Exam season is upon UBC, leaving us with just shy of 2 weeks for ENGL 301. The most recent unit, Unit 3 focused mainly on the process of doing research, planning a proposal, creating a draft of the formal report, and peer reviewing. Writing a formal report was a daunting task at first. My topic was reducing single-use plastic waste at Geering Up. There was a lot of ground to cover with a strict timeline. The self-guided nature of the report was both convenient and challenging. Luckily, for one of the previous assignments, a formal report schedule and report outline were already planned out, keeping me on task. One of the first things I did was research on plastics. There were so many resources but ones that stood out to me were reports published by environmental organizations. After learning more about my topic, I moved on to interviewing and conducting surveys. Everyone was enthusiastic to contribute to this project.
After around a week of collecting data, I moved onto writing my report. Deciding where to start took a while: weighing analyzing the data, or writing an intro and conclusion first. Eventually I decided to write about what I gathered from reading about my topic while everything was still fresh in my memory. After writing for what felt like forever, I realized the report was only one tenth complete. I dedicated 30 minutes each day for a week to write the rest of the report but often found myself stuck. One day I decided to start working on the report from when I got home to when I had to sleep. Writing continuously helped my writing flow. During this process, I took out subsections that were distracting and insignificant. The next day, after some peer-editing I passed it on to Jobina to review.
Jobina was very quick to review my piece – something I appreciated greatly. She gave insightful comments that I probably would have never thought of. Seeing how someone else interprets your work is always interesting. The main things brought up were around formatting and structure of the report.
My biggest takeaways were:
- Focusing on being clear (and coming up with a new title)
- Eliminating unnecessary information
- Thoroughly editing the intro to make it more focused
The peer review helped me identify that my writing could use more organization. I tried following the outline for this report to stay on task but there were certain spots where I strayed from the topic, especially in the subsections. In the future, continuing to use an outline for writing would help greatly. An outline similar to the one for my report would ensure the presence of all important sections but perhaps I could also write a short sentence under each heading in the outline to remind myself of the main focus.
This assignment was different from the others due to its length and nature. I was used to peer reviewing memos and one to two page long assignments. But by using the same template as for other peer reviews, the process was not as difficult as I had imagined. I started with first impressions, then moved to section-specific comments, and finally ending with some general suggestions. In the process of reviewing Jobina’s report, I learned more about organization and formatting. There was a clear central idea with supporting branches throughout the report. Her writing was concise as usual and the layout made the 12 page report easy to read. One thing we could both improve on is using the word “it” less because it takes away from the quality of the work.
I am glad that the bulk of my report is done. I’m looking forward to making modifications according to the peer review and continue working on writing with YOU-attitude. This project has been the most thorough one this semester and will definitely be something I look back on to appreciate.
Formal Report Draft: 301 Jenny Zhu – Lesson 3:2 – Formal Report Draft