Monthly Archives: April 2015

Below are posts that detail the assignments over the term for ENGL 301 technical writing course.  The posts document the types of assignments that we were challenged with and the impact from focusing on certain aspects of our writing as well as the critiques from our peers.

Looking back on the term, ENGL 301 has been key in developing my technical writing skills inside of the classroom and for my future workplace.  Being a sociology major, I never got the chance to interact with students in different faculties on such a personal level.  The peer reviews and group discussion allowed for different opinions and writing styles that I had previously never been exposed to in University.  While the peer reviews helped improve my writing through constant correction and criticism, the assignments like the writing of the formal reports, application package and business memos will help when I transition from University into the workforce.  Instead of making the large mistakes before I have a chance to compete in the job market, ENGL 301 has given me the tools and attitude towards advancing towards my career goals.

Definitely some of the weaknesses I noticed was due to the peer review responses on the first few assignments.  The feedback pointed out issues of grammar, wording, formatting and use of tone as well as how I lacked the attention of detail in looking at how the reader would interpret my work.  This was apparent in the definitions assignment where I tried to keep the wording as simple as possible, but left out information in other areas.  While I still need to work on my self-editing skills, I at least am more aware of these errors than before.  I need to review my own work objectively and with the same amount of detail that I did for my peers.  The peer reviews were very helpful in pointing out these tendencies while still pointing out my areas of strength.  Without the web folio and assignments, I do not know when I would have gone and learned how to use WordPress or LinkedIn.  I had no idea of the importance of a LinkedIn profile was in connecting with professionals and my colleagues.  Those two assignments were able to break my routine of academic research writing and focus on a more professional writing style.

My writing voice and peer reviewing, I believe were my strengths over the course of the term.  While my initial peer review was weak, I began to build upon those mistakes in being able to give constructive criticism while not offending my reading.  The advice I was giving to others helped me in improving my own evaluative skills.  Writing with the “you-attitude” and my writing voice allowed for me to showcase my own personal tone while remaining respectful and professional.  My resume and workplace complaint letters are examples of my improved writing voice inside of a technical writing piece.  My writing has become more focused and concise compared to before where I would continue on and fill up space with awkward sentences.

In conclusion, the technical writing lessons learned through ENGL 301 will remain with me in my future career goals.  The impact of learning to use both professional platforms such as LinkedIn and WordPress will be essential in my future.   Paying attention to the readers perspective through writing with the “you-attitude” will allow my work  to be a level above what it was before.  All my future business memos and reports to come will have benefited from the learning to remain respectful and direct in accomplishing my career goals.  Finally I would like to thank Professor Paterson in her direction and responses to our assignments.  While the class may be over, the impact of ENGL 301 will remain with me throughout my professional career.

Unit 4 reflection

This unit was focused on the creation of our personal web folios.  I targeted the mine towards future employers in hopes of attaining my career goals.  Creating the web folio gave me a great sense of accomplishment as I was able to look back and see the sheer amount of content that had been created over the term.  At the beginning of the course, I struggled in learning how to navigate and create my own content using WordPress.  An obstacle was on how to review my past works in presenting them in the best way possible to make the reader navigate easily through the tabs and pages.  I wanted to format the pages so that the hyperlinks were not mixed into the text and were clear to the reader.

Having many of the assignments near completion from previous units helped in the final assembly of the web folio.  Reworking the site, editing assignments, and creating new content were the main obstacles in this final unit.  After I had already made the changes to my works according to my peer reviews, I had trouble finding the mistakes that I had missed before handing them off to be peer reviewed.  From previous assignments, I tried to pay more attention to the layout and organization of the web folio in order to have links be easily accessible and clearly visible.

The final assignment was the creation of my web folio to showcase my work and progress.  This was the first time I have ever created a web folio and would have never guessed it would be such an effective professional platform.  I had never used WordPress before this course, and learning it was challenging for me.  After completing my web folio, I will not be restricted in being able to update and improve my site to fit my current needs.  My web folio is the conclusion to my ENGL 301 term and the culmination of a terms worth of work.  I know that the skills learned using the site and thinking about how to organize it will help me later on.