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