December 10, 2015 · 10:23 pm

Self-assessment

It’s really hard to believe that this semester has come to an end.  How do I start my last entry? What should I include? Here are the highlights of my strengths, weaknesses and future goals.

Strengths

I believe one of my main strength is my tenacious and never give up attitude towards everything I do. At the beginning of this course I was very confused, lost and frustrated at times as I do not have any technical background in computers or creating a blog site which made this course very challenging and difficult to say the least. Learning this new technical skill compounded by my responsibility of being a mother of three children pushed me to my breaking point. However, giving up or quitting did not cross my mind. In fact it made me work harder and more determined than ever to overcome the difficulties to achieve my goal.

My other strength would be my attention to details and following instructions. Being a dental hygienist requires a great deal of attention to details and following specific set of rules and instructions for the health and safety of our clients. My training in Dental Hygiene school as well as my experience working as a dental hygienist for the past ten years has taught to be very thorough and detail oriented towards everything including my learning abilities.

Throughout the course of three months, my peer-reviewing ability and technical skill have improved considerably. I am grateful that this course gave the opportunity to learn new skills as well as hone my existing ones.

Weaknesses

My weakness is the difficulty I have putting my thoughts into words and expressing myself in writing the way I’d like. When working on assignment paper, often times I have several ideas scattered in my head and find it very hard to gather my thoughts and start writing them into words. I usually spend the majority of my time thinking about how I’m going to start and which idea goes where; once I overcome this initial roadblock I find myself writing sentences that are a bit too long and have to go back and re-write them a few times. In the assignments for this course I found writing in ‘You-attitude’ to be a bit difficult as I am used to writing in a neutral tone for most of my educational career. However, I believe I have improved significantly in this regard through the number of assignments I have done in this course.

Future Goals

My future goal is to work in the Public Health sector as a dental hygienist and/or educator capacity. I believe the education I received in this course in technical writing as well as in all my other courses has positioned me well to advance my career forward. My hands on experience in the dental hygiene field for the past ten years coupled with the education I have received at UBC has greatly enhanced my chances of landing employment in public health sector. In my future goals I expect to work closely with policy makers and public educators as such, the experience I’ve gained and skills I have learned in this class will be an invaluable tool in my arsenal.

 

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· 10:18 pm

Creating My Web Folio

This is my first time creating a web folio, which I found both exciting and intimidating.  Being a technologically challenged person, I decided to use the UBC Blog site since this site is one that I became accustomed with.  I wanted my web folio to reflect who I am as a student and a dental professional but also include some personal touches. I have included a few photos of my recent camping trips from all over Ontario.

Design

I like my site to be less cluttered and friendly to the eyes and put my reader into a calm and relaxed mood. As a calligrapher, I like simple designs and easy to read fonts.  Unlike my exciting camping trips, I am not very adventurous when it comes to creating my web folio. I’ve used the same font throughout my web folio, Times Roman, which I find very pleasing to the eyes.

Visuals

I want my readers to get to know me not only from what I write on my web folio but also through the photos of the places I frequently visit.  Each page displays a personal photo of my favorite provincial parks in Ontario. One photo I included was taken three years ago at Killarney Provincial Park. I chose not to include pictures or visuals directly from the internet as I wanted my web folio to be personalized and only include my own photographs.

Content

My web folio is a compilation of English 301 course assignments, biography, resume, application package and LinkedIn Profile. Each page has a short description to introduce each assignment which also guides the reader in navigating throughout my site.

Although creating this web folio was challenging I immensely enjoyed and found it rewarding.

 

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Bruce Peninsula National Park

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November 10, 2015 · 7:42 pm

Unit Three: Reflection

Unit 3 was a very busy three weeks unit as we began the process of researching, organizing and writing our formal report draft and peer review our partner’s report draft. I definitely think this is by far the most challenging unit for me in terms of writing my first draft and reviewing my peer’s report.

Researching for my topic (musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) in the dental office) was an easy task as there were many literature available on-line. Conducting the survey and interview at the office went smoothly as everyone was cooperative and interested in participating. Although my interview with my office manager had great results, I was disappointed that funding for magnifying lenses and chairs was not available to implement the changes in my recommendation.

Once I completed my survey and interview, tabulating and analyzing the result was fairly quick as there were only seven respondents.  Drawing in the charts to represent my findings was a bit of a challenge because this is something I was not familiar with.  It was very frustrating since the graph illustrations I wanted did not turn out right. After a half an hour of fiddling with my word application, I was able to put all the necessary charts to represent my findings. Organizing my formal report draft would have been a challenge if I did not have an example to follow.  Following my formal report outline helped me tremendously in organizing my formal report.

Writing my formal report draft required a lot time and planning, as well writing with the “You Attitude” was challenging as I am not used to the style of writing. Aside from following my outline, the recommendations I received from Silvia’s peer review of my proposal helped me immensely. Overall, I was able to prepare this report without major difficulties.

I think over the last two months, I have gotten better with my writing skill and my peer reviewing ability has greatly improved. Although I found peer reviewing Andrea’s formal report draft a bit challenging I was able to complete it with the help of the Unit 3.3 Checklist for Peer Review of Draft Report.  I also found that this assignment took longer in comparison with previous peer review assignments.  It could have been the length of the report or simply because I wanted to make sure that I was aligned with the checklist. Overall I was happy with the result of my peer review assignment. I can honestly say that this assignment has honed my critiquing skill as I was able to compare and evaluate both mine and Andrea’s papers.

Although Unit 3 was the most challenging unit thus far, I truly enjoyed researching and writing my report draft.  The assignment has given me the opportunity to delve into the ongoing issue that my office has been dealing with. This unit, along with my team mates’ peer reviews and professor’s feedback, has helped improve my technical writing and critical thinking skills.

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  Lake George at Killarney Provincial Park

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October 23, 2015 · 9:52 pm

Unit Two: Reflection

Friday, October 23, 2015

LinkedIn
I had no prior knowledge of LinkedIn so creating my profile was exciting and challenging at the same time. The exciting part of LinkedIn was putting all the information into my profile and navigating the site. The challenging part was basically trying to understand how the site works and what the end results are and what you get out of LinkedIn. It was an interesting experience and it seems to be very easy to make connections with other professionals within the same field. I do wonder how legitimate the networks you make on LinkedIn since it seems very easy to request for connection and receive acceptance.

Formal Report
This section of unit 2 was challenging as it required a lot of reading and organization. I have chosen a topic that is a very common practice issue within the dental field, “Ergonomics.” I have been practicing dental hygiene for 10 years now and have been having issues with my lower back and shoulders, naturally, this would be a perfect topic for me to investigate. Following the instructions as outlined in the ebook made the brainstorming and preparing my proposal and formal report outline easier. I think if I follow my report outline and scheduled time along with reliable resources, my formal report will achieve its goal.

Peer Review
I had the opportunity to review Silvia’s Formal Report Proposal for Art! Vancouver. From reading her paper, I learned organization and writing in concise sentences that are well-constructed. I was able to compare the writing style with my own and have a different perspective.

Below is my revised formal report proposal and the link to my peer review paper by Silvia Leung.

Ethel Paraiso ENGL301 Formal Report Proposal – Revised

Peer Review of Ethel Paraiso’s Report Proposal

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October 1, 2015 · 6:02 pm

Unit One: Reflection

Hello, everyone! I can’t believe that it’s been more than three weeks since we started our English course and we are now into the last assignment for unit one. I am going to talk about my first draft, peer review process and final draft edits.

At first I was not too sure of what to write about since there are many complex words we use daily in the dental office. After much thought, I decided to write about “Orthodontia” since I use this word quite often with patients who are interested in getting their teeth straightened. Although I’m familiar with sentence definition, I did not know about parenthetical definition and expanded definition. In particular, I was not too sure of how I would write “orthodontia” using the parenthetical definition. Reading through the assigned chapters helped me understand the concept of writing both parenthetical and expanded definitions. To make my assignment informative and easy to read by my “non-dental” adult audience, I searched through the internet for credible resources. I found myself rewriting my sentences to avoid using dental jargon and to reflect my audience as well.

The peer review process was a little challenging for me because I had to review a group member who is also a practicing dental hygienist. Since I am extremely familiar with her chosen word, I had to make sure that I was not too critical nor too laxed on critiquing her work. I learned that peer reviewing is a tedious process where one should have a keen eye for errors such as grammars, punctuations, visual used and credible resources. Overall, it was a great experience for me as I was also able to recheck my paper to see where I made mistakes.

Having another set of eyes is definitely important when writing a formal document. Although this assignment was not a formal document, it was a great start as I have learned and realized the mistakes I made. There were some minor grammatical errors and words to be corrected for better flow. Reading through the peer reviewed document, I also realized that I should be using the same word for consistency and to avoid confusion.

Below is the link to my peer review document and the revised edition of my document. Thank you for reading and feel free to write a feedback.

Revised English 301 Definitions Assignment Ethel Paraiso

http://engl301.arts.ubc.ca/2015/09/29/ethel-paraisos-peer-review-by-andrea-so/

 

 

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September 19, 2015 · 10:51 pm

Application Letter

UBC English 301 99A
Vancouver, BC
V6T 1Z1

Dear English 301 Fellow Students:

As a current student in the UBC Dental Hygiene Degree Completion Program, I am seeking a position in your English 301 writing team for this semester. I am looking for a team where I can grow and learn new skills and also share the skills and experience that I gained throughout my years of schooling.

I graduated from George Brown College for Dental Assisting and Canadore Community College in North Bay Ontario for Dental Hygiene. I have taken both English Technical Writing and Business English courses in my college years. To keep up with current trends in dental hygiene and as part of my continuing education, I am taking courses and pursuing my degree through the University of British Columbia On-line Education Program. In the past I worked as a Dental Assistant/Receptionist for 10 years and have been practicing as a Dental Hygienist for nine years.

I am an enthusiastic, well-motivated person who takes initiative and has great work ethics. I am very detailed oriented and take pride in being thorough and efficient to do the necessary research required for well written report. I tend to brainstorm several ideas about a topic which sometimes leads me to write sentences that are too long and need re-writing in order to convey my thoughts.

Joining your team would give me the opportunity to enhance my writing techniques as well as expanding my on-line communication skills. I believe my personal and academic experiences coupled with my personality and passion for writing match the qualifications you are looking for.

I look forward to joining your team and working in collaboration with you. I can be reached at paraiso.ethel@yahoo.ca to discuss this opportunity further. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
Ethel Paraiso

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