My overall impression of Unit Two is that I feel like I became more strategic and engaged in writing as I kept thinking about the technical parts of writing such as audience, purpose, and structure of my writing throughout the unit. This improvement was mostly achieved through writing the project proposal and the progress report. Based on the feedback I received in this unit, I will keep improving my technical writing skills.
Project Proposal, Outline, and Progress Report
I think the best part I did in the project proposal was selecting an appropriate topic for the proposal. Since Birdcoop Fitness Centre is a place that I visit several times a week for months, I could easily spot a problem there. Also, the size and the scope of the problem were small enough to make a proposal by me in a couple of months. Still, I felt that I need more practice in writing in a formal/professional tone as it took me a while to come up with the final proposal to find the right expressions for the project proposal this time. What I can also do to achieve the best result for this research project is to observe the timeline that I set. Since it is a long research project, missing a few deadlines can accumulate into a big burden I can fix later. So I will focus on meeting the deadlines that I said by constantly working on the project.
Even though I have been using LinkedIn for a few years, I did not use LinkedIn strategically until I started the LinkedIn assignment in this unit. This assignment gave me new insights into how to maximize the benefit of LinkedIn. For example, I did not care too much about a summary of my LinkedIn profile before this unit, but I realized that I can put my unique story there and grab other people’s attention with it. In terms of writing, I learned that I should not sign off when I write a professional memo. Also, I realized that I used too many imperative verbs in my writing compromising the persuasiveness of the writing. I will keep these rules and skills in my mind and apply them correctly in my next writing.
Peer Review
Dannis and I exchanged reviews of each other’s project proposals. Thanks to Dannis’s thorough review, I could fix a few grammar errors that I made even after several proofreadings. Also, a third person’s recognition of my project proposal gave me assertion about my writing so that I could be more confident with it.
While I review Dannis’s proposal I learned how to write a professional proposal because her writing was both concise and informative at the same time. Also, I applied the rule of not using pronouns when criticizing someone’s writing to separate the person and the writing this time. It turned out that the rule is very effective and I will keep practice this rule for similar situations in the future.
Revised Proposal: https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl30198a2022s12/2022/06/22/formal-report-proposal-chris-jung/
Peer Review of Original Proposal: https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl30198a2022s12/2022/06/29/denniss-peer-review-of-electronic-queuing-system-for-popular-gym-equipment-by-chris/