Assignment 3:3 – Peer Review of Johnathan’s Formal Report Draft

To: Johnathan Tam, Student ENGL 301 Technical Writing UBC
From: Jordan Zhao, Student ENGL 301 Technical Writing UBC
Date: November 18, 2021
Subject: Review of Your Formal Report Draft – Assignment 3:3 Formal Report Draft Review

 

Peer Review / Formal Report Proposal: Determining the Feasibility of Increasing Security Measures at Condominium

Thank you for your submission of a well-composed draft detailing the potential issues around household security measures. This formal report clearly illustrates the potential problems to the audience of property owners that could benefit from potential recommendations. Please see the review of the formal report draft with some suggestions for improvement.

First Impression:

This is a clear formal report draft that features a problem that poses severe consequences to the directed audience. It meets all the assignment requirements, is well organized, and follows the format of a research proposal.

Content

• The overview of the problem and purpose of the report section presents the big picture issues very efficiently. It illustrates a detailed report of the key issues at hand and demonstrates a strong purpose as to why the analytical research report is needed.
• The background section could be further revised to contain more information that illustrates more of the potential problems of break-ins and burglaries.
  • Further revisions could focus on how these potential problems affect property owners in the condominium. For example, burglary can result in problems for residents awaiting important documents and packages to be delivered that could potentially never be re-obtained.
• The report precisely identifies and analyzes the presented issue of low safety and security measures for condominium members.
  • The report accurately takes account of the dangers and issues and presents a list of recommended solutions that are both workable and cost-effective.
  • The suggestion of installing security cameras is an excellent workaround to the analyzed issue and is cost-effective with a one-time payment from owners for implementation.
• The presented report mostly contains terms that are understandable at all reading levels.
  • However, there are some terms in the context of household ownership that could be further defined for reference to other readers outside of the identified audience using methods of definition
  • For example, the terms such as “condominium” and “strata” could be briefly defined.
•  The report is logically laid out beginning with an overview of the problems and has a good flow that leads to potential solutions that are backed up with primary and secondary data sources.
• All sections of the report are relevant and necessary for the identified reader of the report.
  • The sections created propose key issues and problems to the reader and build on these issues with a proposal for solutions that are presented by primary research.
  • The findings of the report provide a good reason for a proposal research report that gives the identified readers reason to potentially take action on the problems and follow in guidance with the list of recommendations.

Organization

• The formal report draft is presented in a well-organized layout that is clear and effective at all points.
  • There are only some minor issues that should be corrected such as a missing running head. This is a minor fix that can be corrected in reference to the guidance in the textbook.
• The draft is paginated but some minor edits to the pagination should be made.
  • The start of the pagination should begin in the introduction section. This means that the title page and table of contents should not list a page number. Please reference the textbook for guidance.
•  The draft contains and uses effective headings that reveal the content of each section of the report clearly.
  • The draft could be improved with further implementation of sub-headings that help break down bigger sections into smaller sub-sections around specific key ideas.
  • For example, the overview and purpose of the report section could be further broken down into individual sub-sections.
• The draft presented does a good job of avoiding long texts of paragraphs by breaking down these paragraphs into small sections of information.
• Each section of the report is in progression and clearly connected to the previous point. The details of each section properly add to the content of the report and build on the topic around the issues portrayed.
• There are currently no gaps in information that does not constructively add to the content of the formal report.
• The presented materials of the report add critical information to the analysis of the problem.

Style

• The formal report draft mostly uses the correct style and tone. There are slight instances where a subjective tone is used rather than an objective tone.
• For example, the background section of the report states the personal perspective and observations from experience. Instead, the report should reference these perspectives from an objective point of view such that the report is not influenced by feelings.
  • The report could make use of this information by being rephrased to present these findings from an objective point of view.
  • Please see the textbook for further reference on these corrections.
• Overall, the formal report draft presents a positive tone throughout the entirety of the report. This is important to remove any bias and personal influences as it may present the issues of carrying out the report for personal gains.
  • The report does an excellent job in representing the topic at hand for the measures of all condominium residents and the practical measures of the condominium owners.
• Furthermore, the report makes good use of the writing technique where the tone fully reflects a you-attitude toward the identified readers such to illustrate the ability for the readers to review and possibly respond to the issues by reference to the given list of recommendations.
• Each section of the report fully provides details that add to the concise understanding of the report.

Design

• The presented report contains and makes good use of graphics and graphs of the research findings.
• The contents of the graphics are well-designed, effectively labeled, and integrated into the correct sections of the report.
• There are some minor edits that should be made to the labeling of the graphics.
  • The graphics should be centered in the middle of the report and should also have the corresponding graphical captions centered as well.
  • There should not be a title for the presented graphics unless these are the subsections to be used to further discuss the specifics of the graphics in the report.
  • Otherwise, these graphics can be referenced in-text via a reference to the figure number.
•  The overall presentation of the report draft is reader-friendly and makes good use of graphics such that it is visually appealing.
  • The graphics could be slightly minimized such that it clearly distinguishes between the sections of text and graphics.
  • The use of extra-large graphics blends all text sections into the graphical sections such that the use of smaller images creates a clear distinction between these parts.

Technical

• There are a few grammatical and technical errors in the presented formal report drag.
  • For example, the title of the report should also capitalize the word “measures”.
  • Please review the captions and sections for other corrections of grammatical errors.
• There are some corrections needed in the citation section of the report.
  • Please review MLA citation procedures and make sure to make use of a hanging indentation.

Concluding Comments:

This formal report draft on the analysis of security measures at condominiums is well presented. It is backed by primary resources with qualified personnel arranged to conduct meaningful results and recommendations. The following adjustments would make this proposal outstanding. The formal report is on track and provides concise findings that lead to potential cost-effective solutions.

• Further review of grammatical errors
• Adjustment of the title
• Implementation of a running head and correction of pagination
• Further review of MLA citation
• Correction of graphical design layouts and figure captions

Thank you for this wonderful formal report draft. This proposal is on track for success and clearly illustrates the ability to form conduct meaningful analytical findings to the issue at hand. This is on track for successful recommendations and further review of the issues by the listed audience readers. Please do not hesitate to ask any questions.

 

Best,

 

Jordan Zhao

 

Enclosure: ENGL301_Formal-Report-Draft Assignment 3.2 – Formal Report Draft Johnathan Tam