Monthly Archives: April 2023

I joined the class intending to improve my writing skills professionally because, as an English major, I was taught how to write academically for various purposes but never in a professional workplace manner. So I was very eager to learn how to craft a professional resume and improve my technical writing skills in a professional workplace manner with proper guidance. Learning how to write appropriate memos and emails is crucial to any professional office job, and the technical writing class did precisely that. The training began with writing a memorandum and application letter for introduction and peer interaction, and gradually, to creating a formal report like a professional, including the proposal and progress report, and crafting a draft for peer review. Now I have even completed the web folio of my design and application package that taught me every skill I needed for job application in a short span of one semester. The available resources gathered on this page will attest to my newly acquired lifelong skills that can favor my chances of landing a desirable office job. Lastly, thank you, Professor Paterson. I wholeheartedly enjoyed attending your class.

Creating the web folio was an interesting and valuable experience, as I got to create something that could be used for my professional application while being refreshed on the whole course material from the technical writing class. The first step of creating the web folio is to determine the intended audience, and I chose interviewers as I am currently on a job search. I thought it would be better to include a personalized website than LinkedIn to show personality and character. The next step is designing the web folio. I am a big fan of simplistic themes, so I chose a classic combination of black and white for clarity and straightforwardness, as it is visually appealing and tasteful. The layout for menus and pages for easy navigation was also heavily considered as I would not want visitors of my web folio to be confused about what kind of content could be found here or what to expect. Thus, I decided to make the home page as simple as possible to avoid overwhelming visitors, using keywords and a simple introduction for navigation. Moreover, I decided to use my dog as a welcome message because he is a lovely ambassador, as his cute smile represents friendliness and is approachable. The contents of my web folio are included according to the assignment’s instruction, which would be an exhibition of my past work that the professor can evaluate academically and professionally. In my opinion, creating a web folio is an excellent choice of being the final assignment of the class, as it can contribute to our professional careers by teaching practical skills such as creating resumes and writing professionally in the format of memorandums and formal reports—allowing us to excel in a professional workplace with the hands-on experience and knowledge gathered from the class.

Completing the Formal Report Draft

There are three steps in crafting a formal report draft—researching, organizing, and writing. Researching is the first and arguably the most important step, as the data discovered at this stage will be the foundation of the draft. The focus at this stage is to find compatible results online that can reflect or relate to my survey and interview findings, as cross-referencing data can create concrete evidence to support the draft. My topic was about improving road safety in West Vancouver, and speed cameras will be my proposed solution. I have a preexisting understanding of speed cameras, so researching articles that favor my position would be simple, as I know what I will need to support my points in the draft. For example, I understand completely what speeding is and how dangerous it can be because I drive. However, to elaborate on my knowledge, I would need to find sources that I could reference to make it more convincing that speeding is a significant concern waiting to be solved. Thus, to prove why speed cameras are a viable option from experience, I narrowed down my research topic to how speed camera impacts road safety and speeding. I found numerous research studies on this topic. However, to keep it short and concise, I could only pick a few for reference so that the researched data can support my survey findings, such as the public’s opinion towards speed cameras that happened to be based in British Columbia.

Next is the formal report draft’s organization, where the first step is to craft a cover page. Even though I am a third-year English major, I still needed help with correctly formatting a cover page in MLA style, as all of the papers I have done with MLA in the past did not require a cover page and a table of contents. Hence, I had to research how to format a report written in MLA style correctly. After figuring out the MLA style comes the headings and subheadings that represent the paper itself, as they are practically short titles for each section. A clear title is essential because a clear and concise heading can give readers a basic understanding or expectation for what will be in the following section. Thus, I decided to label the headings in each section as clearly and straightforwardly as possible, for the headings can dictate what I will be writing under them as well.

Finally, I can start writing the draft. In my opinion, researching and organizing is more challenging than writing the draft itself as it resembles an ongoing brainstorming session, where I constantly rethink the approach and ideas I want to express in my draft. However, upon writing the draft, I used more time than I initially expected, as the introduction alone took me hours to complete. Not to mention the data analysis and cross-referencing with the data I gathered from the research on the positive impact of speed cameras. Notably, as I continue to write the draft, I find myself going back and forth, changing the subheadings to represent the contents accurately, and sometimes changing the introduction to fit the contents of the draft better. Supposedly, that is precisely why there is a saying that an introduction should be saved for last, like a conclusion. Overall, writing the draft was a unique and fun experience as I got to analyze data I collected with a survey; it is a report that I made entirely, from researching to writing. Such a precious experience will undoubtedly contribute to my future endeavors.

Peer Review for the formal report draft 

Peer review is a practical and necessary process at this stage, as it is registered in me that all things that are meant to be published or presented professionally should be peer reviewed and edited to ensure there are no minor careless mistakes, as those could reflect poorly on the author. Thus, after completing the draft, I received an opportunity to share this critical process with my partner Salma Ismail, who started the topic “mental health programs and services for newcomer youth: exploring needs and enhancing access.” Upon reading the title, I was impressed and thrilled, as it is a pleasure to see mental health gaining recognition. My first impression of the paper after reading it through once was very positive, as the topic is meaningful, the headings are clear and paginated, and the visuals are compelling and visually appealing in the sense of easy comprehension. Despite the slight issues that I pointed out for the figures, they were overall amazing, especially the word cloud Salma included to represent the thought and feelings of the respondents. Moreover, Salma’s table, which represented the interview content, is clear and informative, as it accurately summarized the contents in an efficient manner of point form. Salma’s style and design throughout are excellent, and it was written in a professional tone with little to no grammatical and spelling errors, making her draft exceptionally strong and impressive. Furthermore, the peer review I received from Salma was positive and informative. Salma’s feedback contained valuable suggestions that helped with my formatting for clarity and pointed out that I left an idea empty without support, especially after I said I would address it in the introduction. Salma also gave me critical feedback on how to make my proposed solution more convincing and appealing to the readers—making this peer review a rewarding and practical experience.

Peer review: Peer review of Salma’s formal report draft

Formal report draft: ENGL 301 Formal Report Draft Gareth Yuen