A collection of reflections from ENGL 301:
Unit Four Reflections – Self Assessment:
As mentioned in previous reflection blogs, ENGL 301 has improved my professional writing skills significantly. Throughout the course, I learned how to prepare various professional documents following specific guidelines and formats. Below I will reflect on my learning process through ENGL 301 and how ENGL 301 will impact my future as a scientist.
The Learning Process
To visualize my learning process in ENGL 301 let’s imagine that my professional writing skills were a block of marble, ready to become a beautiful sculpture. Before coming into ENGL 301 the block of marble was roughly shaped, from all the scientific writing I have done in the past. There was an outline but no details. Each assignment that I completed in ENGL 301 provided me with a different tool to chisel away at the marble. Eventually, by the end of the term, significant progress was made and now the marble is beginning to look more like a sculpture. However, each assignment was not without difficulty. Personally, the most difficult part of ENGL 301 was writing for a non-technical audience. I have used the tool of scientific writing for so long that I have found it hard to write any other way.
At the beginning of the term, I stated that one of my main writing weaknesses was the tendency to over-revise my work. I found that as the term went on I overcame my hyper-revision habit. Now I first write a full rough draft and then revise afterward. This has cut down my writing time significantly and is one of the improvements that I am most proud of.
I believe my good sense of time management was the strength that helped me the most throughout the course. Good writing takes time, so being on top of all my assignments made sure that I submitted a good piece of work before the deadline. Additionally, I have been caught off guard a couple times by extra information that I forgot to include. By finishing my assignments early I was able to revise my work and submit it on time. The assignments in ENGL 301 are not something to leave last minute.
Beyond ENGL 301
As an aspiring scientist, I am certain that I will use the lessons learned in ENGL 301 when writing manuscripts, grant applications, letters, and research reports. All of these professional documents have their own strict guidelines and formats. Therefore, I will employ the clear, organized, and professional style of writing taught in ENGL 301. Overall, I am happy that I took this class and am satisfied with how my professional writing is progressing.
Unit Four Reflections – Creating a Web Folio:
When designing and creating my Web Folio I first thought of who would be my intended audience. Since I am planning on going to graduate school at UBC chemistry I decided to design my Web Folio accordingly by making sure a professional tone is used throughout my writing. Before piecing together the different pages of the Web Folio, I first created a mindmap that helped in the organization process.
To appeal to my target audience of scientists and academics, I have included the links to all past labs that I have worked in on a separate page. Hopefully, this page will help personalize this Web Folio and make it more unique.
Editing my previous assignments for the “best works” page has allowed me to realize how far my writing skills have progressed over the course of ENGL 301. There was a significant improvement in many aspects of my writing including grammar, sentence structure, flow, organization, and clarity. However, the most notable improvements came from implementing “YOU” attitude and removing pronouns. I am glad that I learned these skills in ENGL 301 and will continue to use them in my future professional writing pieces.
The Web Folio project was a great final assignment. Instead of having a brand new writing assignment as a final exam, I was able to go back and see how my writing has progressed throughout the term. By editing past assignments with current knowledge, I was able to reinforce all of the skills I have learned throughout ENGL 301. Overall, a great way to conclude ENGL 301.
Unit Three Reflection:
Unit three was the most challenging unit so far. Crafting the formal report draft was time-consuming and took a lot of effort but, it felt worthwhile once finished. The easiest section to write was the introduction as I have written many introductions for other research reports in different classes. After writing the introduction I moved on to the data section, which took much longer to write. Collecting data through surveys was new and exciting, as I have never used surveys to obtain experimental results. Surprisingly, I obtained a decent sample size of around 25 participants. This was most likely due to the topic of the formal report: A plan to install air conditioning in the chemistry building, being a hot topic in my workplace. In fact, during data collection, many co-workers eagerly approached me to voice their support for my plan, which boosted my morale in writing this report.
The problems outlined in the report are currently affecting my work right now. On July 26, 2022, the temperature reached 29 ℃ causing a massive heat wave within the chemistry building. My whole body was covered in sweat and I was constantly on my feet, moving around. Needless to say, I was extremely uncomfortable that day but I decided to tough it out and continue to work. On the other hand, one of the Ph.D. students in my lab said that he was getting a serious headache from the heat so he made the correct decision to leave early. This interrupted his experiment, so he had to redo it the next day. The threat of global warming is real and is happening now, as seen through my experience on July 26, 2022. This first-hand exposure to the problems caused by a lack of air conditioning has only encouraged me to further refine this formal report.
When writing the conclusion I summarized all the main results of my study and how they relate to the overarching problem. After the summary, I skipped writing a recommendation section since my only recommendation would be to install air conditioning. I thought this would be too short and wrote an expected outcomes section instead, describing the expected outcomes of installing air conditioning in the chemistry building. Later on, I found out that a recommendation section was required as outlined in the instructions but, it was already past the due date. This taught me to always read the instructions very carefully so I don’t miss anything. To summarize the experience of writing the formal report draft in three words: challenging and exciting.
As usual, the peer review process was very helpful in the revision of my formal report. When looking at the peer review that Peter provided, most of his suggestions regard providing descriptions of technical words for non-technical readers. I disagree with this suggestion as the target audience for this formal report is Dr. Ken Macfarlane, who is the Director of Finance and Operations of UBC chemistry as well as a graduate of the Ph.D. program at UBC chemistry. Dr. Macfarlane would certainly know terms such as solvent, hexanes, pentanes, etc. so, there is no need to describe these terms further. Nevertheless, Peter provided a well-crafted report that I will use to help in the revision process.
For this round of peer reviews, I was chosen to peer review Danae, who wrote a great formal report draft on employment problems concerning C Market Coffee. There were a small number of errors that I pointed out in my peer review concerning figure format and grammatical mistakes. Hopefully, the suggestions offered in the peer review will help in her revision.
The term is almost over, time goes by so fast! I am ready to work hard to complete the rest of the course.
Enclosure: Ethan’s formal report draft
Formal report draft ENGL 301 EF
Unit Two Reflection:
This unit was very interesting to say the least. LinkedIn was a platform that I have heard about but never really used or explored. It was satisfying to learn that there are plenty of online tools that can be used to build professional connections. Even though a LinkedIn profile was not made in the assignment, I will be creating one soon. Aside from the LinkedIn assignment, coming up with a new idea to write a research report on was exciting. Being a science student I have written quite a few research proposals however, they were mainly evaluated on the content of the report rather than the format. Now armed with knowledge on how to properly format different types of documents (reports, emails, memos, proposals, etc.) I will be able to craft even better pieces of professional writing.
My research report topic of installing air conditioning in the UBC chemistry building has been a topic of discussion among chemistry students for many years. In fact, I received inspiration for the idea from one of the Ph.D. students working in my lab. Originally the topic for this research report was going to be a whole remodeling of the chemistry building. However, that would have been too intensive and would have taken too much time. Instead, I narrowed my focus to just the temperature control problem in the chemistry building. Once I had my topic, writing the research proposal and outline came naturally. Overall, the experience was enjoyable and I am excited to tackle a problem relevant to my work.
For this round of peer reviews, I reviewed Peter who wrote a research report proposal suggesting that UBC should return to online/hybrid classes. The proposal was difficult to read and had a large number of errors. In order to convey that in a non-attacking but firm manner, I removed any and all pronouns from the peer review. Doing this was tricky however in the end I was able to deliver my peer review in a professional fashion. This was also a good experience as not every piece of writing is happy and upbeat.
From Danae’s review of my work, I have learned to read instructions a little more carefully. Her review was very clear and direct which allowed for a quick and easy revision. Overall this unit has allowed me to build up my writing confidence even further and I am excited to continue to the next unit.
Revised research report proposal:
Danae’s peer review:
Unit One Reflection:
Writing the first draft of the definition assignment
As an aspiring scientist, the definition assignment where I defined the word “amino acid” was very helpful and enlightening. In scientific literature, terms, phrases, and lingo are not defined because the writer assumes the reader has a firm grasp of the subject. Thus, this assignment helped me learn techniques like negation or etymology which are not taught in scientific writing. Something that was challenging in this assignment was trying to describe the structure of an amino acid without using any technical terms. Unfortunately, I could not think of any other way to describe the structure of an amino acid and a few necessary technical terms were used. To compensate for this, all technical terms were included in a glossary at the end. This assignment also allowed me to practice communicating complex ideas to non-technical readers. This may prove useful when talking to family or friends about my work. Furthermore, non-technical writing should be more widely practiced in science as being able to communicate science to the masses is very important in avoiding misconceptions. An example of scientific misconception was the vaccine hesitancy during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Scientists should learn about the three levels of descriptions and how to communicate complex terms effectively to non-technical readers just as I have in this assignment.
Peer review
As for peer review, I found it enjoyable to read Matilda’s work and offer her some suggestions in terms of grammar, sentence structure, and word choice. Through her work, I was able to gain another perspective on how to tackle the assignment which I employed when working on my own revisions. In addition, when peer-reviewing high-level writing like Matilda’s, I was forced to dig deep for mistakes and errors. This helped to improve my ability in finding small, subtle errors in my own writing. The most difficult part of the peer review was learning how to apply constructive criticism when reviewing other people’s work. There is a balance between not discouraging the person you are reviewing and also providing blunt, direct suggestions. This created some difficult situations for me as the reviewer.
Self-editing
When self-editing, I took the suggestions Juanita provided me and applied them to my description. I learned a lot from Juanita’s comments. For example, when listing a century like the 1800s there is no apostrophe. Another example includes learning that “an” should be used before vowels and “a” should be used before constants. These lessons will help me become a better writer in the future. I also took some of the writing elements that Matilda used in her description assignment and applied them to my revised definition. An example of this was to put a hyphen between non-technical readers. Both being a peer-reviewer and getting peer-reviewed helped me in my final description assignment edit.
Conclusion
Overall, the definition assignment, peer review, and self-editing have taught me three things.
- How to explain complex details to non-technical readers.
- How to critically search for errors in peer review and provide constructive feedback.
- How to apply suggestions and criticisms from peers to revise my work.
This has been a great start to ENGL 301!
Revised definition:
Juanita’s peer review: