The reflections found here were written throughout the English 301 course. I chose to name them based on Freytag’s pyramid as it seemed fitting with the course structure. The first unit was the building block or the foundation. We met the characters, learned the format and tested the environment. In unit two the plot built. We learned more about the characters (our editing team), dove into more in-depth assignments and become comfortable in the environment. Unit three changed things up. We were no longer building to something, it was here. This unit was busy and intense, but revealed what the class was really about. Unit four represented the denouement where we submitted our final proposal papers for editing, created our job application packages, and prepared to wrap this story up and start a new one. The finally, the epilogue. One final reflection to bring everything together and to show our learning and growth in the course.
The Epilogue – Self-assessment
As the last assignment in English 301, it is fitting I write this final self-reflection. The course has had some overlap with previous courses I have taken, especially the Cooperative Education prep course at North Island College. Other assignments were fairly new to me and required more research and learning. After being away from school for twenty years, I was curious if my learning process or approach had changed. Unfortunately my style of completing assignments the day they are due has not changed. But I feel this is now due to having a family and working full-time rather than procrastination. I always made the deadlines, and rarely felt pressured. Most of my assignments were well thought out and I took time early in the week to draft the assignment, thought about it for a few days and then edited and wrote the final copy on the due date. This was a little challenging in unit three when a number of assignments were due at the same time. On the other hand my editing skills, both self and peer, have improved since I was last at school. I think this is due to increased confidence in my work.
My attention to detail, ability to follow directions, and infer meaning will help me in both my professional and personal life in the future. As an accountant there are set rules to follow. This matches my personality and learning style well. I do well in situations with a right and wrong answer. I always found Humanities courses more challenging because they were more ambiguous. I also believe that my ability to express my self professionally in a written manner will be very helpful in my future career as an accountant.
The Denouement- Web Folio Reflection
Creating the web folio was the last step in English 301. All of the action was over and now I was just wrapping up loose ends (or reorganizing)…so I thought.
The web folio is a compilation of the work we have completed in English 301. It is a chance for us to showcase our skills and display our learning.
The first step I took when creating my web folio was deciding what platform I wanted to use to display my work. As we had learned to use WordPress earlier I the course, I decided this was the best platform to use for this final project. Through this platform I could maintain a format I had developed through the course with attaching documents, hyperlinks, and uploading images. Learning WordPress was not entirely intuitive, but was not a complicated process. My main wish is that WordPress would let you do more with formatting.
As this Blog is about me, my professional writing and presenting myself, I added a section to the assignment summarizing the requirements to become a Certified Professional Accountant. This is my long term goal and it seems natural to include it in a digital presentation of professional technical writing, my resume and job application package.
Creating the web folio was a long process. I had edited my work as the course progressed. Every time I received peer feedback I immediately went back and edited my assignments so that at least saved me some time in the end. When I discovered that we needed to write introductions to every page, link, and post I was a little defeated. But I rallied and completed this tedious process. Now that I have completed it, I can understand why this would be helpful for someone unfamiliar with the work and who was seeing the web folio for the first time. These introductions help the reader understand what they are looking at and why it was included.
The Climax
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
The Rising Action
LinkedIn Profile
Through the coop program I started at North Island College, I had already created a LinkedIn profile. This assignment allowed me to take a closer look at the information on my profile and make the profile more robust and up to date. As I already had a LinkedIn profile, I had already made the choice to have a professional social media presence, so this was not a challenge for me or something I needed to think about. While updating my profile and adjusting it to meet the requirements of assignment 2:2, I did struggle with the new purpose of the profile and how I could create an online account, but ensure it did not appear to my employer that I am looking for a new job. My previous profile was to attract potential employers and connect professionally. After doing the research into best practices I realized LinkedIn can also be used as a means of professional networking. This purpose struck a chord with me. Making a thorough profile is difficult in the time frame of assignment 2:2 as I did not have time to get many endorsements or do tests to prove my skills. I was lucky that I already had a well-established group of connections and interests.
Report Proposal and Outline
When I originally set out to write my report proposal the topic focused on the impact of a specific designated smoking area on the Beaufort Childcare facility outdoor play space. As I wrote the proposal, I decided it was too narrow and the proposal morphed into a proposal for North Island College to become a tobacco free campus. I support this goal, but it is a much bigger topic than I planned to take on. I have thought may times since submitting the proposal of requesting to alter my topic and instead address the speeding issue around the Beaufort Children’s Center. This came to a head when I was writing the report outline. I felt like I had two topics within my proposal and that the issue of the Beaufort Childcare Society play area was a sub-issue which was drawing attention away or clouding the main issue. After writing the outline and the progress report I figured out how to make these two topics work together as one. Only after writing the progress report do I feel the formal report is on track and will be a unified report. This taught me to trust the process. As I have worked through it so far, it has work for me, clarifying things I could not previously settle.
Peer Review
In the peer review I wrote for my partner I was reminded that not everyone is as methodical with their writing and self-editing. My partner had many grammar errors, which could have been corrected with a word processing program. Using this technology is not instinctual for everyone and writing this peer review had me reflecting on being in fourth year university when I was in my early twenties. Returning to school as a mature adult has given me confidence but has also made me methodical in checking my format, structure and grammar in my writing. I do still make errors, but unlike in my first degree, I know I make errors and I know these errors affect the overall impression and understanding of my writing.
The peer review process is only as strong as the partner you are assigned. Every student gives this class a different priority in their life and has a varied amount of time they can assign to the class. When matched with someone who gives it equal importance as you do, the process works well and the feedback is valuable. When paired with someone who gives the course a different level of importance than you do, the reviews get challenging. I put a lot of time into the peer review I did for my partner so I was disappointed when I received a review that was brief and appeared to be more a reflection of my peer’s feelings towards my topic than a review to help with my writing. My peer reviewer seemed to fundamentally disagree with my topic and that impacted his ability to provide an unbiased peer review. An example of this is “Although it is undoubtedly true that smoking is a ‘bad habit’ that should be eventually fixed, it is also irresponsible to make campus a place completely free from smoking…I recommend conveying the importance of maintain a healthy student body through a different means.” These statements were repeated in various forms throughout the review. This made it hard for me to find the useful peer editing suggestions in the review as I was responding emotionally to his emotional review. After some time and reflection I was able to re-read the review and find the quite helpful suggestions my partner included, as well at the disdain for my choice of topic.
I also worried I had gone a little too in-depth with grammar corrections in the peer review I provided. I worried that the peer review for my peer would not be appreciated.
Peer Review Process
I find it fascinating to read other students’ perspective on the assignments. We are all given the same criteria, but how we interpret the directions determines what we post. I find I am reading not only my writing team’s posts, but also other groups. It always surprises me to see how different the final product can be, yet there are always common elements. An example is the assignment requiring research into LinkedIn best practices. The lens my peers were viewing the topic from determined where they looked for research and articles. This lens also determined what they selected as best practices. Some chose to focus on industry specific best practices. Others were looking to connect with potential future employers, or to network within their field. And some just met the requirements of the assignment.
The review of the formal report proposal was the first time I read a review and thought “that is the reviewer’s opinion, and I can take it or leave it”. In the past when my writing was questioned, I always felt I needed to make changes because although the meaning was clear to me, it must have been confusing from someone else’s perspective. I felt differently this time as the review was charged with my peer’s personal feelings about my topic. This made it easy for me to disengage with the review and accept the grammatical feedback but leave the rest.
The Introduction
My writing process has evolved throughout my academic career. Before I publish anything, it goes through many self edits. I have learned that I am best able to edit my own work when I write the original piece and then walk away from it for at least twenty-four hours. This time gives me a little distance from the piece allowing me to edit my own work and to be critical. If I try to edit something immediately after writing it, I am too close to the piece and I have difficulty seeing my own errors. This was the process I used for the Three Definitions Assignment. I feel it was successful. My document went through more than a dozen revisions before I published it on the Scribbler’s team forum. This includes switching terms three times before I found one term fitting the purpose of the assignment. I originally selected to define the term liabilities. After working with this for some time I found that the term was too narrow and did not allow me to explore it in four different ways. I later switched my term to asset, but I found asset, liabilities, and equity were all connected. After realizing the balance sheet is what connects them, I was able to proceed with writing the definitions.
When I completed the document, I left it for a couple of days before returning to edit the piece. After some time away I was able to re-read my piece and discover that it needed a section explaining the parts which make up the whole. This provided clarity to the definition by explaining all the pieces making up a balance sheet. I also found adding a glossary helped to provide clarity for a reader, such as my chosen audience/situation in the assignment, who may not know some of the financial terms needed to understand the term balance sheet.
The peer review process in this situation was difficult from my other experiences because we did not speak with our peers or seek clarification about meaning in their document. We also do not know our peers and I think we were all extra cautious of offending the author. This was valuable as it ensured that we kept a professional and positive tone. It also meant that we took the writing piece at face value and there was no bias involved. If we had spoken to our peer, or met with them in person, they may have been able to explain why they made a certain choice. An example of this would be that in the original document I included my parenthetical definition in my situation/audience section. As it was not specifically labelled, my peer reviewer did not recognize it as a parenthetical definition. Although it was included in the original piece, I appreciated the note that it was not easily identifiable.
When I was editing my peer’s work, I found that it was very concise, and lacking a conclusion. It needed another section to tie the thoughts together and to explain how the parts work together. Editing was a balancing act of ensuring I was thorough but trying not to be too picky. One example of this was the note I made to my peer about their graphic. The one graphic included in their piece had four arrows on it but only two labels. I recommended adding labels for all four parts, but also noted that one of the arrows pointed to the wrong part of the heart because it was too short. This was an area I needed to consider the importance of mentioning. My peer had included a diagram of a heart and had drawn arrows on it and labelled the right and left ventricle. This was important to his definition, but the one arrow extended to the heart wall rather than all the way into the ventricle. Most people have basic knowledge of the structure of the heart from science in elementary school, so I felt this detail may be too picky. Nevertheless, in a professional document meant to clarify something, details and specifics are important, so I decided to include this note.
Through the editing process I learned that my personal editing skills have improved. The original piece went through many rounds of self-editing before it was published on our team forum for peer review. Still, my peer was able to offer suggestion that I had not thought of which added clarify to the document. One example of this is where my peer pointed out the redundancy in my document. I had repeated the description of a balance sheet being a form of double entry bookkeeping multiple times. Thanks to this note I was able to analyze the document further and remove one of the references to double entry bookkeeping.
Through this process I found different people face different challenges when writing. While some have trouble being concise in their writing, others are too concise, often failing to convey the full meaning.
Works referred to in this blog:
Eng 301- Glen Kavaliunas – Three Definitions Assignment
Peer Review of Three Definitions Assignment by Money
Eng 301 – Glen Kavaliunas – Revised Three Definitions Assignment