3:3: Peer Review of Proposal for the Reduction of Electronic Waste in Yellowknife

Posted on November 19, 2021 by

KittyYan Posted in The Empirical Pen — No Comments ↓

To: Adrianna Mroz, Member of the Empirical Pen Writing Team from ENGL301 99A Technical Writing 2021W
From: Kitty Yan, Member of the Empirical Pen Writing Team from ENGL301 99A Technical Writing 2021
Date: November 19, 2021
Subject: Peer Review of Formal Report Draft for the Proposal for the Reduction of Electronic Waste in Yellowknife

Thank you for the enlightening read about recommendations for change in regards to electronic disposal and the risks that come about the increasing electronic waste being created globally and in Canada (specifically for the Yellowknife community). Please see below for a list of suggestions for improvement.

First Impressions:

The report had some major strengths that include a clear organization and a good flow from the introduction to the recommendations. The report gave a great emphasis on the issue of increasing e-waste not being disposed of properly that can cause environmental contamination as well as raising recommendations on government services that could help alleviate this issue. Overall, the report highlighted very well and clearly the particular challenges and problems of the Yellowknife community experiences in recycling e-waste.

Working Title and Title Page:

The title page has represented all elements needed with the title capturing the proposal, the intended audience, the date of submission and author. One suggestion is to separate the intended audience and date of submission to make reading the elements easier.

Replacing the title with “Table of Contents” and centering it may help to distinguish it and the headings of the body of the report
Indenting the subheadings may give an overall easier to comprehension from a reader’s glance
Adding the illustrations/visuals into the table of contents
Removing heading “Survey” as it is not used in as a heading in the body of the report
Adding Works Cited to the table of contents

Introduction (titled Background):

Introduction:

The introduction clarifies the increasing risk of electronic disposal and the environmental impacts and highlights a potential source income from recycling e-waste. The introduction successfully and clearly sets up the issue to be addressed.

A few suggestions:

Rephrasing a few sentences that were a bit awkward and hard to comprehend (some of which is also listed in the heading Introduction under Grammar and Technical Errors below):
- For example, “Subsequently, the lifespan of devices…” may be better phrased as “Subsequently, the lifespan of devices has been greatly shortened. For instance, the lifespan of computers has been reduced from 4–6 years to 2–3 years between 1992 to 2015.”
- Another example is separating a long sentence into two: “The process of recycling electronics … within lithium–ion batteries.” could be changed to “The process of recycling electronics must be done within specified parameters as the contents contain toxic materials. These include lead, mercury, cadmium and chromium that are used as conductors, and polychlorinated biphenyl which can be found within lithium–ion batteries.”
Adding citations for the toxic materials and valuable metals may help to strengthen the credibility of the issue
Changing the title of the heading “Background” to “Introduction” (thus, removing the extra “introduction” subheading)

Northern Perspective:

This section clearly highlights the logistical challenges communities in the Northwest Territories face and gives sources to back up the research. As mentioned above, a few suggestions also include rephrasing some awkwardly constructed or run-on sentences:

Rephrasing the first sentence into two or adding a clause would greatly increase readability into something like “… only roughly 20% was recycled which left a majority…”
Adding a subject after “For smaller and more remote … across Canada” as it is not known what is being referred here (is it more remote cities, towns, communities?)
Merging the first two sentences of the second paragraph may help to reduce repetition such as “…than the national average which is shown in Table A, a report document in 2012 by the government of the Northwest Territories” (also removing the words “on average” as it was already mentioned that they purchase more than the national average)

Yellowknife Recycling Options:

This section presented a very great flow and connection from the previous section, discussing e-waste issues in Canada to Northwest Territories to specifically Yellowknife. A few suggestions:

Rephrasing or rewording the third sentence for better understanding as it is currently hard to comprehend what is the subject to “finding storage on a rocky…” and hard to understand how the latter of the sentence to relate to the first part of the sentence
Separating the third sentence into two separate sentences to avoid being a run-on sentence
Including additional information to the last sentence before Figure B as the wording is a bit confusing – perhaps splitting the last sentence and rephrasing the sentences may help comprehension
Adding an image of the GNWT webpage may also help to strengthened the argument of how it does not provide more information instead of a hyperlink.

Body of Report (titled Data):

Survey:

There was no heading for Survey nor a separate section mentioning about the survey on page 5, so a suggestion may be to remove this section heading from the table of contents or change “Resident Awareness” into “Survey” and include additional details about the conducted survey.

Resident Awareness:

This section highlights the challenges of the Yellowknife community with obtaining information for e-waste disposal and includes information from the conducted survey. A few suggestions:

Rephrasing multiple run-on sentences in the section and split them into separate sentences would greatly increase reader comprehension.

Yellowknife Landfill:

This section clearly emphasizes the challenge of non-recyclable waste disposal for Yellowknife residents and the environmental contamination of the Yellowknife landfill. A few suggestions:

Rephrasing the first sentence of the second paragraph to reference what is being similarly situated
Rewording the second sentence or split it into two separate sentences would greatly help reader comprehension

Illustrations/Visuals:

The visuals were effectively used, helping to contribute to the understanding of the report. Some suggestions:

Adding a reference in the report to give better context where the recycling receptacles were mentioned for Figure B
Similarly, adding references in the body of the report for Figure C, D, E would help in a better contextual way, instead of understanding how it relates only by the title of the figure

In-Text References in MLA Style:

Most in-text references were written within the MLA Style, but some in-text references were incomplete, such as the end of the first paragraph on page 3. To fit the MLA Style, the “Sources” page should change to be “Works Cited” and be centered on the page.

List of Conclusions and Recommendations (titled Conclusion):

Recommendations:

Recommendations were listed and described very clearly based on the findings and the research from the body of the report. A suggestion may be to add bullet points for a more in-depth summary of the recommendations that were explained in the body of the report. Another suggestion may be to add a final concluding paragraph to wrap up the report.

Grammar and Technical Errors:

Please refer below in regards to minor grammatical and formatting errors:

Introduction:

Adding a comma between “new products regularly
entering the market” and “consumers are at a greater incline” on page 3
Removing the extra spacing between “(” and “e-waste” on page 3
Changing the “globally 50 million tons of electronic waste ( e-waste) created” to “50 million tons of electronic waste (e-waste) created globally” on page 3
Adding the verb, “were” in between “20% recycled” on page 3
Changing the “et all” in the citation for Kidde to “Kidde et al.”
Removing the extra spacing between “as well as” and “polychlorinated biphenyl” on page 3
Adding a comma between “a circular economy” and “a large amount of electronics“
Rephrasing “These substances are documented to be highly toxic…” into two sentences or add essential clauses like “that” or “which” to avoid being a run-on sentence, and removing the “to life” which was already defined with the usage of “toxic”
Remove the “s” from “to recycles” on the last paragraph of page 3
Rephrase the last sentence to wrap up the end of the introduction, perhaps with “E-waste, then, is both” and change “extraction of these metals” to “extraction of valuable metals”

Northern Perspective:

Removing the extra spacing between “(” and “representing” on page 4
Adding a comma between “ 20.4 kg per person)” and “roughly
20%“
Adding a comma after “In the Northwest Territories“
Adding a comma between “Yellowknife” and “being the central hub“
Removing the extra spacing between “Northwest territories indicating that” and “NWT residents purchased” on page 4
Removing the extra spacing between “(” and “$82,966) on page 4
Removing the extra spacing between the end of the paragraph on page 4 and Table A (or keep the caption of Table A along with the table on the same page, on page 5)

Yellowknife Recycling Options:

Adding a comma after “With the advent of a gold mine in 1933” in the second sentence
Adding a comma between “As of 2019” and “the current population” on page 5
Adding a comma between “a gold mine in 1933” and “a surplus of empty” on page 5
Adding a comma between “Since 2005” and “the city” on page 5
Removing the extra spacing between “disposing of their recycling into distributed” and “large blue cargo container” on page 5
Removing the extra spacing between the end of the paragraph at the beginning of page 6 and Figure B
Removing the extra spacing between “may further inquire.” and “The site is well laid out” on page 6
Removing the extra spacing between “appropriate information” and “, however, it does not provide residents of specific communities” on page 6
Removing the extra spacing between “yearly satellite depots.” and “Further,” on page 6

Resident Awareness:

Adding a period after the end of the paragraph, after “in procedures taken towards e–waste management” on page 7

Yellowknife Landfill:

Removing the extra spacing between “dispose of electronics” and “at the landfill“
Removing the extra spacing between “are sorted” and “and electronics” on page 8
Removing the extra spacing between “televisions and computers” and “have a designated slot” on page 8
Removing the extra spacing between “(” and “water that percolates through soil)” on page 8

Recommendations:

Removing the extra spacing between “GNWT’s provided site,” and “is an area” on page 10

Content:

The report had a clear emphasis on the issue of e-waste and its disposal, and the discussion on the topic was presented in a very clear and well laid out format. The level of details were presented well to the intended audience. The recommendations were provided in a workable way, but a suggestion would be to collect the statements of improvement from the body of the text and include them in the final Recommendations heading.

Organization:

The organization of the report is very clearly laid out and easy to follow from section to section (with a good flow and connection). The draft should start pagination after table of contents and include a header, but the headings and sub headings clearly define the content to be read. Some areas do require a more effective transition (as mentioned above in their own sections).

Style:

The report remains fairly objective and positive through-out. Some sentences could use a rephrasing or rewording for better reader comprehension (as mentioned and specified with suggestions in their own sections above), and adding more sources to specific claims like mentioned with the toxicity/source of income or in places that mention residents feeling the recycling receptacles are not convenient (perhaps including survey questions) would greatly strengthened the credibility of the report.

Design:

Overall, the illustrations used were helpful and effective for reader understanding in the report, but as mentioned above, adding references in the body of the report itself would greatly help to tie the illustrations with the report statements. Centering the visuals would also help the overall layout of the report.

Revisions:

Overall, this is a great proposal for an important issue, presenting the problem of e-waste and its disposal given the already existing challenges from the environment and government services. The report provided great recommendations on potential areas for improvement, and with the following suggested revisions, the report could increase in reader comprehension and understanding:

removing headings not used and adding pages for illustrations/visuals in the table of contents
adding more citations for sources within the body of the report to strengthen credibility
rephrasing or rewording sentences to avoid awkwardness or run-on sentences
adding references to the illustrations in the body of the report
adding more in-depth summary of recommendations that were stated in the body of the report but not in the heading at the conclusion
including a conclusion to wrap up report
correcting minor grammar and formatting errors

Thank you for the opportunity to look over your proposal on a very important matter, and I hope these suggestions are helpful for the revision process! Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or if you require any further clarification.

Enclosure: 301 Adrianna Mroz – Formal Report Draft (Formal report l for the Reduction of Electronic Waste in Yellowknife)