Category Archives: Reflections

After four months of ENGL 301, I have gained a lot of knowledge on technical writing in a professional setting, such as report proposal, progress report, formal report, business letter. Besides, I have improved many practical skills as well, such as how to effectively expanding professional network and how to schedule my time for a huge project.

My strength
Having various working experiences before, I am very proactive and good at communicating with my team. I created a team group chat where we exchange ideas and ask questions. I had a wonderful time with my team.
Besides, I showed strong organizational skills and time management. Even though my summer schedule was pretty busy, I still managed to finish every assignment on time with decent quality and never delayed any assignment or communication with the instructor and my peers.

My weakness
Even though I finished most of the assignments with good quality, I have to mention that I need to read the requirement/ instructions more carefully. For example, in the progress report, we were asked to attach the survey questions in a survey tool provided by UBC. However, I missed that piece of information and posted my survey questions on my personal blog as text. It took a few days to change back to the survey tool, which has wasted some valuable time for survey distribution. from this experience, I have learned that I have to carefully read and understand the requirements. And I found out that reading them out loud would help me concentrate on those tiny details.

Skills, strength and my career

Throughout the course, I have learned many useful and practical techniques on technical writing and communication in professional settings. I was exposed to various communication documents, such as memos, peer reviews, business letters.
Here are some skills I have gained or improved in ENGL 301:

Writing a proposal
Knowing and specifying your audience in the proposal is one of the most important things in writing a proposal. In my very first draft, I did not address my targeted audience which was pointed out by my instructor later. This helps remind me of knowing your audience whenever you write to someone.

Time management and organizational skills
Even though the incident of survey tool wasted a few days in my report project, I still managed to keep up with my scheduled timeline and received over 120 responses on my survey. Such strong time management skills would help me in my future career.

Web folio and networking skills
ENGL 301 guided me to build my very first personal website which could show great benefit in my future job searching. Also, I have learned a lot about effectively expanding my professional network via various tools such as LinkedIn.

Structure
The whole web folio is based on my personal blog during ENGL 301. I structured and organized my web folio according to the requirements from the instructor. The most important thing is to identify the reader. Since I am looking to get into the industry right after graduation, I decided to design my web folio to be attractive to my potential employers.

Home Page and About Me
In this section, I included a welcome message to the reader and navigate them through my web folio. Also, I included some highlights of this web folio.
Next, in the section of “About Me”, I introduced myself to the reader including my past experience and my career goal.

App Package and Resume
The most important section in this web folio, as I am trying to convince my future employers that I am capable and diligent. The application package contains three comments: a resume, a cover letter, and three letters requesting reference. I have put the resume on another page so that the reader can directly see my resume by simply clicking it without downloading. This represents one of the key ideas of this course – to know and attract your audience.

My Best Work
A collection of revised posts that I have written this summer. Going through all those posts gave me a sense of achievement. In this course, we have covered a wide range of topics in technical writing, from business letters to LinkedIn practice, from report proposal to peer review practice. All of these will become valuable experiences for us to practice in future professional settings.

Blog (Reflections)
This best summarizes my ENGL 301 journey. Each reflection post represents the summary and lessons learned from that particular unit. Writing those reflections will help me to rethink the process of writing and remind me what I have learned from this unit.

The research process of report draft

In the research process of my report draft, I conducted a survey about sustainable waste management. The survey was distributed among Beijing residents and received very positive feedback from more than 120 participants. In this part, I learned two very important lessons: Firstly, it is extremely important to design the survey questions based on ethical standards such as it should not include any questions reflecting on personal issues. Also, it is essential to mention in the introduction that this survey is voluntary and anonymous, which I did not include in my first draft of the survey. Secondly, I realized that it is necessary to strictly follow the requirements. In the beginning, I did not realize that we need to use the UBC survey tool for my survey. It took me some time to switch back to the official survey tool which delayed the distribution of my survey for a few days. With that being said, I should read the requirements of any task carefully and thoroughly.

Writing and organizing of report draft

After gathering the data, writing the first draft was pretty smooth. Except for the data from the survey, I also checked the national waste data from the Chinese government database. And then, I visualized the results in line charts which would clearly demonstrate the tendency. Organizing my first draft also went on pretty well. Since I have finished the report outline in the previous unit, it is very helpful to use that outline as the main structure of the formal report.

Peer review

I found the peer review section very beneficial. In this unit, we also rotated our partners within our team. I had the pleasure to read and review Hugo’s report on improving the onboarding process for new hires during COVID-19. I am impressed by the strong observation skills that my teammates have shown. Many of my teammates have focused on the impact that COVID-19 brings, which is pretty relevant to our current lifestyle. For instance, in my previous review, Yusen has focused on the increasing number of takeout food under lockdown. Also, in this review, Hugo bought up a very interesting and important case, which focuses on the onboarding process during COVID-19. Besides, as I read through Hugo’s draft, I would reflect on my own writing where more specific headings and subheadings could be made to help the reader understand the organization and structure of the report quickly.

In summary, unit 3 went pretty well. I can not believe we are entering the last unit of this course.

Link to my report draft.

LinkedIn Practice

In this unit, I learned the key elements of making a professional LinkedIn profile. I conducted my own research on best LinkedIn practices and summarize them into ten key points. Also, I have studied my peers’ work on this topic, which helped me further improve my LinkedIn profile. For example, at the very beginning, it could be overwhelming for us to reach out to professionals that we are not familiar with on LinkedIn. As I and many of my peers found out, searching for our alumni in the early stage of expanding our professional network is very beneficial and effective. Such common background among alumni is more likely to help us build a closer connection. Another important lesson that I learned from this assignment is that we should use all available functions on LinkedIn to showcase our skills and further enhance our career prosperity, such as profile picture, summary, education, recommendations, skills, endorsement, etc.

Brainstorm and prepare report proposal

At first, it was not easy to brainstorm ideas for the formal report. I reflected on my previous research experience on waste management. No matter where we are on this planet, we are generating waste every day. How to deal with the large amount of waste we generate is a huge challenge. I believe this topic is very relevant to our life. The next challenge I was facing is to determine the scale of the report: a country? a province? Or a city? I noticed that the previous report topics that were listed in the instructor’s communication particularly focused on a smaller scale, such as UBC campus, UBC student residence, etc. Therefore, I decided to focus my study on one particular city that I have done research about. Once determine the topic and scale, the structure of the rest of the report was easy to come up with.

Review of my peer’s proposal

In this section, I reviewed Yusen’s proposal on protecting takeout food from being damaged by animals. I am amazed by the selection of such an interesting topic, which is relevant to the current event, COVID-19, and focused on our local community, UBC student residence. Furthermore, Yusen mentioned that he lived on the first floor of the student residence, where he witnessed the phenomenon that the “stolen” takeout food was frequently eaten by animals. This proves that when we try to brainstorm the research topic, strong observation skills would help us easily identify the issues in our daily life.

Peer Review Process

The most important thing that I learned from reviewing my peers’ work is that the intended audience is an essential part of our report. In my first draft, I did not include the intended audience which could cause confusion among readers on who is the expected audience of this report. After reviewing my peers’ proposals, I not only learned the significance of listing the intended audience in the proposal but also learned how to select the targeted audience. For example, in Yusen’s proposal, he particularly selected the manager of MD residence as the intended audience, rather than the manager of UBC student housing. That perfectly matches the scope of his research focus, Marine Drive Student residence.

I am amazed by the creativity and the strong observation skills that my peers presented. Many of my teammates have focused on the impact that COVID-19 brings, which is pretty up-to-date and relevant to our daily life. For instance, Yusen has focused on the increasing amount of takeout food due to COVID-19 and lockdown.

And finally, I found the peer review very important and necessary for my writing. It not only helps correct some errors of my initial draft but also provides me with some unique and fresh perspectives. From the review that I received from Yusen, he shared his thoughts on my research topic. Specifically, he made a very interesting point that “No matter incineration, composting or landfill, the greenhouse gas would be created. The key point is reuse some products in waste, so that we do not need to waste energy to create them again”. This helps me realize the need of clarifying the greenhouse gas emissions by different waste treatment methods and the limitation on the recycle and reuse. Although I do not think that I will cover this point in my proposal, I believe that I should address this in the introduction section of my formal report.

Overall, unit 2 was fun and a little bit intense. I like my research topic. Let’s see how it goes.

Links:

Link to my revised proposal.

Link to the review that I received from Yusen.

Link to my report outline.

Original Writing:
This is my first time writing definitions in technical writing. Firstly, it took me some time to choose a relatively complex and interesting term. I eventually chose to write definitions of TFSA, as it is exposed to our daily life but many of us may not totally understand its definition. Next, I determined the situation and the audience, which I believe is the key component of drafting definitions. By clearly identifying the situation and the audience’s expectations, I, as the writer, was able to make definitions that are easy for the audience to understand. Lastly, for composing the three definitions, I found the textbook a pretty useful guide, from which I was able to differentiate between parenthetical, sentence, and expanded definitions, and learn various ways to expand a definition. Overall, I learned the significance of identifying the situation and audience before making any definitions.

Peer Review:
I found the peer review highly useful, which actually put me in the position of a reader in practice. I enjoyed my time reading Vikram’s definitions of Historiography, as they were clearly defined to perfectly meet the designated situation and the audience’s expectations. By reading my peer’s work, I learned a lot from their expansion strategies while making the expanded definitions. For instance, Vikram smoothly employed a flow chart to illustrate the historians’ interactions with evidence and narratives, which effectively explains how Historiography works. More importantly, during the process of peer review, I understood the necessity of peer review, which is to examine the integrity and completeness of our work in order to avoid any possible missing points and complement our work.

Editing process:
The revising process is really important for me to improve my previous work. Thanks to the detailed feedback from Vikram, I was able to find and revise some unclear points in my definitions. More specifically, I added some descriptive words to the visual I attached. Meanwhile, I further explained some exceptional cases in my definitions to avoid possible confusion. Revisiting my previous work with feedback from peers would truly enable me to think from a fresh perspective and show me a clear direction for further improvement.

In summary, I enjoyed my study journey in this course so far. I had the chance to know my peers and learn their approach to composing and expanding definitions. More importantly, I truly appreciate the peer review process, where I received valuable feedback from my peer and meanwhile shared my thought on his work as well.

Here are the links to my work:
Original writing
Peer review
Revised writing