Throughout the semester, I have completed many assignments such as a formal proposal report, LinkedIn best practices, Email memos, and many more. This learning process allowed me to receive useful feedbacks and reflect on my own writings.

Many assignments were unfamiliar to me and I discovered some of my weakness, which I hope to improve in all my future writings. For example, I should increase my awareness of my targeted audience in order to communicate in an efficient manner. In addition, I have a tendency to use long and chatty sentences, which often creates confusion. In my future writings, I will pay close attention to write concise sentences and communicate as effectively as possible. One of my greatest strength is to provide detailed analysis such that the readers are well informed. For example, my proposal includes lots of background information that gives reader the appropriate information for understanding the proposal.

The ENGL301 course has definitely helped improve my professional writing skills. The feedback and advices that I have received in this course will keep improving my writing skills. These skills will give me great advantage in the future when working in a professional environment, such as reporting to a manager, communicating with coworkers, proposing new ideas to upper management, and many more.

For the past month, we were asked to researching, organizing , and producing the formal report draft, as well as peer reviewing a partner’s proposal. These experiences have provided me great insight on my own writing skills.

Researching

The researching part of my proposal includes a interview with a course coordinator and surveys to be completed by some students. The process itself was not challenging, however, in order to maintain a good sample size, I had to put extra effort in convincing more people to complete the survey. The interview went very well on the other hand as I was able to collect answers to all of my questions. In addition, I had a great conversation with my interviewee and she was generous enough to share more insight on the topics we discussed.

Organizing & Writing 

Organizing the formal report was the most challenging task for me. Although I had a general idea of what kind of information to include in my report, I was uncertain about how to organize the data and present them in a meaningful way.  I ended up spending a lot of time reading instructions and look for sample formal reports online. I then decided to only include a portion of my data which are more convincing and reflective. This is because some of the questions I prepared is not really relevant in supporting the main arguments and can only be noise if I were to include them. Another problem I encountered was that my word count does not meet the requirement of the formal report. I was thinking of analyzing deeper into some of the problems and also expand on the solution and its costs. Hopefully, I will have a more presentable version

Peer Review

I had a great time reviewing my partner’s formal report draft since it was extremely organized and concise. As a result, I had a better idea of how to organize my data section  On the other hand, I understand where to improve on my own formal report through peer review. As my partner had pointed out, I should avoid using large chuck of text to improve readability. In addition, I should analyze the cost and effect of the solutions to confirm the feasibility of my proposal, as well as reformatting my table of contents for better navigation. I am confident that with all the great suggestions from my partner, my revised report will be more presentable.

link to Formal Report Draft: ENGL301_Formal_Report_Draft_CathyLiu

For the past month, we were asked to create a LinkedIn Profile and research on some best practices using LinkedIn. In addition, we have created a formal report proposal, a formal report outline, a progress report, as well as peer reviewing a partner’s proposal. These experiences have provided me great insight on my own writing.

LinkedIn Profile

While completing my first task of the module, I found the researching part to be time-consuming mainly due to the overflowing information on the internet. I felt quite uncertain on which practices to include in my writing. However, I discovered that there were a lot of overlapping information across the internet, so I decided to use only two sources where I believe were the most informative. Unsurprisingly, I really learned a lot from this activity. Although I already kept a LinkedIn Profile, this activity allowed me to reflect on myself on whether I have utilized this resource in my job searching process. I am glad that I had an opportunity to update my profile since I am currently looking for my first co-op. I hope to use LinkedIn more often and be able to connect with more professionals.

Formal Report

The report proposal was the most challenging task for me. Although I had an idea of the proposal I wanted to prepare, I was quite uncertain of how to implementing it. I ended up spending a lot of time reading instructions and look for sample proposals online. The task became more manageable once I broke down the proposal into pieces. I am confident on carrying out my formal report, however I am worried about my sample size being too small. I have set up deadlines for each stage of the report, and I have dedicated a lot of time to collect data and carry out interviews. I will make sure to collect as much data as possible and make time for self-editing and peer review.

Reviewing my partner’s proposal have really inspired me on how I wanted to carry out my proposal. I learned more about different ways of collecting data and the ethical way to format the surveys. My partner also spent a lot of time introducing the problem and the importance of it, which was quite informative for people who does not have the knowledge. On the other hand, I gained a lot more insight on my own writing through peer review. As my partner had pointed out, my sentences should be more concise in a formal report and avoid using lengthy sentences, which might lead to confusion. In addition, he suggested me to gig deeper about the reason behind the problem, which can improve the proposed solution. Furthermore, I have also rewrote the Scope to include more detailed questions since the previous ones were very general.

link to revised Report Proposal: Revised Formal Proposal

hyperlink to the Peer Review:

https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-99a-2021wa/2021/10/18/peer-review-for-formal-report-proposal/

Unit One Reflection Blog

While completing the definition of Blockchain technology, I did a lot of research in order to provide concise and comprehensive explanation on this topic because Blockchain was a very abstract concept. However, I did not have a very good parenthetical definition as I personally think blockchain was hard to explain within a few words. Therefore, I quoted the definition from an online source. In my sentence definition and expanded definition, I tried to include a more detailed explanation with comparison to traditional record keeping system, as well as digging a little deeper on why blockchain was used nowadays. As a result, not only the readers could understand the technology behind blockchain, they also learned some of the biggest advantages of blockchain. In addition, the illustration provided great detail on how a transaction was conducted using blockchain.

In general, I enjoyed self-editing and peer-reviewing. While reviewing my partner’s work, I found it hard to criticize his work and was worried that some of my advice or opinions were not necessarily helpful. It was clearly because my peer’s work was clear, concise, and comprehensive. Nevertheless, peer-reviewing provided me the opportunity to look at other’s work, and I gained some tips or ideas which allowed me to reflect on my own writing. One great detail my peer provided was a target audience and situation statement for his definition. This was something that I was lacking and I realized that my definition could be hard to understand without a target audience (i.e. someone who have no domain knowledge).

Throughout the process of reading my peer’s recommendation, I truly felt that I was gaining so much perspective and useful advice. My parenthetical definition included some jargons which would not necessarily be familiar to someone of a different educational background. Another advice I received was to add a parenthetical definition or expand more on the term “database”. This was indeed a great suggestion because this term might sound unfamiliar to people outside the domain of Computer Science or Data Science. Last but not least, just like my peer pointed out, I moved the illustration to a later paragraph where it was more relevant.

Revised Definition: https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-99a-2021wa/2021/10/09/revised-definition-of-blockchain-technology/

Peer’s Review: https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-99a-2021wa/2021/10/01/peer-review-for-cathy-lius-term-definitions/

From: Cathy Liu

To: Samantha Lee

Date: Sept 23rd, 2021

Subject: Invitation to English 301 Writing Team

From: Cathy Liu

To: Yifan Wang

Date: Sept 23rd, 2021

Subject: Re: Invitation to English 301 Writing Team

MEMORANDUM

To: Erika Paterson, Professor of English 301

From: Cathy Liu

Date: September 20th, 2018

Subject: English 301 – Cathy Liu’s Letter of Application

As per requested for this week’s English 301 assignment, I have posted my letter of application on my blog. I hope this letter will provide you with more details about my academic background, professional experience,  as well as valuable qualifications that makes me a competitive candidate.

Below are some key points in my letter of application:

• obtained a BCOM (Finance) degree and currently pursuing Computer Science as a second degree
• experienced Investment Analyst and a CFA Level 2 Candidate
• passionate about solving problems and building solutions using technology in the finance world
• fast learner and eager to improve my writing skills

Beside my diverse experience and aptitude for challenges, I also took English 111, which improved my writing in analyzing non-fictional prose. Thank you for your time and I look forward to your reply. In case you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Enclosure: 301 Cathy Liu Application Letter

3728 W24th Avenue

Vancouver, BC V6S 1L6

Sept 20th, 2021

English 301 Students

The University of British Columbia

Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4

Dear English 301 Students :

I am keenly interested in becoming a member of your professional writing team for this semester. I am a mature student, who is currently enrolled in the BCS program. As a candidate with an aptitude for challenges, it is always my passion to utilize my experience in Finance, Computer Science, and Data Science, and contribute to the technological world. My academic background and various work experience position me to be a strong candidate for your team.

I have gained extensive technical skills from academic courses and applied the knowledge into practice through previous experience as an Investment Analyst and building personal projects using various programming languages. These experiences have equipped me with strong problem-solving and analytical skills. I possess strong leadership and time management skills proven by balancing full time position and studying for CFA exam simultaneously. As an analyst, I actively reported to stakeholders on fund performance and communicated with fund managers and client support on a regular basis to endure data accuracy. While completing my first degree, I worked in retail for 3 years. Not only I had the opportunity to enhance my communication skills through maintaining client relation, I also practiced my writing skills through writing weekly sales report.

My learning philosophy involves learning independently, collaborate with others, and constantly reflect on previous learning experience. When I encounter a problem, I prefer to approach the problem independently first before asking for help because this maximizes my learning outcome. Nevertheless, It is critical to collaborate with others in order to get different perspectives. As someone with international work experience, I love working and collaborating with diverse group of people. Last but not least, reflecting on a learning experience can help me learn more efficiently in the future.

I would highly appreciate an opportunity to further discuss my qualifications. I can be reached email: cathyliu0315@hotmail.com. Thank you in advance for your consideration and I look forward to speaking with you.

Sincerely,

Cathy Liu

301 Cathy Liu Application Letter