Some Fireworks for Celebration!

Time flies by, and we have reached the end of this term. Looking back, I have learnt so much from this course. In terms of writing, I learnt about how to write email correspondence with appropriate tone, how to structure a research report, etc. I also gained practical career skills such as using LinkedIn effectively, writing proper resume and cover letters. Overall, this has been a fruitful term! 

I believe my strength mainly lies in person skills, thanks to my previous Co-op experience and on-going job-searching. Throughout the term, my amazing teammates and I had great time working with and learning from each other. Also, when learning about the LinkedIn best practices and creating the application package, I was able to build upon my previous knowledge and gain deeper understanding of what the employers want to see from our applications. In addition, I was able to quickly learn from the feedback and apply them in my writing. Although I got a late start in revising my writings, I was able to get them done quickly and appreciate the use of better writing techniques, such as writing with “You” attitude and having clear structure for peer reviews. 

As for weakness, my time management skill could definitely be improved. When writing the formal report, collecting survey data took too much time, and I was also caught in other courses. As a result, the quality of the final report was not as expected. Also, I should have paid more attention to details. There were times when we were asked to include the file being reviewed in our reflection or peer review, but I was careless and did not notice, causing inconvenience to the readers. These should have been avoided. 

In general, a lot of the skills I learnt are directly applicable to my career as a software developer. In job searching, having professional LinkedIn profile and application package would highlight my experience and make my profile stand out among other candidates. Actually, I was able to land a full-time job this term, and I would say my resume played its part well. At work, being able to write clear and concise technical documents would be a great asset, even my readers (fellow software developers) would have similar technical background. What is more, as more and more tech jobs are shifting to remote work, knowing the etiquette of writing professional emails would be a must-have skill.  

In the end, I would like to thank my teammates and Dr. Paterson for such an amazing term. Wish you all the best! 

Vancouver in Snow

I really enjoyed the process of creating this web folio. Initially I anticipated spending most of the time revising previous writings because I slacked and did not edit them as the term goes. However, I ended up spending a lot more time choosing between themes, browsing background pictures, and formatting my writings. The sense of accomplishment given by this progress is unparalleled. 

This theme brings a sense of sophistication, and I really like the pictures that come with it. In addition, I picked four seasons of Vancouver for four reflections. They are beautiful and shows the progression of time (and hopefully my writing skills). Also, each page was carefully formatted for better readability. 

I have never been good at designing. Even as a software developer, I avoided doing any frontend (interface that users interact with) work because I know it’s going to look bad, but this experience is special. Maybe I have picked up some design thinking along the way, or it’s simply because WordPress provides really good themes. I guess both. 

Apart from making it beautiful, I also thought about my target audience, and decided to make it a platform to showcase my technical communication skills – they are more and more needed in the tech industry these days, and having them is an asset.

Of course, a lot of effort was spent on revising and editing previous writings. Most of the editing involved using “You” Attitude, and it really soften the tone, making it more respecting. I regretted being careless and not using it in the first place. Revising memorandums and peer reviews is refreshing, and it makes me feel like pruning house plants – getting rid of the bad parts and leaves only the good-looking, meaningful parts. After editing, the improvement in quality is significant, and I was really happy. The whole editing process was a good review of all the techniques covered, including writing definitions, memos, peer reviews, email correspondence, etc. That’s indeed a lot of stuff! 

Finally, I hope you like my web folio. 

Autumn Vancouver – My Fav

We started this unit by reviewing an extremely unprofessional email from an arrogant student to his professor about course registration. Although I do not think people like Evan Crisp exist in real life, it is a good lesson for us to learn the etiquette of writing professional emails. For me, I am really happy that I haven’t made any mistake like those in Evan’s email for years, and I think this email will always be a reminder about how ridiculous my emails are going to be if I didn’t follow those etiquette. This assignment is followed by writing a complaint letter and bad news letter as a customer and a customer representative respectively. I have to say since I did not have too much experience (and hopefully will never have), it really taught me the appropriate tone for addressing these kinds of issues. Overall, I think these two assignments are practical, and directly applicable to my life. 

Then we started preparing for the formal report draft. The actual research progress was a bit frustrating, as I have been struggling with my other courses. I spent too much time on collecting the survey result, so this caused some delay on my data section. The lesson here is to do better time management when starting a big project. Also, there is a lack of secondary sources to support my views, especially in how these student-held activities could help preparing CS candidates for jobs. This is also reflected in Yang’s review, as he mentioned my secondary sources are a bit weak. I think the mistake here is that searching supporting secondary sources should have been done in drafting the research proposal, and an alternative solution should be considered when there is not enough evidence to support my original solution. In terms of organizing the material, I found it to be relatively easy, as I was able to divide them based on my outline, and a lot of the material is reusable from my proposal and progress report.

The peer review process taught me a lot. Yang and I worked on similar topics, and by reading his report I was able to immediately tell the shortcomings in my report. The first thing I noticed was the detailed recommendation part, and there are more secondary sources to support his view. Although this is partly because his solution focuses more on workshops, while mine is about a variety of activities. In terms of organizing the report, mine was slightly better because of the use of headings and sub-headings, but this is an easy correction for him.

One more thing I learnt after reading Dr. Paterson’s feedback from previous assignments was the importance of writing with YOU attitude. I was not paying enough attention to the feedback, and as a result, my previous peer reviews were filled with “I” and “my”, which sound self-centred and unprofessional. The rewrite example given by Dr. Paterson was a lot nicer. Although there is no more peer review assignment left for this term, I will definitely keep this in mind for my future writings.

To sum up, I think Unit Three is probably the most interesting unit so far and I really learned a lot. 

Enclosure: Yifan Wang – Formal Report Draft Final

Vancouver in Summer

We started the unit by brainstorming the ideas for formal report and writing a proposal for it. I decided to use my background in Computer Science and address a problem that I found very relatable – the disconnection between CS education in university and skills demanded by jobs. However, my first draft was very vague. I proposed the solution of setting up an AMS funded student club, without even knowing how it actually works. The main reason for this mistake was that I did not have a target audience in mind before thinking about the solution, and figuring out the target audience means knowing who is going to be responsible for addressing the problem. After giving it more thoughts, I believe it would be more realistic to let CSSS handle this issue. As a result, the target audience for my formal report is the president of CSSS.  

The peer review process is really helpful, and I believe I have learnt a lot from reading Samantha’s proposal and her peer review of my proposal. I really like her idea of improving the onboarding process for new hires. As someone who also had a fully remote work experience, I think this problem is relatable, clearly-defined, and (potentially) has a feasible solution. Her proposal is also well-written, with the right amount of detail given at each section and plain wording that is easy to understand. Compared to her proposal, mine contains some grammatical mistakes, and some sentences are too complicated. The problem statement is too long, and should have been divided into paragraphs. In general, I should pay more attention to the correctness and conciseness, as they are really helpful in improving the clarity of writing. 

The other important part for Unit 2 is about LinkedIn. I have created my LinkedIn profile a while back and have been using it extensively for networking as well as applying for jobs, but I still learnt a lot during researching the best practices and read other people’s memorandum. For example, I never knew that the heading section will be used by LinkedIn’s algorithms when recommending your profile to other people, and having a complete profile increases your chance of being discovered by other people. Doing this research gives me chance to further polish my profile. Also, I gained some new perspectives on connecting with other professionals. Before doing my research, I often send empty connection request to other people, and it is really a bad practice. I should have stated my background and my intention to show my respect and sincerity. I believe that at the end of this course, I can be a better user of LinkedIn. 

Please find the link to my revised proposal and outline below. 

My revised proposal:  Yifan’s Formal Report Proposal

My outline: Yifan’s Formal Report Outline

Vancouver in Spring

I think I have learnt a lot in this assignment. Before this, I never realized it could be this hard to explain a technical term to regular audience in plain and concise language. The challenges started from picking the right word and appropriate audiences. After a few tries with words in Economics and Computer Science, I decided to go with Cloud Computing – a technical term that has enough application in real life so that people can relate to. 

For parenthetic and sentence explanations, although both my partner and I managed to keep them short, we all made the mistake of using jargons, which could lead to more confusion in our target audience. For the expanded explanation, the challenge for me in the first writeup is to make the connection between expansion strategies natural and logical. In addition to that, my partner also suggests that I could have used more detailed examples to support the application of cloud computing and its benefits, and I think this is indeed helpful for the target audience to relate the technology to their daily life. What is more, I think peer editing helps me learn from other people’s advantage. For example, when reading my partner’s definition, I noticed the smooth transition between different expansion strategies, and indeed this is the area that I need to work on.  

In the editing process. I mainly focused on three things. First, I replaced the jargon in both parenthetical and sentence definitions with more plain word to avoid confusion. Second, I expanded the examples in the application part to make cloud computing more relatable to the target audience. Finally, I also referred to the real-world application when explaining the benefits of cloud computing, and I believe this would make the connection of last two sections stronger.  

Please find the link to my edited work below. I hope that with the editing and further expansion, my definitions are easier to understand. 

Link: 301 Yifan Wang Revised Formal Definitions

To: leesamantha@live.com
From: y.wang.5@alumni.ubc.ca
Date: September 21, 2021
Subject: Application Letter Response
Attachment: 301 Yifan Wang Application Letter

Dear Samantha Lee, 

I am writing in response of your application. After reading your application letter, I would like to join your team. 

As a fellow student in Computer Science, I have similar experience of writing technical documentations at work, and I believe this will be a good chance for us to learn from each other. I am also the kind of person who tries finishing tasks ahead of time, so I am sure these. In addition, I am impressed by your attention to details. I think this is the quality that I lack sometimes. I believe our experience and qualities would make us successful in this course! 

Please find my application letter in the attachment. Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you. 

Sincerely, 

Yifan Wang 

To: cathyliu0315@hotmail.com
From: y.wang.5@alumni.ubc.ca
Date: September 21, 2021
Subject: Application Letter
Attachment: 301 Yifan Wang Application Letter

Dear Cathy Liu, 

After reading your application letter, I want to invite you to join our writing team. I am deeply impressed by your international work experience. Because I think technical communication is even more important in a multi-cultural environment, and I believe we can all learn from you. One similarity between us is that I am also a self-starter and a quick-learner, and I feel that we could have a good grasp of course material and finish tasks efficiently. I believe that together we can be successful in this course. 

Please find my application letter in the attachment. Thank you for your time and I look forward to your response. 

Sincerely, 

Yifan Wang 

To: younglll2015@gmail.com
From: y.wang.5@alumni.ubc.ca
Date: September 21, 2021
Subject: Application Letter Response
Attachment: 301 Yifan Wang Application Letter

Dear Yang Liu, 

I am writing in response of your application. After reading your application letter, I would like to join your team. 

I am impressed by the extensive writing experience you got from various arts courses. I did not have as much exposure to writing as you do and I would like to learn more about your experience. One similarity we share is that I am also a team player, and I always try my best to deliver the high-quality work to my team. I agree that we would make a great team! 

Please find my application letter in the attachment. Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you. 

Sincerely, 

Yifan Wang 

MEMORANDUM

To: Dr. Erika Paterson, Instructor, ENGL 301 99A 

From: Yifan Wang 

Date: Sep 19, 2021 

Subject: Summary of Writing Team Application 

Please find the full version of my writing team application in the attachment. Below is a brief summary of its content.

The letters includes a summary of my:

• Current studies in the BCS program at UBC
• Successes with teamwork in both school projects and employment
• Motivation to learn technical communications skill and willingness to improve
• Eagerness to work with a writing team

Please feel free to ask any question. 

Enclosed:  301 Yifan Wang Application Letter

Sep 19, 2021

ENGL 301 99A

University of British Columbia

2329 West Mall

Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4

Dear Classmates,

My name is Yifan Wang, and I am currently in my 4th year of the Bachelor of Computer Science program. I am writing this application letter in hope of finding a writing team. I believe my team work experience at both school and work would make me a nice group member.

During my studies, teamwork has been a very important part, as a lot of assignments and projects are required to be completed in pairs or even larger groups. I always participate actively in all of the group meetings and complete my part quickly with high quality. Most importantly, I am open to constructive criticisms. As a result, all teammates that I have worked with gave me very positive feedback. During my Co-op at Philips as a software developer, I worked in a small development team of five people to add new features to Philips Care’s dashboard for senior living facilities. I was able to prioritize tasks and finish them efficiently, I also learned a lot from people around me.

At both school and work, I realized the importance of good technical communication skills. At school, we need to write reports that convey technical information.  In job searching, we need a good application to present ourselves and to set ourselves aside from other applicants. At work, especially for a software developer, we need to write clear and concise documentation to facilitate teamwork. Hence, I would really like to polish my technical communication skills, to learn from others, and to try my best providing feedback to others.

Please consider my application for partnership, and feel free to contact me at y.wang.5@alumni.ubc.ca. I look forward to working with you!

Sincerely,

Yifan Wang

Enclosed: 301 Yifan Wang Application Letter