I believe my technical writing skill has improved after taking ENGL 301.  Even though it’s painful for me to write many different kinds of passages (emails, memos, letters…), the whole process is well worth the effort. Needless to say, professional writing skill is very important and it will be my valuable asset. Therefore I am grateful I have taken this course.

Throughout this course, I had a hard time adjusting to different types of assignments. I was not familiar with professional letters, emails, or reviewing other’s work. Therefore, I had spent quite some time thinking and searching for proper and professional wordings while doing the assignment. Now I am more familiar with it; thus practicing is very important. Another weakness is my grammar. My peers often pointed out some grammatical errors for me. Even though it’s somewhat discouraging as I have proofread my writings several times, I do believe practicing more would help me overcome this.

My psychology research background helped me a lot while designing and writing my formal report. Generally, I had a great time composing the survey and collecting the results. My fellow students have provided me with great insights and their ideas for improvements. However, I did make a mistake while sending out my survey, which resulted in a very unrepresentative sample size in my study. I have learned from that mistake and I believe I can do better next time.

Writing my LinkedIn profile as well as web folio is painful yet rewarding. LinkedIn is the most used social network in business contexts.  Completing my profile can help me set up a foundation as it will be easier for me to update and polish it further when I graduate and look for a career. Web folio can help me showcase my technical writing skills by presenting the great works I have written in this class.

In conclusion, I have learned a lot in this course through every assignment. I recommend this class to all students.

Creating a web folio is a meaningful process. I get to organize most of my works I have written for this course and put them together to showcase my technical writing skills.

I use a minimalist design for my blog without any flashy images that could be distracted. It can demonstrate that I am an organized and detail-oriented person. I chose to use my UBC Blog as web folio because it’s very user-friendly. I can easily upload images and change all the settings and themes to make a unique web folio without any hassles. For readers, the web page is very simple to navigate through.

I was not good at summarizing my best works and write a brief introduction to all of them. With enough practice, I believe I can polish my web folio further to demonstrate my skills.

Overall, this process helped me learn about the essential components of a web folio.

Writing a memo with YOU attitude is a rewarding process. I have never realized that using “you” in a memo or peer review can be rude, condescending, and unprofessional. While practicing writing with YOU attitude, I learned to give suggestions without insulting the reader. This is very useful because making suggestions is essential and unavoidable while working in a team.

Writing a complaint letter and bad-news letter is a good practice as well. Since I don’t have experience composing these two letters, at first, I struggled with the tone and word choice. It’s challenging to be polite but also make my point firmly. I believe with more practices I will be more comfortable writing these kinds of the letter.

I have spent quite some time writing my formal report draft. I have collected enough data in time. However, then I realized my sample is very unrepresentative. My survey is supposed to be for all UBC students and reflecting their thoughts and opinions. Instead, almost 1/3 of the participants in my survey are in Computer Science major. Consequently, the survey results cannot strongly indicate the problem I pointed out. Nonetheless, after adjusting some calculations, the new finding is ideal as it demonstrates the existing parking problem. Thanks to the outline I wrote earlier, I could quickly adapt my contents and add explanations for the unrepresentative sample. Even though I have made a mistake, I believe it’s still a good practice to explain it in the report and adjust the calculation accordingly. Moreover, analyzing other student’s opinions is a fascinating and educating process. I can not only practice my summarizing and evaluating skills, but also learn from other’s thoughts which gave different insights of the parking problem.

As usual, the peer review process helps me reflect on my writings. After reviewing Curtis’s draft, I realized that my introduction didn’t provide enough information to the readers. Curtis gave me helpful advice on my report draft as well. For example, some of my graphs are taking too much white space which makes the report look less coherent. Curtis also suggested me to use bullet points (rather than paragraph form) when displaying a series of statistics. This is a helpful suggestion because statistics can be confusing for readers if they are not listed correctly.

In conclusion, by practicing writing with YOU attitude, I have learned to make suggestions appropriately. After writing my report draft, I also learned to analyze survey results and draft a proper formal report.

James_Ou_Eng301_Formal_Report_Draft

Completing and polishing my LinkedIn profile page is a painful but rewarding process. Even though the page was created a long time ago, most of the information is incomplete and outdated. After researching LinkedIn best practices, I came to realize the importance of having a complete and professional profile page. Writing a self-introduction and summarizing my experience are challenging for me as I need to keep my page professional and concise with details. In general, I believe completing my profile can develop my connections, expand my social network, and eventually increase my chance to get hired.

Writing my report proposal and outlining my formal report is extremely helpful for me to organize my ideas and schedule my writing plan. I spent quite some time thinking about my topic. After discussing with a few classmates and hearing several complaints, I realized that the shortage of parking space could be a potential problem. In the process of writing a proposal, I was able to consider the significance of the issue and think about my approaches. After outlining my report, it became clear to me that I need to write a comprehensive survey to gather enough data and ideas from fellow students because my report mainly relies on real-world data. Therefore, I was able to make a schedule and think of enough survey questions.

The peer review process helps me reflect on my writings. After reviewing Curtis’s profile, I realized that I didn’t list any of my achievement on my LinkedIn page. Curtis gave me helpful advice on my report proposal as well. For example, I didn’t specify how my report is relevant to my primary audience. This part is essential because my report should not only aim to resolve problems, but also to benefit my audience. Moreover, Curtis also pointed out my grammatical mistakes and helped me improve my wordings as well as sentence structures.

In conclusion, by completing my LinkedIn profile, I can gradually build my business connections. After writing my report proposal and outline, I narrowed down my topic and scheduled my research plan. Furthermore, by reviewing my Curtis’s profile and proposal, I can learn from him and improve my work.

Peer Review Link: https://engl301.arts.ubc.ca/2017/10/12/peer-review-of-formal-report-proposal/

Revised Proposal: Formal_Report_Proposal

Defining OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) in three ways for a general audience is an interesting task to do. Even though most people might have some knowledge of OCD, I found that writing definitions without introducing more complicated jargons can be challenging. To keep it clear but detailed, I provided a parenthetical definition for each term that might not be familiar to the general public. Suggested by my peer, Curtis, I rewrote some of the sentences to avoid awkward wording and eliminate grammatical mistakes.

After reviewing Curtis’s passage, I have learned a lot from his writing. His sentences are very clear and straightforward. I had no problem understanding cryptography which is supposed to be a very complex and broad concept. Then I realized that my writing could be confusing to readers because I tend to write long and run-on sentences. Moreover, I noticed that Curtis’s expanded definition might need a few more examples to illustrate his points better. This reminded me to review my work to see if my explanations and examples are sufficient.

I have learned a lot from this assignment. In the process of writing the definition, I was able to refine my research skills to look for relevant information. My technique of simplifying complex sentences has improved as well. Curtis’s review helped me realize that some of my working and sentences can be confusing. Therefore, I rewrote some of my words to make the whole passage more concise and straightforward.

In conclusion, by reviewing my peers’ work, I can learn from their writing styles as well as the contents. Curtis’s feedback helps me reflect on myself and improve my writing skills.

Here is the peer review of my work: http://engl301.arts.ubc.ca/2017/09/25/peer-review-of-definitions-3/

Here is my updated definitions: Updated Definition of OCD

From: james.ou31@gmail.com

To: liuchris93@gmail.com

Date: September 18, 2017

Subject: Invitation to English 301 Writing Team

Dear Chris,

I am writing to express my interest in working with you and forming a writing team together throughout this course.

After reading your application letter, I believe we can work well together because of our shared interest in computer science as I am a first-year BCS-er as well. I am very impressed by your high grade of your paper, and I believe your skills of composing professional technical report will be a great asset to my team. Together in my team, we can learn from each other to further improve our writing skills.

I have attached my application letter below. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

James Ou

From: james.ou31@gmail.com

To: minjihan@msn.com

Date: September 18, 2017

Subject: Invitation to English 301 Writing Team

Dear Min-ji,

From: james.ou31@gmail.com

To: zac.beardsley@gmail.com

Date: September 18, 2017

Subject: Invitation to English 301 Writing Team

Dear Zachary,

After reading your application letter, I believe we can work well together because of our shared interest as I am a recent graduate in psychology. Your abundant work experience is very impressive. Your knowledge of professional email writing in real life business context will be a great asset to my team. I am hoping to work with you, learn from you, and we can practice together to further improve our writing skills.

I have attached my application letter below. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. I look forward to hearing from you.

MEMORANDUM

To: Dr. Erika Paterson, English 301 Instructor
From: James Ou, English 301 Student
Date: September 14, 2017
Subject: Letter of Application posted

I have written an application letter to the class and have posted it on my blog.

The application letter includes:

• My experience as a research assistant
• Summary of my writing strength and weakness
• My learning philosophy of practice

If you have any questions regarding the above mentioned, please feel free to contact me.

Thanks!

Enclosure: 301 James Ou Application letter

September 14, 2017
2329 West Mall
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4

ENGL 301: Technical Writing Class
The University of British Columbia
2329 West Mall
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4

Dear ENGL 301 students:

SUBJECT: APPLICATION FOR A WRITING TEAM MEMBER POSITION

I am writing this letter to express my interest in joining your writing team. As a recent graduate majoring in psychology, I have developed a strong research and essay writing skills. I hope to become a contributing and responsible member of your team.

For the past two years, I have been working at the UBC psychology lab. As a research assistant, I was actively involved with two projects that both have large samples of participants. By transcribing, translating and documenting all the data of participants, I have learned to write professionally according to a specific set of rules. Moreover, I have shown to be a detail-oriented person and an active team player while collaborating with my lab mates and partner-lab at Hong Kong University on documenting, sharing, as well as analyzing data.

Currently, I am working on my second degree in computing science at UBC. With years of practice in course work as well as at the lab, I feel confident to write a research based essay utilizing my critical thinking, data analysis, and argument building skills. However, I think I am a little short in practicing writings in professional contexts. By taking this course and joining your team, I am hoping to develop a strong technical as well as business writing skill.

My learning philosophy is practice, practice, practice. Even though talent plays an important role in learning, I still strongly believe that everyone can improve their writing skills by practicing over and over again. Therefore, I hope I can be accepted into your team and we can practice together to become a better professional writer. Please feel free to contact me at james.ou31@gmail.com.

Sincerely,

James Ou

301 James Ou Application letter