Unit two dives deeper into the world of professional writing. I’ve always had a LinkedIn profile, but it was bland and simple. This unit taught me more about LinkedIn and its uses. Recently, I was applying for co-op positions and many companies asked for my LinkedIn profile. At the time, I didn’t know how to improve it and I felt ashamed to share my profile as I knew it was very bland. Right now, if a company asked for my LinkedIn profile, I would feel proud to share it as it looks very professional and attractive.
Lisa did a peer review on my LinkedIn profile and thanks to her, I realized some of my job experiences should have been put as a volunteer experience. Moreover, she noticed that I should add more details to some of my work and volunteer experience. By having her peer review my LinkedIn profile, it gives me a better perspective on how others view it. This peer review has been valuable to me as many co-op employers view my LinkedIn profile. From this peer review, my LinkedIn profile is even more impressive.
Not only did the LinkedIn profile help me develop as a professional writer, but the formal report draft also helped as well. The process of brainstorming an idea for the report was fun as right away I knew that I would pick the company I currently work at. For months, I’ve been speaking to coworkers how the current training given to the new employees is inadequate and causing a burden for me as I have to review their work. The formal report allows me to devise a solution and actually implement it with the approval of the directing manager. I am excited to see the results of the interviews and surveys and get a better understanding of how my coworkers feel about the problem. Moreover, I am excited to be able to devise a solution that can better my company.
For the formal report proposal peer review, I paired up with Cheryl. This peer review process was very helpful to me because as I critiqued Cheryl’s work, I also critiqued my own proposal about the same issues. Cheryl was very detailed when describing professional terms in her field, but was sometimes not thorough when detailing how the company she works at operates. This led me to critique my own work and see if it had the same issue. By reviewing Cheryl’s proposal, it allowed me to see the strengths and weakness of my own proposal. Moreover, it allowed me to gain insight into Cheryl’s thinking. The questions from her scope section were well thought out and allowed me to revise my own questions using her questions as a reference. Moreover, it allowed me to critique my own questions from a different perspective.
Both peer reviews have led me to realize that I need to focus on writing in detail. More details can allow readers to have a better understanding of the topic I am writing on and give more depth to my writing. An example would be one of the questions of my formal report proposal from the scope section. Initially, I had a question regarding what senior staff would feel if a mentor was assigned to each new employee. I thought this was a good question to investigate, but Cheryl suggested that I should consider the workload of the senior staff. If I had added more details to this question, I would realize that assigning a mentor to each new employee will impact workload. Moreover, adding more details to this question would allow readers to get a better understanding of the correlation between senior staff, new employees and the current problem.
The assignments in unit two have helped develop my professional writing skills. I have learned many more strengths and weaknesses in my writing and techniques to improve my writing. I look forward to proceeding with my research for my formal report and doing more peer reviews.