The process of researching the formal report draft was a little challenging as I discovered around the end of July that with no on campus classes running this summer and staff working from home it was challenging to get the student voice into my report. Summer vacations were something I did not account for in my timeline. I resorted to posting the survey on Facebook pages for North Island College’s (NIC) book sales and the student union. This garnered some responses. I still do not feel that I have enough responses to the student survey to say that it is representative of the student voice. This is reflected in my recommendations; that further surveying of students occur. In the interviews I found a great deal of support from both NIC president and vice president as well as the student union. In fact, I ended up with more interviews than planned as other people wanted to be involved.
A fantastic coincidence which made this report a little more challenging is that during the organization phase I received a late interview reply. In the reply I learned that NIC has started the process of moving the Tyee building smoking area to the back of the building and away from the daycare. The current smoking structure will be converted to a bike lock-up area. This is wonderful news for staff and students at NIC as well as families and children at Beaufort Daycare society. But it made me pause. Was there a pint in continuing my paper? Did I need to start over with anew topic? Should I continue as though nothing has happened? In the end I decided to continue my report with the research I had obtained but make a statement at the end regarding the newly acquired information about the Tyee smoking area.
I was very happy I had decided to make my surveys on google forms as the results were sortable and could be viewed in many different formats. It also meant the charts for questions with multiple choice response were automatically created. The open-ended questions where recipient wrote a reply in their own words were not as nicely formatted, but I was able to group the responses into similar answers and create new charts.
Writing the formal report draft was a self-inflicted, long process. I attempted to include all information related to the report. I spent a long-time creating appendices and other sections of the report that were not required. When I originally posted my rough draft, it was thirty-three pages long. I apologized to my peer editing partner. I also sought clarity on which pages were included in the page count. From past classes I did not think the appendices were included. Once this was clarified I was stumped. I had no idea what to cut, or even where to start. Luckily, it was quite simple to reduce the size once it was clear what needed to be included. (Thank you again, Erika.) I then posted an updated draft of my report and emailed my peer editor. I think he may be been relieved to see a smaller paper.
Writing with “YOU” attitude was a little challenging, but helped the formal report remain factual and limiting the amount of emotion present in the paper. It also removed personal perspective and kept the focus on the data.
The peer review of the formal report was interesting both as the editor and having my paper edited. I learned that I try to include too much information resulting in a very long paper. My partner’s paper was much more succinct. I could learn from this. Information was relevant and built on itself but there was no need to share all results from the surveys and interviews.
In the peer review I received I found some very valuable information. My peer helped me identify areas needing attention, areas that could be better organized, and graphic which could be laid-out differently resulting greater clarity for the reader. This is much appreciated and will make my paper stronger.
First Draft of Formal Report – Glen Kavaliunas: Eng-301-Formal-Report-Draft-Glen-Kavaliunas-original
Revised Draft of Formal Report – Glen Kavaliunas: Eng-301-Formal-Report-Draft-Glen-Kavaliunas-draft 2