Unit1 Reflection Blog
The first unit and set of assignments introduce me to the technical writing course. I have learned how to write an application letter, how to write a memo to my instructor, as well as how to define a technical term.
I had a very nice experience with this unit. Although I spent three years writing academic articles and research papers, I have never learned how to write professionally. After completing unit 1, I instantly feel like I made the right choice for picking this class. I look forward to the following assignments that will help my professional writing.
The assignment that I enjoyed the most is the “Definition Assignment”. I pick “A/B” testing as my word for this assignment. In this assignment, I realized the importance of explaining technical terms to non-technical readers. As I was writing the definition for “A/B testing”, I was not expecting so much history associated with this approach. In my previous marketing class, the term A/B testing was simply explained as split testing. However, my group member Luke Jang (after reading my draft) comments that this term “split testing” is also a technical term, and it is difficult for non-technical readers to understand. Jiang suggests that I should explain this term further. His comment makes me realize that my professor in marketing class is using a technical term to explain another technical term.
Jang’s review is extremely helpful, he points out I should improve my MLA citation format. In my other classes, I am used to using the APA citation format, he walks me through the citation process, and I am extremely thankful.
As I was reviewing Jang’s draft, I learned that sometimes it is more appropriate to use active voice than passive voice. I found several dangling modifiers in Jang’s draft, which also reminds me not to use a passive voice in my edited definition assignment.
I also reviewed Di Fei Su’s draft, and I learned that the “parenthetical definition” should be distinguished from “sentence definition”. As stated on page 406 of our textbook, the parenthetical definition is intended to offer readers additional information for the sentence definition. Moreover, I also realized that the “expanded definition” is meant to speculate what additional information that non-technical readers need, and then put the information in a “question and answer” format.
I have enjoyed completing the assignments in unit 1 and learned a great deal about defining technical terms. I want to thank my group members as well as Dr. Erika Paterson for their assistance and encouragement throughout this process.
Unit 2 Reflection Blog
In unit 2, I have learned a great deal about the requirements of progress report, and how to professionally set up my LinkedIn profile.
The progress report is something I have never written before. In other writing classes I attended, I only learned how to write drafts. It is the first time I present my progress report to my instructor, and I faced a lot of difficulties when completing the assignment. However, Dr. Erika Paterson assisted me and helped me to revise the assignment. Dr. Paterson taught me the differences between making recommendations for small business and ACTUALLY testing the proposed solutions, this saved me from writing my report in the wrong direction, so that I could put more time and energy into making recommendations instead of testing if my proposed solution is feasible.
Creating the Linkedln profile and reviewing my teammates’ profile makes me realize the importance of gaining working experiences and volunteering experiences in University. For instance, one of my teammates—Luke Jang; his profile is more than professional. He has many job experiences and volunteer experiences, while my Linkedln profile looks very pale.
Receiving Jang’s review on my profile for the first time is wonderful, he helped me to better understand how to set up a profile in a professional way. His suggestions including adding the Education experience at the bottom of my profile; creating a self-introduction page; and selecting pictures that have good visual quality, etc. All of these suggestions are thoughtful and useful.
Unit 3 Reflection Blog
Unit three has several assignments and they all taught me how to write more professionally. The assignment that I enjoyed the most in Unit 3 is the “ Writing with You Attitude”; it taught me how to not offend my audiences and make them believe that they are the most important person in the correspondence. I learned how to avoid the pronoun “ you” in the body of correspondence, but use “you” in the introduction and the conclusion in order to make a positive impression on the reader. I also learned how to avoid imperatives within the body of my correspondence, because people are usually defensive, and using imperatives in the body of my correspondence will make them feel like I wrote to command them, instead of giving my advice. Reviewing Zhe Su’s “Writing with attitude” was a pleasure. I really enjoyed reading her assignment, because her memo offered much informative advice for Evan Crisp and the content was nicely organized. I believe her memo would be much “reader-centered ” if she could avoid the pronoun “you” within the body of her memo.
The two letters of “ Complaint” and “ Bad News” allow me to learn how business document persuade the audience to respond or act in a certain way. The tone in business letters is very important, it reflects our professionalism. Employing the appropriate tone can help us to receive the kind of response we want. Moreover, I find the textbook very useful when writing these two letters, on page 353 and 354, there are two-letter samples which clearly showed me the correct structure of the “Bad News” letter and the “Complaint” letter. I followed the guidelines in the textbook, as well as the Lesson 3:1 instructions, and they helped me to formalize my letters and complete them in a professional way.
Writing the formal report draft was a difficult process. The act of gathering data about COVID-19 in Beijing and the results from the online survey, and analyzing the feasibility of my proposed solution was a refreshing experience for me. It was a great challenge for me to identify a problem and then use research and data to come up with a possible solution. I was glad that I did the progress report and the outline of the final report early in the process because they are useful guidelines that helped me to organize my draft. Reviewing Difei Su’s final draft report helped me to learn about the structure of the final report more fully. I find this peer review assignment extremely beneficial because I was not just reviewing other’s work, I was also reflecting my own work. When I pointed out Difei Su’s draft’s strengths and weaknesses (in a polite way) according to the Instructor’s blog’s guidelines, I was also thinking about how I can improve my final report. This peer review assignment allows me to assess my own work more objectively, I also appreciate the comments that Difei Su made about my draft. While synthesizing and completing my final draft, I will be using these informative suggestions to improve my work. I look forward to completing the next Unit’s assignments, especially the final report!