Peer Review of Analysis for Assessing staff’s software education in an E-commerce company for Alison Ma — Jie Su

To: Alison Ma, ENGL 301 Student
From: Jie Su, ENGL 301 Student
Date: August 7, 2020
Subject: Peer Review of Analysis for Assessing staff’s software education in an E-commerce company for Alison Ma

Thank you for submitting your formal report. It is enjoyable to read your article. Below are some suggestions, hoping to give you some inspiration.

First Impression

• The topic of your article is concise and clear.
• The introduction introduces the status quo and the importance of Information Technology in e-commerce.
• The data analysis uses statistics based on the survey results, which makes the formal report convincing. Simultaneously, the collected data is expressed in an intuitive way to make it more understandable.

Organization

• The report structure is well-organized with subheadings.
• The report goes with a clear flow from the abstract, introduction, data section, suggestion plan, and it meets the requirements of the formal report.

You Attitude Implementation

• Avoiding statements starting with “I” and “we”: Multiple places adopt the noun “we” as the start of the statements, including the explanation in Figures 1 and 2 in the Data Section. Avoiding using “I” and “we” make the report analytical and persuasive. Statement to avoid necessary pronouns shows the confidence of the author and the convince of the report.

• Avoiding overuse of the passive voice: The passive construction is used in multiple points in the statement of problems under the introduction paragraph, like “it is reported”, “it is found”. Avoiding the overuse of passive voice help improve writing with clearness and reduce the sense of uncertainty and imprecision.

Visuals

• The report uses visuals to enhance the appeal and reinforce the content, giving the readers an intuitive understanding.
• Some figure of the report seems too small to read. Running an appropriate size of the image will make the report easy to read.
• Some bar chart has a label on, but some do not. For example, three bar charts with only one caption in Figure 3 make the reader confused at which is for Google Slides and which is for Google sheet. Keeping labels separated by chart makes it more consistent throughout the report and lets the readers quickly interpret the figures’ meanings.

Content

Abstraction

• Summarizing the content: The abstract should comprehensively summarize the report’s content so that it will give readers an overall understanding of the report’s content.
• Adding the proposed recommendation: The abstract section should include content, methods, results, and conclusions. Stating a conclusion of the report gives the reader a comprehensive understanding of the report’s purpose.

Introduction

• Avoiding full block of texts: Reducing large sections and condensing content will make the article more readable.
• Focusing on the request of the audiences: The introduction of this report is very rich. It introduces readers to e-commerce and determines the main scope of the report. However, the definitions cited are too academic. Reducing some complicated academic definitions will make the introduction more readable from the reader’s point of view.
• Reducing the statements beginning with“it”: In the section of Statement of Problems, “it is found” is used repeatedly. “it is” should only be used when the context indicates the pronoun. Reducing starting the statement with “it “will help in increment of the conciseness.

Data Section

• Blueprint of the Section: This section’s excellent point is that this section gives a scope at the beginning shows the hierarchical relationship within this section, which makes readers know the content layout of this section and get a preliminary understanding from the whole.
• Figure Explanation: The meaning of the number 1 to 5 in Figure 2 and Figure 3 is not clear. For readers to understand the meaning of these numbers more quickly, some information can be added to the title.
• Function-based headings interweaving with descriptive headings: At the very beginning, the function-based heading without detail expanding, like “Scope.” However, following by descriptive headings as sentences make the data section not consistent as a whole. Maintaining a consistent heading style will be helpful to emphasize the central point of the report.

Proposed Plan

• The title, “Assessing staffs software education,” makes the readers believe an analysis report to look into the education level (status) of staff’s software mastery will be given, therefore proposing the recommended plan of how to improve the staff’s proficiency of software seems a bit off the main topic.

Conclusion

• The conclusion should refer back to the purpose of the report. Conclusions drawn from what has gone before is to reemphasize the purpose of the report.

Grammar

Plural Noun

Suggestion: Companies ranging from small start-ups to multinational big corporations have developed electronic commerce (e-commerce) platforms to further push their sales transactions.
Suggestion: The company holds certain expectations to pick up skills using certain software in order to deliver services online.

Nouns joint with “and”

This report is to examine the completeness, necessity [,] and transparency of different software used for e-commerce platform.

Sentence Structure

Original Writing: Primary data collected, through surveys and interviews, provided descriptive empirical data about the current software education in the company, HKTV Group (HKTVmall).
Suggestion:Through surveys and interviews, primary data collected provided descriptive empirical data about the current software education in the company, HKTV Group (HKTVmall).

Citation

MLA in-text citation encloses the quoted section in quotation marks and adds an in-text citation at the end of the quote with the author’s last name and the page number. Once the author’s name is included in the sentence, adding the page number is sufficient.

Original citation: Shahjee (2015) defines e-commerce as “the process of buying and selling or exchanging of product, services, and information via computer networks including the internet”.
Suggestion: Shahjee defines e-commerce as “the process of buying and selling or exchanging of product, services, and information via computer networks including the internet”.(Page#)

Conclusion

The report summarizes the main findings of the entire report on the level of employee software mastery and also puts forward feasible suggestions. The following summary provides some suggestions.

• Reducing large sections of text to maintain readability
• Considering the need of the audiences, expecially when constructing the abstraction and introduction paragraphs
• Avoiding the use of “I” and “We” to better employ You Attitude and increase the level of formality
• Making good use of the conclusion section of the report to emphasize the purpose and the central points of the report
• Using visualization to fully express the function of statics by clearly indication of each label to avoid confusion

Thank you for your hard work on this report.

Enclosure: 301-Alison-Ma-Formal-Report-Draft