Reflection Blog: Le Fin

December 19, 2019

 

Dear reader,

 

By the time you are reading this, I am officially finished the course. And what a course it was. I can say this was one of the most grueling and rewarding courses I’ve taken at a university level, and the most grueling part was taking it through distance education. By not having that class time carved out of my schedule, I found myself having days either vastly ahead of schedule or forgetting to that an assignment was due the next day. I would not have changed it for the world though.

As I’ve begun my new job, I produce memos, briefs, and progress reports on the daily and I would not have had any idea of how to execute those documents if it weren’t for this class. I would also like to take this moment to thank my writing teammates Ranjit and Taras for peer-reviewing my work and letting my vastly adjacent education peer review theirs. It has been time to reflect and lean into the fact that technical writing is difficult, thought-provoking, and an exercise in commitment.

In the end, I let out a deep breath knowing that I have grown as a writer and a person because of this course, and anyone who is reading this, I am proud of you too.

Thanks a bunch and merry Christmas,

 

 

Morgan Brandt

Reflection Blog: Webfolio

December 19, 2019

 

Dear reader,

 

For someone who works with advanced electronics on a day to day basis, this website engine got the best of me. I honestly was perplexed for more than 2 hours trying to get my posts under one drop-down bar but have managed to scrape together something I am proud of. While I may be running on fumes writing this, I am finishing each piece of this website to the best of my ability while running a production and building another one simultaneously.

In designing my webfolio, I wanted to take the opportunity to showcase some of my lighting portfolio as well. I am aware that this is not made to the best of my creative ability, but this webfolio has all the effort I have left in me. I hope you can find some joy in looking through the things you find.

My best,

 

Morgan Brandt

Unit Two Reflection: A Step in The Right Direction

 

Hello everyone,

 

One thing that has been ingrained in my writing from this course is the format of letter writing, and the strategic use of headings. So far, I appreciate these moments to write in a less rigid fashion, allowing for a pronoun here and there. But an overarching theme has been how valuable this writing course will be going forward with my new position as a Production Manager at a professional theatre! I had to share. Anyways, let’s go on with reflecting on the work we produced over unit two.

 

LinkedIn

Having had LinkedIn for most of my university career, it never appeared to be a powerful tool for networking and job searching until we did the research for 10 tips to use it effectively. Truly taking this chance to beef up my own profile, I took a branding approach as far as how I want my career represented on the internet for future colleagues. As I was revamping my resume at the time, it was an interesting experience to trim and display the work I have accomplished in the entertainment industry while still in school. Finally, I can display a succinct list of what I have accomplished, what I can do, and where I have gone. When I submitted the profile for peer review, it felt like show and tell. I honestly loved the feedback from Taras about my experience list, because it is always nice to be recognized by a fellow accomplished person in another field.

 

Formal Report

Brainstorming for this assignment was a no brainer as this topic has been the center of coffee breaks at work, especially going into the corporate season and trying to figure out what I was going to do for work come to the end of November. In preparing the proposal I felt very strong about the plan I have laid out, however, there have been some tribulations in laying out how I can execute it while preparing for the progress report. After submitting my notice for my new job less of management has been available for interviews over my last couple of weeks, resulting in no interviews with owners or the VP. I am rather frustrated with how the survey will work out as well because my pool of technicians has shrunk from nearly 30 to around 15. So, extrapolating on this data is a concern, but what responses I do get will be from consistent senior staff that has been at the company for a while. In the end, the report will likely be based on expert suggestions for job satisfaction and how to allocate hours in support of staff longevity, while backing it with survey responses from technicians at SW Event Technology.

 

Peer Review

The peer-review process is still something I am working on. The most trouble I am experiencing is removing pronouns and narrowing it down to a list. When peer-reviewing, I take it as a personal dialogue and that is the problem, peer reviews are professional, not personal. As far as my colleagues’ work, I have been amazed at the variety of topics and credentials in the “chat” room. For example, Ranjit’s proposal is using Highest and Best Use (HABU) to perform a feasibility study on an actual property in Vancouver. Never in a classroom in my field would I get the opportunity to peer review his work and have a basic understanding of real estate analysis outside of HGTV. Accordingly, Taras’ proposal for improving mental health and stress conditions for oncology graduate students is amazingly bold. I plan on reading his report to learn what strategies I can implement in my stressful work schedule.

 

Overall, the peer-reviewing process has impacted my writing in a positive way: practicing concision, objectivity, and revision. It is enjoyable having different perspectives reading my work and providing constructive feedback. Feedback is not a bad word as it turns out. I look forward to improving my writing further while producing final assignments.

 

Thank you for reading my reflection,

 

Morgan Brandt

 

Link to peer review: https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-99a-2019wa/2019/10/16/peer-review-morgan-brandts-proposal/

 

Unit 3 Reflection: This Was A Lot

Date: December 10, 2019

Dear Everyone,

This was one of the most stressful units of my university career while trying to transition into my new position as a production manager. I was literally writing my draft and peer review assignments backstage in between set changes and follow spot cues. But while I have you here, let’s talk about what we accomplished.

Application Package

I was kicking myself having essentially completed an application package for my new job in November and I have a conscience, so I began investigating internships on broadway if I weren’t engaged, have 2 cats, and a career in the Okanagan. I will be choosing an internship from PlayBill.com  under the technical category postings. Adapting my recently updated resume will be an easy task as well. So I am feeling good about it.

Report Draft

So this I am not feeling as good about. Having to transition from the company my topic is on, data has not been what I envisioned 3 months ago. The response rate was small compared to the desired sample size I wanted. However, the enforcement of the survey was non-compulsory so there was not much more I could do to improve it without purchasing incentives. I have also never made a research report based on my own data, so this is uncharted territory. I also feel like I am floundering with the lack of rules in the outline: no word count, no source quota, no direction for figures. I am genuinely struggling for inspiration to continue with the assignment and am interested in what comes back in my peer review.

Peer Review

After stressing about my own work, it was a sigh of relief to hear from my team that they were in the same spot. We all had trouble writing around our assignments and work schedules. In working on my peer review I had a better opportunity to see what worked in a report, especially in organization and heading use.

Overall, it will be a major push to complete these assignments. I hope this will end well.

Thanks,

 

Morgan Brandt

The Writing Process

I have never written an expanded definition before, let alone for something so technical as Socapex cable. This assignment seemed like the right opportunity to go outside my comfort zone of working definitions in cultural studies and attempt to define a term I use regularly in my career, to an audience that has no background in stage power and electrical. To begin, it was easy to create a parenthetical definition and a sentence definition for an audience requiring a basic conception of what this type of power cable is; but as I went onto the expanded definition, I found myself struggling to define the term further without research. In reading more about the foundations of the cable and electrical itself, the reason we use breakout splays and how we balance what fixtures go on certain circuits became more concrete for me. So, in writing this definition I managed to teach myself more about something I already knew, and that was just the beginning.

The Peer Review Process

The peer-review process managed to pinpoint areas of weakness I had forgotten that I struggle with, particularly jargon and concision. However, working with Ranjit as a partner reminded me that I am not the only one who struggles with these things. In reviewing each other’s work, I had realized that we both share similar struggles with our use of jargon and examples from our industries; so, it hurts less to receive critiques from someone with similar weaknesses because we are working towards a common goal, improvement. Also, reading someone else’s work using the same process as I did, helped me learn other ways of explaining something to my audience outside of sentences and visuals. Accordingly, Ranjit’s use of examples helped me ground his conception of capitalization rate in my own understanding of real estate, which I wanted to replicate in my revision. Overall, it is nice to know that expanded definitions do not come easily and that I have learned a specific set of skills that is not common knowledge feels reaffirming to me.

The Revision Process

As I went onto the revision process, I did have a few moments of frustration in attempting to change how I originally expressed myself. Yet, while something may make perfect sense to me, my assignment was to create a clear and focused definition to our inexperienced audience. Some of Ranjit’s suggestions that I tried to integrate into my new expanded definition include, adding clearer examples of the 80/20 rule in balancing current; rephrasing how to assemble stage power from power distribution equipment by providing working definitions and visuals for these terms. Many of the changes I made were catering to a broader audience of learners, providing clearer real-life visuals of equipment, and integrating short working definitions in a way that better serve the reader in understanding the material.

In Conclusion

This first assignment was an eye-opener on what I have learned and what I have yet to master. It has provided me an opportunity to explore what I have learned outside of the university and challenged myself to write for an audience outside of my field. In general, I feel that this assignment has given me a chance to pat myself on the back for what I am doing outside of my degree while also giving me a firm push into learning what I need to improve on over the course of this peer-review process. I look forward to challenging myself to write with greater concision and to learn how to write for an audience outside of my realm of expertise.

Morgan Brandt

docx file of the revised definition

301 Morgan Brandt 3 Definitions Revised

Peer review of Socapex

Peer Review of “Socapex”