Throughout the second unit of ENG 301, I deepened my abilities to write effectively in a formal context.
During the formal report proposal, I honed the skills to clearly outline and put forward a plan for the development of my coyote-tracking app. In this assignment, I was reminded of the importance of presentation and structure when crafting any sort of formal proposal. I noticed how reworking my draft’s structure into a streamlined, easy-to-follow order helped to make the content much more powerful than when it was diluted through feeling disjointed.
My initial draft for this assignment was overly complex, and I realised that this complexity was not adding much to the overall effect the content had on the reader. Through my editing processes, I came to realise how important simplicity is, even – or especially – when communicating in a formal setting. I noticed how much of my writing was just cumbersome white noise which distracted from meaningful content and how, rather than making my work appear more professional, it just muddied it.
I also more fully realised the importance of sentence structure. I chose to break up my work into a series of shorter, to-the-point sentences. Prior to this, run-on sentences seemed to be a snag that was holding my work back from being its clearest and most professional. I had a tendency to want to fit in all the information I could into a single sentence. I now see no harm in breaking up a sentence, even if it follows “a single thought” into two, three, or more separate parts. Keeping sentences purposeful and concise felt key to maintaining the audience’s attention. It had been missing from my work, however the assignments in Unit 2 provided me with space to practice this. By the unit’s end, I found my writing markedly easier to follow.
Moreover, I learnt new, subtle details about objectivity when writing a report. It was interesting to see how, even when you are proposing the development of a new innovation, such as a coyote-tracking app, you must give equal airtime to the anti-development counterarguments – the reasons why such an app is not feasible, effective or necessary. This was new to me, as I assumed when one is proposing a new technology they are going to be inherently biased toward going ahead with it.
However, this made me stop and think about how the development of any new innovation needs be done with everyone’s interest in mind, not just the creator’s interest, and must only be done if objective assessment reveals it will have a net benefit on the whole.
It was also fascinating to learn about ethical data collection, and the rigours one must go through to safeguard any study they conduct against exploitative, questionable collection of people’s data, sometimes on personal or sensitive subjects.
Through all of this, I feel I bolstered my skillset when it comes to being clear when writing a proposal, looking at everything in a detached, objective way and being wary of how to ethically proceed with a study, specifically as it involves the collection of data.
I am grateful this unit imparted me with these lessons and manifold more.
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