Unit 3 was focused on our formal report drafts. In this unit, we researched and wrote our own drafts as well as reviewed the draft of our peer. As the formal report assignment is a major part of our final mark, I wanted to make sure that I wrote a good draft that my peer could review thoroughly so that my final copy could be as complete and professional as possible.

I think I was being a bit over ambitious when I wrote my report proposal. Initially, I proposed that I would do some research that I later realized was going to be too difficult to complete in the limited time frame I had. I understand that making plans and altering them accordingly as you go along is part of the research project, and looking back on my proposal, my progress report, and finally my report draft, really highlighted this process for me.

The research component of the project had a lot of different elements that needed attention at the same time. I had to monitor the survey respondent rate, as well as conduct site visits to two locations, and interview my manager, all within a week. I found myself constantly referring to the timeline I made for my progress report, and found that it was really helpful in keeping me on track with everything I had to get done.

The interview I conducted with my assistant general manager went very well and she gave me some great material to help with my report. However, I was slightly disappointed with the respondent rate of my survey. I thought that a lot more of my coworkers would participate, but I understand that many of them are busy and may have forgotten about it. When I was reviewing Norman’s report, I noticed that he offered survey participants a gift card for participating in his survey. I think this is a great idea to encourage participation, and looking back, I should have entered each participant in a draw to win a Keg gift card (or something similarly appealing).

I really enjoyed the process of actually writing my report, and once I had all the research organized and in front of me, putting my findings into writing was very straightforward. When I first read that the draft should be anywhere from 12-17 pages long, I was sure that I was going to have a very tough time filling the space, but I was easily able to cover a full 17 pages with all the information and graphs that I had. Through the process of formatting my report, I became much more familiar with Excel and Word, and found elements of the programs that I had no idea existed. I was having a really heard time creating my table of contents and making everything line up properly, when I thought, “there must be an easier way to do this.” With a little research I was able to find the table of contents formatting tool which allowed me to easily organize all the headings and subheadings of my draft! I also utilized the Word “themes” for the first time, which I think really improved the overall visual appeal of my report. In order to make my graphs, I had to use Excel for the first time in a long time. I found that once I got the hang of it, creating visually appealing graphs was really very simple, and a great way to demonstrate my findings.

I found this peer review process the smoothest and most rewarding so far. I think I am getting the hang of reviewing my peer’s work, and the examples posted on the Instructor’s Blog were very helpful. Much like the previous reviews, I was able to notice things that Norman had done well in his report that I had forgotten to include in mine (such as labels for my visuals), as well as recognized elements that we both needed to improve. I received Norman’s report on the morning of the day that the peer review was due, leaving me just one day to write my review of his work. Through this experience, I learned a valuable lesson about the dynamics of a team and how others are affected when I sometimes submit my work late as well.

Overall, I found this unit and the formal report writing process challenging, yet rewarding. I am now going into the final unit with a great start on my formal report, improved peer reviewing skills, and research on the next big assignment coming up – the application package.