.
My reviewer, Vincent, provided constructive feedback for my definition and pointed out the errors I have made in my writing. He showed me areas where I lacked clarity such as the use of the term “embryo” and corrected my grammatical mistakes. From reviewing Vincent’s work, I also realized some of the change suggestions I made for him can also be applied for me. I noticed that both of us lacked a conclusion in our writing and did not explain some jargons clearly. The peer review process and the feedback really helped me break down the areas of my writing which needed work, and also showed me areas which I have done well in. I did a good job organizing the contents of the expanded definition in a logical order which made it easy for the reader to follow but I need work on limiting use of jargons and explaining jargons for non-technical audiences.
In my edited version, I expanded on the term embryo for audiences with limited medical terminology. This was an excellent suggestion by the reviewer as it is very likely that a non-technical audience would not be familiar with the term embryo. I have also added a conclusion which summarized the objective of the writing and the definition strategies implemented in my writing. I believe the addition of a conclusion really helps complete the structure of the writing and demonstrates the key points of the writing to the audience.
Overall, this week’s lesson helped me understand the importance of knowing your audience and how to write thinking from a reader’s perspective. The peer review was a useful learning tool as critiquing my peers helped me realize my own weaknesses as well.
To see my revised defintion, please click English 301 Definition revised.
The peer review provided by Vincent of my defintion is seen here.
The peer reviewed provided by me of Vincent’s definition is seen here.