Peer Review of Jenny Zhangs Draft Report – Meagan Rosenberg

To: Jenny Zhang, Student of ENGL 301

From: Meagan Rosenberg, Peer of ENGL 301

Date: December 10, 2019

Subject: Review of Your Document – “Reduction of Single-Use Plastics at Lee Chong Asian Food”

Link to Draft: https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-99a-2019wa/2019/12/02/assignment-3-2-formal-report-draft/

Hello Jenny! What a pleasure it was to read over your report. Being the peer to review your proposal, and now seeing it all come together is fantastic!

First Impressions: Well organized with lots of important information. Not full of useless information that doesn’t relate to the report. Good use of visuals and graphs/tables. Proper and many citations are noted.

Introduction: Relevant sub-headings used. No Methods section – as instructed to include by Dr. Paterson on her instructor blog, please see https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-99a-2019wa/2019/11/09/writing-a-methods-section/ for further information and please incorporate this in if possible.

Description of the problem: Useful information provided. Proper citations are noted as a handful of secondary sources are noted. One error noted in this section was under the ‘Description of the problem’ in the second last sentence you have’ ‘plastic fragments can release toxic chemicals into the environment and cause serious health risk for humans and animal’ A suggestion would be to change the wording a bit in the last part of this sentence to ‘into the environment that can cause serious health risks for both humans and animals’, as it took a few times to read over and understand as it seemed a bit wordy.

Definition of single-use plastics: Well written and straight to the point. No unnecessary information added.

Purpose of this report: Great, short and to the point.

Description of sources of data: Good, no unnecessary information added. A suggestion would be to tweak this section to incorporate the ‘methods’ section as noted above.

Scope of the Inquiry: Great, straight to the point.

Data Section: Thoroughly gave the reader a good understanding of the effects of plastic on the environment. Proper citations noted throughout this section, as a lot of it is secondary sources.

Effects of Plastic on the Environment: Good topics discussed within this category, all important to the overall ‘issue’ you are researching. One suggestion for under the ‘Land Pollution’ heading- the fourth sentence reads ‘Risks include contaminating our soil and water and creating a large hazards like ingestion etc’ – it is recommended to change it to ‘Risks include contamination of our soil and water, and creates large hazards like ingestion etc’ this seemed a bit wordy. A suggestion for the fifth sentence under ‘Ocean and Microplastic Pollution’ would be to change it from ‘This is due to plastic waste and microplastic is ingested by fish and other marine life, enters our food chain’ to ‘ This is due to plastic waste and microplastic being ingested by fish and other marine life, and then entering our food chain’.

Presentation of Reports on Data Collected: Awesome job on summarizing important interview and survey highlights – no unnecessary wording added. There seems to be a discrepancy in the font color of the paragraph of ‘Survey Results with Customers of Lee Chong Asian Food’- so it is recommended to change it to match the other color of font throughout the paper. Good use of different graphs and figures. It is advised to change the label of figure 4 and 5 to your own research appearing in the graph displayed – as it seems to be from my own formal report ‘Decreasing needlestick Injuries at Arden Park Dental’.

Potential Cost Savings: This section is well done as you have a great number of comparisons for your audience, and you have summarized the best options for them. One thing noted that is recommended to change would be the second last sentence in the first paragraph. It is written ‘At Lee Chong Asian Food, there will be two types of take-out containers that are mainly used’ this was a bit confusing and had to be reread a few times to gain understanding – perhaps changing it to ‘At Lee Chong Asian food there are two types.. etc’ unless it is meant that the recommendation advises them to use the two types of take-out containers.

Suggested Alternatives: Great suggested alternatives listed in this section- well summarized recommendations and straight to the point. In the first sentence of the introduction part of this section it is advised to change ‘interviewer’ to ‘interview’

Biodegradable Alternatives: The last paragraph should be revised as the first sentence seems incomplete. ‘If the owner was to continue using reusable plastic bowls…etc’ there is no if listed.

Reusable Alternatives: The first sentence has two ‘not’s in it, so it is advised to take one out. In the fourth sentence of the paragraph under Figure 10. It is recommended to change it from ‘Thus we see a significant less amount’ to “Thus we see a less significant amount’.

Conclusion: Strong and well written conclusion, straight to the point.

Summary of Findings: In the third sentence please revise ‘through’ to ‘thorough’.

Recommendations of the Problem: The recommendations look great, one suggestion for this section would be to revise the sentence leading up to the list to ‘it is suggested to follow the recommendations below’ as ‘follow the following recommendations’ seemed a bit wordy.

Appendices: References list looks good, as well as the survey and interview attached.

Format and Style: Report looks well put together and follows the same style throughout. It is recommended to check out Lesson 2:1 Step one – Dr. Paterson has mentioned double spaced, and your report is single spaced. Also, it is suggested to look at your capitalization- under the introduction section the sub-headings first word is capitalized, whereas the data section capitalization is used throughout the entire subheadings used.

Concluding Comments:

Your report was very well done, thank you for the opportunity to edit and revise it. To recap the recommendations made in the review, please see the list below:

• Incorporate a methods section in the introduction
• Change Figure 4 and 5 titles to your own report topic
• Revise sentence structures, grammar/spelling errors
• Think about double spacing document
• Capitalize sub-headings in introduction

With following these suggestions, your final report should get a great mark! If you should have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate in reaching out to discuss! Thank you for the opportunity to review your document.

Enclosure: Link to Jenny Zhang’s Formal Report Draft