To: Brionne McWilliams, ENGL 301 Student
From: Beenish Fatima, ENGL 301 Student
Date: April 8th, 2019
Subject: Peer Review of Application Package Draft
Hello Brionne,
Thank you for providing your application package draft for peer-review! I was very impressed by the professional profile you so meticulously developed in your application package. There is a clear layout structure, with each different section distinguishable by its distinct format or content heading. The document effectively establishes your caliber as an applicant by providing a detailed overview of relevant experiences and qualifications in both the cover letter and resume. Overall, the content presented is compelling and well-established due to the relevance of information and efforts to customize application package to the graduate program’s requirements.
While there are many recognizable strengths of this application, there are also a few elements that can be improved through minor alterations and reformatting, to enhance the overall quality of your work. Utilizing a consistent organization structure and formatting through out will enable fluidity and offer a more cohesive presentation of content. Incorporating headings and a table of contents in your work as an alternative to different formatting to distinguish between sections will again help with cohesiveness and readability. Additionally reviewing the writing requirements of You-attitude and applying them in your writing will significantly develop the professionalism of your work.
More details regarding the aforementioned elements and an in-depth review of each section’s content are provided below for your reference.
Job Posting + Citation –
Content
The package included a comprehensive description of the graduate program of interest. The included program posting, also appropriately includes the instructions for composing and attaching a personal statement. The program description is accurately sourced using MLA citation format.
Organization
The section is thoughtfully organized, with appropriate use of headings and sub-headings to distinguish different components of the posting. A recommendation would be to include a brief introduction that gives context to the section, this would facilitate quick understanding of the information and further aid the readability.
Personal Statement/ Essay –
Content
The personal statement meets the requirements laid out by the program description. It is revealing of your academic objectives and offers relevant insight on your background as researcher. Furthermore, the essay identifies your choice of faculty mentor as specified in the instructions. Academic objectives while discernible from information provided are not listed directly. Aside from the initial general indication of interest in research, they are communicated through direct examples from work and academic history. However, it would be valuable to the reader to directly and concisely address the specific academic interests and objectives motivating your application right away in the introduction.
Additional, while this is not a cover letter for a job, the instructions provided for this assignment specify that the contents of this section must fit one page. So if possible, I would recommend reviewing the statement to further condense and emphasize the information that is most beneficial to aiding your application. Limiting your work to one page is a useful approach as it forces utilization of direct and concise information, favoring simplicity over distracting and ineffective support. Being direct and concise can be specifically applied to your
Lastly, like mentioned previously including a brief description of this section along with a heading will provide clarity for the readers reviewing your application package. This can also be done by including a table of contents in the beginning of the application package.
Organization
The content is correctly organized into paragraphs. As mentioned earlier, including a table of contents that introduces the different sections of this document will offer much needed context to the reader and enable easy navigation of the content.
Writing Style
Following the directive of you-attitude, and taking the steps to incorporate a reader-centered approach to your writing, will greatly aid the chances of receiving a positive response for your application. However, since this is a personal statement and it is recommended practice to avoid establishing a stiff and overly professional tone, using pronouns such as ‘I’ is understandable. However, it is still crucial to consider the reader of your work when composing an application document, and this reader-centered approach was apparent in your work via your inclusion of relevant content and characterization of your academic profile as an asset to the Rosalind Franklin university.
A recommendation would be to develop a dynamic tone in your personal essay by curating an active voice through the use of action verbs and avoidance of stagnant or imperative verbs. This advice was discussed in further detail the Technical Writing textbook and is helpful for engaging the target reader and emphasizing your progress and accomplishments to the admissions committee. This will also help to communicate confidence without sounding arrogant.
Lastly, the flow of the writing and readability can be improved by reviewing the grammar and sentence structure utilized throughout the section.
Here are a few specific examples:
Design/ Format
Introducing spacing in between your paragraphs will enhance the layout and enable easy progression through the different paragraphs. Again, since this application package is not addressing a job posting and doesn’t include a cover letter, I’m assuming it doesn’t need to follow the detailed instruction regarding letter formatting. However, as mentioned earlier including a brief overview outlining the purpose of this section and describing the contents and target audience of the written statement would be beneficial to the reader–since this is not clear through the formatting.
Resume
Content
The resume appropriately includes different sections that provide information regrading education, research, professional and other relevant experiences and qualifications.
Description for each of the experience/ qualifications has heavy use of action verbs to exemplify your abilities and potential as candidate for the graduate program. A recommendation to further enhance this aspect would be to utilize key words relevant to the program of your interest in your descriptions. This is a beneficial practice because quite often–especially for programs and positions that receive a high number of applicants, resume are filtered based solely on the presence of these keywords. Keywords that should be emphasized can be derived from the program descriptions or candidate requirements provided by the university.
Organization
This section employs an excellent organization structure, that visibly reflects the effort taken to customize this resume specifically for the chosen program. There is a heavy emphasis on research experience, that is expanded by creating additional separate publication and oral presentation sections. The extensive research background is further highlighted by distinguishing it from your teaching and other professional experience. Lastly the experiences listed in each section are in reverse chronological order with the most recent experience and education listed. Similarly, the subsections themselves are ordered with consideration to importance and relevance to the program. Overall, the organization strategy was very effective in featuring the most relevant elements of your academic and professional history.
Writing Style
The writing style used is professional and concise in nature. The descriptions appropriately do not dwell too much on the details but rather simply just emphasize the most significant features. In general the writing style is fitting for the purpose of this section.
Design/ Format
The resume is designed with the target audience in mind, it uses bold and italics for emphasis of the most important information, highlight it for the readers notice. Additionally, it uses horizontal lines to separate the different sections and facilitate easy navigation of the content. Furthermore, while the resume does not meet the recommended one page limit, it still maintains an uncluttered and tasteful look by utilizing these subsections and implementing a clean and sophisticated design. The use of more than one page for the resume is understandable in this case as the section is developed for an academic opportunity rather then a professional employment.
Reference Request Letters –
Content
The application package does not include three reference request letters as specified, it is always best practice to meet the requested number of references, so a suggestion would be to include two more letters of request. The letter that is included concisely explains the request and reviews the working relationship with the referee. The objective of the correspondence is clearly laid out in the introduction and the request is made in a professional and personable manner. Furthermore, the letter reminds the reader of the your excellent qualities as a student and your academic accomplishments in his course (i.e. by listing your grade in the course). This increase the persuasiveness of your request and outlines a compelling rationale for compliance.
Organization
The letter is thoughtfully organized with strong consideration of the readers time and importance. It is broken down appropriately into paragraphs, and utilizes a bullet list to concisely organize the requirements of the request.
Writing Style
The letter utilizes elements of You-Attitude writing style by beginning the letter without the use of pronouns and placing the focus on the reader themselves. However, throughout the rest of the letters there is room for improvement regarding minimizing pronouns such as ‘I’. Furthermore, using action verbs in your writing to explain your academic and professional background is a more effective approach in highlighting your capabilities as a student and potential candidate for the graduate program. Overall the tone of the writing is positive and grateful. There are a few areas where the reviewing the grammar and sentence structure will help improve the flow and readability of the writing.
Design/ Format
The letter begins with an appropriate salutations that is professional and appropriate. A recommendation would be to follow the letter writing format presented in Technical writing textbook. A specific example of what should be incorporated is provided below.
“From: Brionne Mcwilliams (email@alumni.ubc.ca)
To: Reference Full Name (reference@email.com)
Date: March 25th, 2019
Subject: Request for Reference – Brionne McWilliams”
Including this in your request provides important context for the readers reviewing your application package.
Concluding Comments –
The application package, a culmination of the technical writing strategies and skills we have learnt through out this course, was composed with consideration to the specific graduate programs requirement. It was fine-tuned to address the criteria utilized in the admission of a potential psychology graduate student by including relevant research experiences and aligning academic objectives. There was a definite effort to use an organization structure that distinguished the different section of the application, i.e. use of headings and subheading as well as distinct format changes in between sections. There was also use of You-attitude writing style in sections of the package, specifically through emphasizing the importance of the reader by characterizing the information in benefit to them. Specific recommendations and areas of improvements highlighted in this review are summarized below:
- Organizing the different section of the overall document in a table of contents to enable easy navigation of the document
- Employing a consistent and reader-friendly formatting to enhance the readability
- Reviewing and fixing basic grammar errors to improve flow of the document
- Being selective and concise in the information that is included in the different personal statement essay to limit the content to the one-page requirement of the assignment.
- Developing a dynamic tone in your writing (specifically in the personal statement section) by utilizing action verbs
- Incorporating the elements of you-attitude in your writing such as minimizing use of pronouns such as ‘I’ and emphasizing the importance and consideration of the reader–specifically for the reference request letters.
- Maintaining a consistent organization structure and design format through out to portray an overall cohesive and professional look
Hopefully, these recommendations are effective in helping you formulate and improve future drafts of your application. Please let me know if you have any concerns or additional questions relating to this review, you can reach me at beenish.ft@alumni.ubc.ca.
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