Peer Review of Definition – “Self-Management”

To: Johnathan Tam, Student ENGL 301 Technical Writing UBC
From: Jordan Zhao, Student ENGL 301 Technical Writing UBC
Date: October 3, 2021
Subject: Review of Your Report Assignment 1:3 – “Self-management” Definition

 

Peer Review / Term: “Self-management” Definition 

Thank you for sharing a wonderful complex term with the students of ENGL 301 Technical Writing UBC. This is an excellent presentation of the definition “self-management” to an audience that may not recognize its role in the healthcare setting. Please see the review of the document below with some suggestions for improvement.

First Impression:
This is a very straightforward definition that meets all the assignment requirements, well organized, contains visuals and includes a works cited list.

Organization:

• The organization of the definition is well planned out.
• The selection methods of expansion through history, operating principle, required conditions, and negation fit well and help to properly define the term.
• The explanations may need further descriptions in order to present examples clearly in respect to your desired context.
• Great work on your definition of self-management.
• Visuals and figures used must be properly cited with correct placement, please review the textbook for further notes.

Language/Expression:

• In the introduction, the active voice being used appears to cause sentences to run on.
  • For example, in the very first paragraph, consider changing “By doing so, we would learn to understand …” to “We learn to understand the importance of definitions in technical writing as they should be directed towards specific audiences.”
  • This may improve the clarity of the sentences as they end up being more direct and to the point.
  • I would recommend checking the rest of the introduction for similar cases.
• Otherwise, the introduction explains the purpose and demonstrates the importance of the assignment.
• In terms of the parenthetical definition, it may be confusing when referring to “active self-management”.
  • This might indicate to readers that there are many other forms of self-management.
  • Making the correct clarification early on and explaining whether it is the same term would be beneficial.
  • For example, there are many fields of cardiology such as interventional cardiology and preventive cardiology. Both fields are indeed in cardiology but are slightly different in their respective fields.

Content:

• The document is complete and meets the assignment requirements, containing the following:
  • relatively complex term within discipline
  • definition directed to “non-technical readers” with purpose
  • composes the forms of definition
  • contains four types of expansion methods
  • contains visuals
  • supplemented by at least three references

Visuals:

• Please make sure visuals are properly labelled and cited.
• It may be helpful to include a summary presenting the visuals or make references to them.

Clarity:

• There were a couple of occasions where more details could be implemented to give a better understanding of your definition on self-management.
• For example, in the required conditions paragraph of your expanded definition, it was difficult to fully understand what the required conditions were.
• This could include an explanation on what multifaceted approach is, and what knowledge or skill development refers to exactly. For example, knowledge could be explained as “a briefing from health professionals on how it should work or be used by patients”.
• Being descriptive in your examples allows readers to clearly distinguish what it entails exactly.

Highlights/Weaknesses:

• The operating principles in your expanded definition was amazing.
• This was definitely a good technique as it provided a strong explanation with examples in terms of what self-management is and how it works.
• Great use of images as well, this could be improved with text that introduced the images or referred to the them in the definition.
• The definition report could possibly also use a title just to distinguish the definition from the start.

Works Cited List:

• There may potentially be some issues with your references and the numbering system used as they were not referred to by numbers via in-text citations.
• Overall, a very strong definition that portrays the idea of self-management by means of physical activity.

Purpose/Audience:

• The definition has been described for the intended audience.
• It clearly explains what is needed to understand the definition of self-management.

Concluding Comments:

This definition was a very informative read, well organized and properly executed. The following edits would make this a wonderful definition.

• Further details on examples and descriptions
• Correcting citation for visuals and providing context to the visuals
• Language use
• Reviewing Works Cited list

Thank you for this wonderful definition. The written definition of self-management is on track to success, and clearly illustrates the ability to define technical terms in the ENGL 301 Technical Writing Course. Please do not hesitate to ask any questions.

 

Best,

 

Jordan Zhao