Journey review: Self-assessment
Such an unforgettable journey of study in Technical Writing (ENGL 301) course is coming to the end. It is time to look back on what I have learned in it and do an overall review.
Honestly, at the beginning stage of this course, I was feeling a bit of nervous and anxious. As long as I am not a native speaker in English, I often encounter difficulties in its writing. How to use the most appropriate words and sentences for the expression, how to employ the professional tone and reader centre attitude, how to minimize gramma errors, all these questions are the reason that I decided to take this course. At the same time, they are the major concerns in each of my assignment in this course. It is not easy to put myself stand on the line and face the challenge. However, the benefits brought from this course is incredible after I have overcome these difficulties.
The most significant benefits that I have gained from this course is the pee-review process. Through exchanging and reviewing assignments between team members, a new path of thinking has been opened up. It generates more than the power of just one plus one, but much likely to be an accumulation effect of overlaying the review and reflection again and again. By giving myself the guideline to review other team members’ document and having received suggestions from their reviews on my works, it creates a powerful upward spiral to my writing skills development and broadened my vison in technical writing.
Some major assignments such as the formal report, the application package, the YOU attitude writing, the technical definition, and those reflection blogs are challenging but valuable in developing my writing skills. Precisely because of these, with those peer-review processes, I can more clearly understand my strengths and weaknesses in technical writing. It seems I have rich topics and subjects with detailed descriptions and able to analysis them in a logical flow in my mind. Whereas, to express them in a concise writing style with flexible wording and grammar are being as my main issues for a long time. Being study and practicing in ENGL 301 gave me a lot of inspiration on this issue, and hence made me see those gaps that can break the deadlock.
finally, I want to express my great appreciation to Dr. Paterson, my teammates Zainab, Cynthia, Joanna and all classmates in this course, who are the amazing tour guide and accompanies in my journey in Technical Writing this summer. Thank all of you!