First Draft of the Technical Definition
Assignment 1.3 of ENGL 301 aimed to practice writing techniques for both definitions and peer reviews. The task was to write a technical definition of a term related to students’ discipline or profession while targeting an audience of non-technical readers. As an English Literature student, I have learned how to write effectively and execute solid research—two skills that I found increasingly helpful for this assignment; however, I oftentimes found myself falling into literary writing habits rather than the required technical approach. Since the term Romanticism is from a humanities discipline that relates to creative expression, it was difficult to explain the term in a straightforward manner and present its ideas with conciseness. Setting a situation beforehand helped to contextualize the challenge of explaining Romanticism to an individual that is unfamiliar with the term; this forced me to think about my term through a technical lens. The learning of three different types of definitions that are used to explain a term—such as a parenthetical, sentence, and an expanded definition—was exceedingly useful. This allowed me to limit the wordiness that I tend to exert while writing as there is a set of requirements for each approach. I particularly found the expanded definition beneficial to write because it allowed me to choose how to explore my term in order to maintain clarity and relevance throughout the document. For example, because the term Romanticism is a historical term, using the methods of Etymology and History as expanded definitions were informative ways for a non-technical reader to understand where the term is rooted and developed from. In essence, this assignment provided the opportunity to practice a technical writing manner different from that of my usual writing, and I highly enjoyed the challenge.
Peer Review Process
The assignment was divided into three main stages, with the second consisting of a peer review. After organizing reviews with my writing team, I was assigned to review Juanita Kwok’s draft and provide constructive criticism. While reading my team member’s draft, I focused on editing through a technical writing standpoint which in turn, helped me develop my attention to detail and learn how to catch mistakes in varying contexts such as expression, grammar, organization, and context. Focusing on such elements encouraged me to revisit my own document and review it through a peer review perspective—a process that shed light on critical mistakes I made in my own draft. For example, reading my peer’s parenthetical definition made me realize that I had misunderstood the requirements for this type of definition and thus, I had written this part incorrectly. In addition, I received criticism from another team member who provided me with feedback on my Works Cited, suggesting to include more in-text citations in order to add credibility to my sections about the etymological and historical aspects of the term Romanticism. Moreover, this stage compelled me to be conscious of my use of pronouns while writing the peer review; in retrospect, I was using an excessive amount and had to revise my peer review to diminish the number of pronouns used. With that being said, the peer review process was a critical and interesting part of the assignment: it provided an opportunity to distance myself from my own writing as well as the chance to learn from and assist another student.
Revision Process
Receiving a helpful peer review from Peter encouraged me to consider revising aspects of my draft that I had failed to notice were flawed. Parts of the definitions I wrote were assuming that the audience was familiar with literary terms such as pathetic fallacy and neoclassicism; though, including these terms without explanation was not clear and only confused the reader. This was simple to fix through omission and revision. My team member also gave me considerable positive feedback on voice and clarity which was a confidence boost in my technical writing skills. However, revisiting my draft did expose several grammar mistakes that had slipped my mind which I believe hindered the flow of my writing. After implementing my team member’s feedback and my own self-edits, I mainly concentrated on eliminating filler words in order to strengthen my definitions in clarity and conciseness. Doing so also led to a few revisions on sentence structures and finding a balance between complex and simple sentences. Overall, I really appreciate the way this assignment was divided into the first draft, peer review, and self-editing stages; this process was exceptionally helpful in improving my technical writing skills.
Revised Definitions Assignment – Danae Echeverria
Peter’s Review of Danae’s Definitions Assignment