Category: Blog

Looking back on the term, I was initially overwhelmed by the amount of work and assignments required for this course. My calendar was populated with around two assignments per week from this course, and I thought it would be difficult. However, these assignments were especially helpful in improving my writing. Over the term, I believe I learned how to write effective peer reviews and learn from other people’s work as a result. One topic that I struggled on in this course was minimizing the use of pronouns and the use of imperative verbs. At the beginning of the course, my assignments consisted heavily of pronouns and imperative verbs which can set the wrong tone for technical writing. The “You Attitude” writing style was a new concept for me, however, I believe it was one of the most useful concepts in the course. This style of writing has direct real world applications when emailing other people such as professors and other working professionals.

Now that I have taken this technical writing course, my writing capabilities has improved exceptionally. As a computer science student with the intention of becoming a software developer, this course will help my communication skills throughout my career. Through learning the “You Attitude” style of writing and all the memorandums I have created over the term, I believe the tone of my future emails will be positive for the reader. Overall, I am glad to have taken this course and I will apply the concepts learned in this course to my professional career.

When creating my Web Folio, I was given the opportunity to look back at the work that I have made over this term. It was truly amazing to see the growth of my writing throughout the term. My writing skill has improved and I have learned many new concepts over the term.

I revised a lot of my writing according to my peer reviews which has greatly contributed to my improvement over the term. I put the work that I think was of best quality in the best work section. It is amazing how all the work that has been done over the term can be compiled into a Web Folio.

At first, creating a Web Folio seemed like a daunting task. I did not know where or how to create one. However, I was able to turn my blog site into the Web Folio. The Web Folio introduces the reader to the technical writing course and the best work that I have done over the term. A challenge I faced when I was creating this Web Folio was writing an online version of my resume. This was difficult as I struggled trying to make the layout look nice. However, as I got more familiar with WordPress, I was able to make my online resume look as nice as the PDF version.

Although creating the Web Folio seemed like a challenging task at first, I am happy with how it turned out. My Web Folio serves as a great introduction to myself and my work for curious readers. I especially like the best work section as I get to show off how my writing has evolved over the semester. Overall, I am glad to have taken this course and I hope to use the lessons I have learned here throughout the rest of my professional career.

This unit was challenging as we began the process of researching and drafting the formal report. An assignment that helped especially with this was the progress report. This helped me organize my thoughts on the formal report and create a timeline for when tasks should be finished.

Researching and Data Collection for Formal Report

The task of collecting data although seemingly simple, was actually quite challenging. It was challenging for me to think of questions for me to ask in a survey that would help me get the data that I wanted. Since this was my first time writing survey questions, it was especially difficult for me to create appropriate questions. I had difficulty trying to ask the question I wanted without it being a leading question. I also struggled on discovering what format would best be suited for certain types of questions. Although this process was challenging for me, I learned quite a lot on the process of data collection and it was rewarding to see the responses on my survey.

It was also my first time performing an interview to collect data. This task was difficult and fun at the same time as I got to rekindle with past coworkers and managers while trying to collect data for the report. A challenge I faced when interviewing was asking questions in a way that would not affect the responses. Also, I found I had to prompt the interviewee more to get them to elaborate on their responses. Overall, the data collection phase was difficult however, I learned a lot and I believe I was able to obtain the data necessary for the report.

Drafting the Formal Report

Drafting the initial draft of the formal report was a daunting task. Looking at the requirements listed in the instructor’s blog, having to write 2500-3500 words for a report seemed like a difficult task. What helped me in tackling this challenge was using the outline that we drafted in one of the previous assignments and write the report section by section. This helped me break the report down into small subsections instead of looking at the entire 3500 word report. I also had difficulty determining what methods would be best to present the data that I collected. For example, when I was calculating the amount of paper used annually by the department, I did not know how to present this calculation. I eventually decided that a table would best represent this information as I could show the results of each step of the calculation and the data used to arrive to the next step.

A new writing style that we learned in this unit was the “You Attitude” writing style. This type of writing focuses on the reader and trying to appeal to the reader through a positive tone and avoiding imperative verbs. This style of writing is new to me, however, I learned a lot about catering to the reader. We also had to include this style of writing in the formal report which helped improve my formal report to make the overall tone sound more friendly to the reader. This style of writing is especially helpful when writing emails to professors and managers and I will keep this skill in mind, even after the course ends. 

Peer Reviewing a Formal Report

After finishing my draft of the report, we were tasked to give feedback and review a team member’s report. Again, I found these peer review assignments especially helpful. Reading my peer’s formal report gave me ideas on how to describe my own data and propose solutions to the reader. Receiving feedback on my own formal report draft was invaluable. My team members are talented writers and provide me great constructive feedback to improve my work. For example, in my peer review, my partner pointed out that certain areas of my introduction section could be more concise by removing unnecessary information. This was especially helpful as I was having trouble finding ways to keep my report informative, yet concise. Overall, these peer review assignments throughout the course have been invaluable in improving my own technical writing capabilities.

Enclosure: For confidential purposes, my report cannot be publicly published

Drafting the Formal Report Proposal and Outline

We started the first assignment of unit two with drafting the proposal for the formal report. At first, this looked like a daunting task. It looked to be quite difficult to be able to find a topic where I could acquire primary research data and write 12-15 pages about. However, after brainstorming for some time, I was able to decide my topic.

Writing the proposal was a challenging, but rewarding task as I learned a lot of new concepts about proposal writing. First, I learned how to structure a proposal by introducing the problem, proposing a solution, and defining the scope and audience. I put a lot of effort into writing the introduction to the problem as I realized it is important to define the background of the issue first and then introduce it. This makes the reader more invested and understanding of the issue more as opposed to directly stating the problem first. I found writing the scope of the proposal really helped in terms of guiding my own research direction as well as indicating to the reader the goals of the report. Overall, the first draft of the proposal was difficult, but helped me improve my technical writing capabilities.

Developing my Linked In Profile

Going into this unit, I already had a Linked In profile set up, however I was still able to improve my existing profile from this assignment. Our first task for the Linked In profile was compiling a list of best practices for Linked In and writing a memorandum to the team. Reviewing the list my team and I compiled, I was able to strengthen my own Linked In profile. I learned the importance of making your profile easily shareable through the use of a customized URL. I also learned the importance of connecting with as many people as you know to expand your network and presence on Linked In which ultimately helps get you noticed by recruiters.

We were also given the opportunity to give and receive feedback on our Linked In profiles. These two tasks were extremely useful as it put me in the perspective of how someone would view my profile while receiving constructive criticism. I learned that I should expand on my past work experience to highlight my accomplishments at those workplaces, and use keywords in my headline to get noticed by recruiters. I also received positive feedback on things I did well with my profile, such listing relevant technical skills with completed Linked In assessments. Overall, this assignment helped me improve my Linked In profile which should help in the future for job searching.

Reviewing another Formal Report Proposal

After the Linked In assignment, we were given a chance to review a peer’s formal report proposal. This allowed me to view a proposal from the audience’s perspective and see what areas to focus on in my writing. My peer wrote an amazing proposal about work stress as a teacher and I could tell it was backed with passion from him and his colleagues. Seeing a proposal like this, made me reflect on my own writing to try to incorporate some passion which could help strengthen my report proposal. Again, I am lucky to have excellent team members who have diverse writing strengths so that we all mutually benefit by improving each other’s writing.

Receiving a Peer Review on my Proposal

In this part of the assignment, we were given feedback on our own proposal by our peers. This helped me immensely by showing areas where I could improve my proposal as well as possible topics of exploration that I had not thought of in my initial draft. In my initial draft, I had been focused on trying to force my solution as the narrative. However, my peer had pointed out how I should consider the possible negatives in my proposed solution as a topic to explore. My peer also provided valid criticism on my statement of problem that I should expand on topics such as redundant data. Ultimately, receiving peer review on my proposal was invaluable to improve my proposal and my writing.

Link to my revised proposal: 301-Revised-Proposal-Elton-Kok

Link to Syed Ahmed’s review: 301 Assignment 2:2 Syed Ahmed’s Review on Formal Report Proposal

Writing the first draft of the Technical definition

In the first unit of the ENGL301 course, we were tasked to write a definition of a technical term for a non-technical audience. Having no experience writing definitions for a non-technical audience, I found this task was challenging but ultimately, helped me improve my writing ability. My term Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR) is from the natural sciences field so I had to learn to minimize the jargon and cater my writing towards a specific type of audience. I also learned how to write three different types of definitions: parenthetical, sentence, and expanded definition. Each type of definition has their own use, for example, parenthetical is a short type of definition which is used to help clarify a term in parentheses. Sentence definition is a short sentence which states the term and describes its distinguishing features. Lastly, the expanded definition provides an in-depth look at the term through various methods such as comparing and contrasting. I learned that there are many methods that can be used for the expanded definition however, some might be better than others depending on the term. For example, my term qPCR, is an analytical technique so using the method of Operating Principle is a great way for a non-technical reader to understand it. Through the writing process, I was able to learn different ways of defining a term and challenging myself to make it understandable to a non-technical audience.

Peer Review Process

In this stage of the assignment, I was given a chance to review a team member’s (Richard Chen) draft and given criticism on my work. Reading my team member’s assignment gave me much needed insight to improve my own work. I was able to see writing techniques that worked well in his assignment and mirror that in my own writing. For example, I liked how his use of a picture was straightforward and he had a paragraph explaining the picture. I was also able to provide constructive feedback in how he could improve his own work. Doing so gave me the perspective of the reader which allowed me to see how a reader could view my writing. My team member also provided me with very helpful constructive feedback such as helping me relate my definition back to the given situation I set forth. Overall, the peer review process was extremely helpful to receive feedback on my work and being able to review another’s work with a critical lens.

Revision Process

After the peer review, I was given criticism on my work and also understood the perspective of an audience member reading a technical definition. I am lucky to have great team members and their criticism was very helpful and straightforward. I was able to find parts of my writing that were unnecessary and could be omitted, leading to a more concise definition. I was also able to solve some ambiguity in my writing such as where I used the term “it” but from the reader’s perspective it was unclear what “it” was referring to. My team member also gave me positive comments such as how I minimized the use of jargon which is helpful for a non-technical audience. Overall, the peer review process opened my eyes to improvements in my writing that I would not be able to see otherwise. I believe this assignment has furthered my technical writing skills and I look forward to the future assignments for more opportunities to improve my writing.

Link to my revised definition: 301 Assignment 1:3 qPCR Revised Definition

Link to Richard Chen’s review: 301 Assignment 1:3 Richard Chen’s Review on qPCR

From: Elton Kok <kokelton@student.ubc.ca>
To: Richard Chen <rchen2@student.ubc.ca>
Date: September 21, 2020
Subject: ENGL 301 Writing Team Invitation

Hi Richard Chen,

I am emailing you today to propose if you would like to work together as a member of an ENGL 301 Professional Writing Team.

I have read your application letter and I am impressed at your academic background and qualifications. We share similar professional interests as we are both second degree BCS students which indicates to me maturity and experience. I was especially impressed at your formal training in writing professional briefs which were included in court trials. It seems you have a lot of professional writing experience which would be a great skill to have in our team. I highly respect your teamwork ability which even got recognized by your manager. I hope you can bring your teamwork skills to our writing team.

Please consider my invitation to be a member of our ENGL 301 Professional Writing Team. I have attached my Letter of Application to this email if you would like to review my background and experience. Feel free to reach out to me via email at kokelton@student.ubc.ca. I look forward to hearing back from you and hope to work together soon.

Thank you for your consideration,

Elton Kok

301 Elton Kok Application letter

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From: Elton Kok <kokelton@student.ubc.ca>
To: Aleem Tariq <aleemtariq19@gmail.com>
Date: September 21, 2020
Subject: ENGL 301 Writing Team Invitation

Hi Aleem Tariq,

I am emailing you today to propose if you would like to work together as a member of an ENGL 301 Professional Writing Team.

I have read your application letter and I am impressed at your academic background and qualifications. We share similar professional interests as we are both second degree BCS students which indicates to me maturity and experience. We both share similar natural science backgrounds as I have also been involved in a graduate research project. We both realized our interest in computer science while performing research in our respective fields. I respect that you acknowledge your weakness in technical writing and even more so your initiative to take this course to improve at it. This is the exact trait and mentality I would love to have in a writing team member.

Please consider my invitation to be a member of our ENGL 301 Professional Writing Team. I have attached my Letter of Application to this email if you would like to review my background and experience. Feel free to reach out to me via email at kokelton@student.ubc.ca. I look forward to hearing back from you and hope to work together soon.

Thank you for your consideration,

Elton Kok

301 Elton Kok Application letter

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From: Elton Kok <kokelton@student.ubc.ca>
To: Syed Ahmed <syedw@student.ubc.ca>
Date: September 21, 2020
Subject: ENGL 301 Writing Team Invitation

Hi Syed Ahmed,

I am emailing you today to propose if you would like to work together as a member of an ENGL 301 Professional Writing Team.

I have read your application letter and I am impressed at your academic background and qualifications. We share similar professional interests as we are both second degree BCS students which indicates to me maturity and experience. I see from your application letter that you are extremely experienced as you have written and reviewed many scientific articles. I am even more so impressed that you were awarded a scholarship as a result of your exceptional  writing skills. Having a scientific background myself, I strongly agree with your perspective that criticism is the most valuable gift in science. I hope you can contribute your extensive experience and your constant improvement mindset to our writing team.

Please consider my invitation to be a member of our ENGL 301 Professional Writing Team. I have attached my Letter of Application to this email if you would like to review my background and experience. Feel free to reach out to me via email at kokelton@student.ubc.ca. I look forward to hearing back from you and hope to work together soon.

Thank you for your consideration,

Elton Kok

301 Elton Kok Application letter

MEMORANDUM

To: Erika Paterson, ENGL 301 Instructor
From: Elton Kok, ENGL 301 Student
Date: September 17th, 2020
Subject: ENGL 301 Application Letter Submission

As per week two’s deliverable, I am emailing to inform you that I have completed my letter of application for an ENGL 301 writing team. This has been posted on my blog at this link. I have also attached at the bottom of this memorandum my Letter of Application as a Microsoft Word document.

The contents of this Letter of Application includes:

• • My professional and academic background as well as interests
  • Strengths and weaknesses with regards to my writing ability
  • My learning methodology that I believe helps me learn the best
  • My contact information for interested teammates

Please let me know of any suggestions to my Letter of Application so I can improve on my next one. I look forward to hearing back and learning from your review.

Enclosure: 301 Elton Kok Application letter

2 Park Drive
Toronto, Canada, L4A 4K1

September 17, 2020

ENGL 301 Students
University of British Columbia
2329 West Mall
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4

Dear ENGL 301 Peers,

I am writing this letter today to be considered for position as a group member in a writing team. I am currently a third year BCS (Bachelor of Computer Science) student at the University of British Columbia completing my second degree. As an alumnus from the University of Toronto with a degree in Biochemistry and Human Biology, I have ample experience writing formal lab reports and have taken my fair share of English courses during my time there. I believe my former undergraduate experience in which I have written many reports, would be a valuable asset to an ENGL 301 writing team.

As a BCS second degree student, I am interested in pursuing a career in computer science and possibly combining my previous field in biochemistry with computer science. I have previously worked at Sanofi Pasteur as a Co-Op student where I was part of the research and development department. My unit focused on DNA sequencing and analyzing/interpreting large genome data sets. This experience is what first sparked my interest in computer science. After graduation, I was able to secure a full-time position at the same company as part of the quality control department. However, after a year of work, I realized I could not ignore the interest that I developed for computer science and decided to pursue a second degree as a BCS student at UBC.

Given my background in natural sciences, my writing skills leans more toward the technical side such as creating reports and discussion of results. In contrast, my creative writing skills (poetry, literature) can be considered one of my weaknesses as I am relatively inexperienced compared to my technical writing capabilities. However, for the ENGL 301 course, I believe my inexperience in creative writing should be no issue as we focus more on the technical writing aspect.

My preferred learning method is to complete practice problems or create a project that uses the concept I want to learn. For example, I created a web scraper and a clone of the Flappy Bird game to improve my Python skills. As a result of my learning strategy, I am someone who can learn new concepts and ideas relatively quickly. Therefore, if a new writing challenge presents itself in this course, I am confident in my ability to adapt and learn to produce the best effort I can for the writing team.

If my experience and background satisfies your needs, please consider my application and reach out to me via email at kokelton@student.ubc.ca. I look forward to hearing back from potential teammates.

Sincerely,

Elton Kok

301 Elton Kok Application letter

 

This is my blog for the ENGL 301 – Technical Writing Course offered online at UBC. I look forward to the cool stuff we will do in this course!