Monthly Archives: December 2019

Key Takeaways from ENGL 301

ENGL 301 was an excellent course for developing technical writing skills. Through this course, I became proficient in preparing succinct professional documents following particular formats. I also became aware of the importance of considering the audience in writing. Keeping the audience in mind has become one of the first aspects I think of when I start to write. This has helped me write many drafts for different assignments as I gain a better sense of who my reader is. There are many genres of technical writing and recognizing the different formatting styles for each genre is an important part of learning how to become a professional technical writer.

Learning how to write emails, memorandums and business letters was helpful. Before ENGL 301, I had experience writing emails and business letters for my role as a sponsorship coordinator for non-profit organizations. However, I had never written any memorandums prior to taking this course. In the beginning, it was definitely a challenge to adjust to the writing style of memorandums. I felt that the first memorandums I prepared for this course needed improvements. I was not sure if I the memorandums were written in the correct format. In addition, I was slightly confused about the differences between emails and memorandums. Nonetheless, as I read more about memorandums in the Technical Communications textbook and the Instructor’s blog, I began to recognize the differences between emails and memorandums. It was helpful to learn that memorandum is a distinct genre of communication with the purpose of communicating official “in house” information using a clear and brief writing style. I have definitely gained a deeper appreciation for this genre of writing.

Incorporating the process of reviewing, refining and reflecting into my writing routine has always been a challenge for me. Often times, I would review and refine my writing and stop after these two steps. I always find the process of reflecting to be the most time consuming. Before this course, I admit that I never thoroughly went over these steps of the writing process. However, through ENGL 301, I began to spend more time in these processes of writing. The reflection blogs of this course have forced me to slow down and pause to think about the writing I just completed. In fact, the reflections blogs were crucial to improving my writing skills throughout the course. Additionally, the peer review assignments have allowed me to critically review others’ writing. This helped me in recognizing common problems that can occur in technical writing. As such, after reviewing my peers’ work, I found myself reviewing my own work again to refine areas that I came to realize needs improvement. Now, I believe that trusting the process of reviewing, refining and reflecting is essential to writing.

Beyond ENGL 301

Writing skills are crucial for any position requiring communication. As a scientist, strong technical writing skills can be particularly beneficial for preparing manuscripts and writing grants and applications. These documents often have word limits and strict format guidelines. Thus, my ability to write in a clear, organized and professional manner is important. Additionally, skills in reviewing, refining and reflecting are also critical for ensuring documents are prepared according to guidelines. Furthermore, my strengths in writing with an audience in mind may be useful when needing to communicate science to an audience with varying levels of scientific knowledge. I look forward to transferring the technical writing skills I acquired through ENGL 301 to my scientific career.

There are certainly endless ways to showcase one’s web folio. I thoroughly enjoyed the open-ended nature of this assignment. With some web folio templates and styles better than others, the process of creating the web folio definitely challenged me to think of the best way to present my profile. In the end, I decided on simplicity. A website that clearly and professionally presented my profile was the goal. I chose the “Suits” theme on WordPress for the web folio as it was a clean design with easy to read pages. The neutral black, grey, and white background colours on the webpage compliment the simplistic approach. Before beginning to piece together the different pages of the web folio, creating a storyboard and outline also helped me visualize the web folio in which I wanted to create. Without a doubt, the process of developing a web folio allowed me to unleash my creativity.

In the beginning, I critically thought about the audience that would view my web folio. I decided to tailor my web folio to recruiters and professionals working in the life sciences field. Along with highlighting achievements, technical skills and research interests, I also wanted to customize my web folio to showcase my research experiences with a “Past Projects” page outlining research projects I have completed. Furthermore, to connect with colleagues, I included my Twitter handle along with my LinkedIn profile in the web folio.

The “Best Works” page was the most meaningful in reflecting my learning from ENGL 301. As I compared my assignments from the beginning of the course to the end of the course, I absolutely noticed some changes to my writing. This was especially apparent when I reviewed my peer reviews. I aimed to minimize the use of imperative verbs to make my writing more precise and concise throughout the term. I can say that I have made some progress in this area. Reviewing, refining and reflecting on all the assignments on the “Best Works” page was a great way to conclude my technical writing learning journey in ENGL 301.

Creating websites have always been a passion of mine. I have always wanted to create a web folio showcasing my past projects and background. It was wonderful to be able to combine my interests for designing websites with technical writing. The opportunity to create a web folio to cumulate technical writing skills I have gained through ENGL 301 was one of the highlights of the course.

Unit three was critical for learning the practice of writing with “you” attitude, preparing the formal report and peer editing a draft formal report. Here are my reflections for the unit:

Formal Report Research

The research process of the formal report was critical in establishing the foundation of the formal report. For my report on “Enhancing Participation of Educators in the Greater Vancouver Regional Science Fair Committee”, secondary resources can be difficult to find. Beyond the information regarding the purpose of science fairs and brief background on history of the regional fair, statistics of educator science fair participation was not available. As a result, this made primary sources for the research extremely critical. Notably, I found the gathering of survey responses a challenge in the research process. Specifically, response rates were low for the number of educators the surveys were sent to. Despite this limitation to the research process, I proceeded to navigate through this obstacle by exploring other feasible methods of gathering meaningful data. This included finding educators from outside Vancouver to conduct an in-depth interview regarding educator participation on science fair committees outside Greater Vancouver. Surprisingly, I learned that other regions from across the province and outside BC are also exploring ways to increase educator participation on the committee or have successfully implemented strategies to attract more educators. Interviews with educators proved to be an effective way in gathering comprehensive information for my report. The research I completed regarding educator participation on science fair committees are novel findings that will potentially have a huge impact on how the Greater Vancouver Regional Science Fair will proceed in the next round of volunteer recruitment.

Organizing the Formal Report

Following the research, organizing the information gathered for the report was a lengthy process. As many of the questions on the surveys utilized the Likert Scale, determining the frequency distribution for each value on the scale required creating an organized spreadsheet of all the data gathered. Organizing the information from interviews also needed good organization. After all results were analyzed, the next step was planning the most effective way to present the main findings. To begin, I compared the responses from the two interviews and highlighted points that were mentioned in both interviews. There was an unexpected amount of overlap between the interviews but also key differences that were helpful in formulating recommendations for the report. These overlaps formed the subheadings under the results section for surveys. Next, for the numerical data gathered from surveys, I formulated a brief sentence summarizing the conclusion that can be drawn from the results for each survey question. Through this method, I created informative subheadings for the report. In organizing interview and survey responses, I learned that summarizing results for a report is a great exercise in practicing conciseness in writing.

Writing the Formal Report

From thoroughly organizing the survey and interview data, the writing process of the formal report was straight forward. Using the formal report outline I had written earlier, I was able to write in an organized and concise manner. The outline served as a compass for preparing the draft of my formal report. I learned that the outline did not necessarily form the final layout for the report. After the primary research was completed, I recognized there were some gaps in the outline that needed to be filled in. As such, this required changes to the organization of the formal report to ensure that the ideas were presented logically and clearly. Subsequent editing of the draft of the formal report will be critical in polishing the writing ahead of the final submission. I look forward to editing my draft formal report and submitting my best work by the end of the term.

Peer Reviewing

By reviewing my peer’s draft formal report, I was able to practice writing with a “you” attitude. I focused on avoiding the use of imperative verbs and minimizing the use of pronouns and “you’s” in my peer review. Through being more conscious about my word choices in the peer review, I believe that my writing has become more precise and concise. Additionally, through reading my peer’s work, I learned about the various ways in which the sections of the formal report can be organized and presented. I noticed that reviewing for writing style and grammar, including sentence structures and verb tenses, were especially important for learning how to write in ways that can be easily understood by readers. Furthermore, the peer review process helped me learn about the necessity of providing details and writing in an engaging active voice. The writing becomes clearer when details and active voice are utilized. Overall, peer reviewing my peer’s draft formal report was a great way to improve my formal report writing skills.

Draft formal report can be found here: 301_Janice Pang_Formal Report_Draft.