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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.

Unit 3 Reflection

For Unit three, I have completed the researching portion and am in the middle of organizing and writing the formal report draft. Initially it was unnerving to start the process of collecting and writing the draft, but luckily the previous assignment made the research process much smoother. Unfortunately I was worried about the total size and how effective my recommendations would be for the report that I did not spend enough time in the data analysis and recommendation portions of my draft.

Unlike my peer’s data collection process, I believe that going the survey method allowed for a quicker and larger sample than compared to the interviews. I was fortunate enough to collect around 50 surveys quickly enough during the reading break and not have to schedule interviews when the participant would be free. I do regret some aspects of not including interview questions that may have lead to more personal responses.

The writing process for the formal report was more difficult than I had expected as I began to hit some obstacles with even the introduction. I am still in the process of collecting and organizing the information to provide a detailed background section for the formal report. It was also surprising that the extensive collection of annual reports to the community by the library I were not that detailed. Each year would have numbers on revenue and expenses, but was lacking in any information to do with my topic. I can see my data analysis being repetitive and weakened by my misjudgment of how detailed the reports would be on French books. I need to go back and try and analyze the reports in greater detail in order to strengthen my arguments within the report.

After completing the peer review on my group partner, I saw many aspects in my own writing that would need to be addressed. The most important was the overall flow and writing style of the piece and how those elements lend to strengthen the argument of the report as a whole. Just seeing the layout and organization gave me ideas of how I could improve reader navigation through my draft.

After the LinkedIn peer review I began noticing the weakness in my writing voice compared to my group members. The diction and phrasing of their sentences sound more professional compared to when I reread some of my pieces. It was only after when researching tips and tricks for our next assignment did I learn about trying to incorporate as many keywords, descriptions and media as possible.

A difficulty I encountered when doing the peer review was analyzing the descriptions as if I were a possible employer. While my peer review partner had all the basics down, I would not know the specifics of how what a computer science or chemistry employer would be looking for. Are employers looking just for the most term and keywords and academic achievement over a more personal tone in their summary and descriptions?

The most helpful feedback I was able to provide was the use of adding media. Adding some kind of video, newspaper or academic link to their projects would break up the text as the reader goes down the page and flow nicely into their experiences. The most important tip was that I need to start reevaluating what I put down in my experiences and volunteering to be more focused toward future readers and employers. Some of my work and volunteering is outdated and not relevant towards sociology.

For this assignment, I found out that finding the correct wording for the definitions while trying to write for a specific audience was harder than I expected. There is a greater need to try and balance the wording to be simple, yet detailed enough for a non-technical reader to understand a complex term.

When I was initially thinking of a term that was theoretical, I was having trouble using expanding definition methods. For my example about osteoarthritis, the section on signs and symptoms was difficult in trying to create a short, mutually exclusive and clear list of symptoms. There were also problems of including too much to describe a specific time frame that would differentiate from pain from an injury to repeated pain after resting.

When peer reviewing my partners piece, I could see how the use of specific technical terms may not come across as easily understood in the key definitions. From their advice I added in information to explain smaller terms and give an overall clearer picture of my concept. The use of visual aids helped when describing as they provided a foundation for the previous definitions and examples. An issue that I did notice was how easily it was to create a definition that is simple enough to be understood, but lacking the information necessarily to be expanded on.

The tips from after reading through the tips from my peer edit I hope allowed me to bring in my sentencing into creating a more concise definition of my term. There were multiple terms and areas for expansion that I only found out from reading the peer review. I considered some of the terms like artificial implants to be off topic and not needing an explanation when I was defining the condition.

With some grammatical errors, I have to read over my work and possibly get a friend to do the same to prevent these from happening again. There were a few small mistakes with fonts like underlining some headings and bolding others and formatting where bullet points would be more effective in quickly summarizing. After editing I realized the impact of all these tiny flaws added up to breaking up the flow and understanding of the reader.

Peer Review of Osteoarthritis
Osteoarthritis Definition assignment

15 Williams St.
Vancouver, BC V3V 3V3
January 12, 2015

English 301: Technical Writing
The University of British Columbia
2329 West mall
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4

Dear Classmates

I am writing to apply for the writing position for the spring term. I am currently completing a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Sociology at the University of British Colombia and will be expecting to graduate in May 2015. I am interested in being granted the opportunity of being a part of your writing team, where I can lend my skill set in benefiting the team for academic success.

Previously as a volunteer Reading Buddy at the Richmond Public library, I was responsible for editing works, and teaching grammar, writing and speaking skills in both English and French to students. I learned how to work with young students by having to translate writing tasks into the simplest forms. As a sales associate, I learned to properly communicate with customers to do my part as an effective team member. I served as the department’s second best salesman by providing customers clear choices and information in order to make favourable decisions on their purchases. My work experience has greatly increased my leadership and problem solving skills in a business setting to ensure for quality customer service and relations in changing situations.

My academic experience over the past four-and-a-half years has prepared me to be an effective group member and academic writer. My experience gained from writing essays, proposals and reports individually and in a group setting will allow me to work well in creating writing that flows together. Skills I have acquired would be my unique writing voice and perspective. This term I decided to concentrate solely on my academics so I now have more time to spend writing and editing my works. Although sometimes I have issues with keeping words on the page, I have started doing multiple revisions to improve my writing. Bad habits remain where my writing contains too many non-essential words and lacks the impact of a more concise writing style.

I believe that education should be something that is not only static to give a strong foundation, but also dynamic to allow for experimentation at times. As learning is a lifelong endeavor, I enjoy it more when the skills can be applied to real life situations instead of purely on letter grades.

Thank you for considering my application for the position to be on your team. I can be contacted by email at willwkho@gmail.com or by cellphone at 604-446-2693.

Sincerely,
William Ho

ENG 301 application letter