The following posts are a chronological series that reflect on each unit after completing it. Each post talk about the assignments required to be finished in the unit, my strengths, my weaknesses, and something I want to improve on/see in my future work.
Author Archives: toledojo
The First Reflection
The learning process of writing effectively while being conscious of the content openly available to all peers requires a great deal of strategizing and honest self-assessment. In this unit, our class was required to complete several assignments that included practicing writing application letters, email offers, memorandums, a definition, and a peer review on the definition written by your writing partner. From these assignments, I aimed to stay conscious of my work ethic and strategies to approach each assignment in order to reflect on them accurately and thoroughly. I noticed many habits, good and bad, that I have when completing assignments, and the different practices and choices I followed in order to produce the best product possible.
When I started strategizing for my assignment, I reread the instructions many times and as thoroughly as possible. I wanted to ensure that I met every requirement and suggestion listed in the assignment instructions. I found it somewhat difficult to find a term that was relatively complicated but could still be understood by non-technical readers. I changed my term several times in order to simplify or complicate the situation and my definitions of the terms. In the instructions, Dr. Patterson wrote that the audience and situation are a major component of the exercise, and I wanted to ensure that I chose an audience and situation that the students of English 301 could relate to and could understand without needing further clarification. I researched my definition profusely and ensured that I could explain my term thoroughly without any errors. I thought about level 100 courses and the way that textbooks provided definitions for terms in the first chapters and wanted to approach my definition assignment in the same way. I found that I had the most difficulty with condensing my explanations and avoiding adding unnecessary information to my definitions. The greatest strength that I found myself in this process was my ability to assess myself and my writing and adjust myself as I went along.
Can, AJ. “Explainer: What is Peer Review”, The Conversation. 18 Jun 2014
https://images.theconversation.com/files/50774/original/vtgbsqtx-1402449234.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=926&fit=clip
The peer review process was helpful and productive. I enjoyed reading Phillip’s definition assignment and being able to think critically about how to enhance it. Being experienced with peer review, I understand that it is initially an awkward process, especially when you do not know the colleague you are assessing. The tone that needs to be used in order to come across as professional, friendly, and helpful is difficult considering that all communication is through an online basis with no body language, eye contact, or vocal tone to accompany the constructive criticisms. In reviewing my writing partner’s assignment, I wrote down components that I enjoyed and components that could be strengthened. By considering how I would want to be spoken to during a peer review session, I applied these same expectations to how I addressed Phillip. Personally, I enjoy peer review sessions and appreciate all constructive criticism. I aim to be better at everything I do and I want my peers to succeed with as much assistance I can offer as well. Phillip’s comments on his peer review of my definitions assignment were incredibly helpful and polite, and I appreciated his constructive feedback.
Phillip mentioned in my peer review that I should explain the litigation process, the other Alternative Dispute Resolution methods that I did not expand on, and to clean the aesthetic of the post in order to make each section more distinctive. I took all of Phillip’s feedback and edited accordingly. Phillip’s suggestions really enhanced my assignment and made the definition well-rounded and informative, as well as made me reconsider and fix the structure of my assignment. Attached to this post is my edited definitions assignment and Phillip’s peer review of my assignment for review. While editing, I also considered how to condense the material in my definition in order to present a straightforward explanation to my audience.
Overall, this unit has taught me professionalism, tone, and importance of audience and situation. I am really glad that I partnered with Phillip this term as he is very intelligent, open to constructive criticism, and has great communication skills. Our writing styles have their differences and I think it is helpful when it comes to peer review because we look for different things in our peer’s assignments than what we have already assessed in ourselves. A goal for the next unit is to complete assignments ahead of time in order to exchange assignments with my writing partner in order to initiate peer review of our own. I am looking forward to what next unit has in store for us.
English 301 – Jocelyn Toledo – Final Draft of Definition
English 301 – Peer Review on ADR by Phillip Wade
The Second Reflection
Reflecting on this past unit, I noticed more strengths and weaknesses that I possess in my literary skills. This unit challenged me to push beyond my comfort zone and think critically about the work I put forward and consider the audience that my work is written for. Through the completion of the assignments in this unit, I have learned to write in the positive rather than the negative, to omit verbs in sentences in order to create a stronger statement and to create work that appeals to audience interests.
This unit required the completion of a social media profile, LinkedIn. In this era, social media is crucial in regard to advertising and connecting with the world. The process of creating a LinkedIn Profile was familiar yet stimulating. As an active member on LinkedIn for four years on my performing arts profile, the initial set up for a separate LinkedIn profile was simple, yet somewhat tedious. In this process, I had to think critically about the key elements that make me stand out as a performer on one profile and a professional student on the other. By reflecting on what makes me stand out and how to appeal to other like-minded individuals, I had to focus on what makes me different yet likable. I also focused on my strengths and weaknesses and tried to word these components by using a minimal number of overused buzzwords.
D’Agostino, Adam. “4 Quick Steps to Making a Linked In Profile”, Alonquin College, 2 Aug 2016
http://www.algonquincollege.com/coop/2016/08/4-quick-steps-making-professional-linkedin-profile/
Additionally, this unit required the completion of assignments that lead up to the final Formal Report Assignment at the end of the year. Brainstorming a proposal and outline was initially challenging for me because of my innate persona to always go above and beyond what the instructions ask for, regardless of the feasibility of the project. With a heavy research background and experience with working with solely hypothetical topics, I extended my initial topic ideas to an unrealistic level above the requirements of the course. Although I struggled with brainstorming, I finally changed my topic to something I am passionate about while being feasible.
Regardless of the numerous rewrites of my proposal, outline, and progress report, I am pleased with my progress so far. I have created a detailed schedule of the project that I have been following, and have measured the feasibility of how fast, and how much data I can collect in the next few weeks. I am proudly on track and find inspiration in my peers and their progress with their projects. At this point, I do not have any questions or comments with how to create a successful formal report as all concerns have been addressed, but I am looking forward to collecting data and creating a draft of my report.
Peer review is a key component to creating the most successful work. By providing and accepting peer review, we can accustom and prepare ourselves for constructive criticism and employee reviews in our day to day lives. Peer reviewing Wendy’s work helped me learn how to approach criticism in the most constructive way possible. In order to keep the reviewing professional, I had to be conscious of the wording, tone, and approach of my review. I noticed the importance of peers and ensuring that the peer review consisted of no malicious or rude tones in order to gain a sense of trust and understanding.
Each member of my writing team is unique, talented, and brings something new to each peer review and assignment. Wendy is proficient in English Language Arts and gives thoughtful and helpful advice in this field. Philip is enthusiastic, imaginative, and creative about his responses, and Arthur works well with visual and technological aspects of writing. My colleagues are easy to work with and I am thrilled that our group works cohesively.
Each peer review this unit was thoughtful and constructive. My colleagues provided me with great advice such as focusing on an audience, paying more attention to grammar, and ensuring to define terms in my Formal Report Proposal and to focus on organization and creating more depth in my LinkedIn profile. These criticisms are essential to the growth of my writing and may be something I would have never picked up on without a second eye to review my work.
This unit allowed me to face challenges that in turn helped me become an overall stronger writer and critical thinker. Through this unit, I learned the lesson of writing with a clear audience in mind, stronger writing and thinking techniques, and the importance of peer review in this process. For the next unit, I plan to communicate with my team members on a more frequent basis to stay connected with the progress on our assignments. I aim to create a strong and successful Formal Report and will ask for clarification, and accept criticism, without feeling frustrated or defeated.
Enclosed below are my final formal report proposal and the hyperlink to the peer review of my proposal.
Report Proposal: English 301 – Jocelyn Toledo – Formal Report Proposal
Hyperlink to Peer Review Proposal: Wendy Ma’s Peer Review on my Report Proposal
The Third Reflection
Although Unit 3 flew by quickly, it was definitely the most educational unit for me. Writing with YOU attitude in mind and considering the audience throughout each piece of work was difficult at first, but helped strengthen my writing skills immensely. I enjoyed writing the business letters and recognizing the intended audience through both the complaint and bad news adjustment letters, and how to maintain positive, firm, and effective in both letters.
Surprisingly, writing the formal report draft was easier than imagined. By having solid results to work with and by researching my topic of interest thoroughly, I feel like my formal report has a good shape. Being experienced in writing and completing research proposals, I found that strategizing for gathering and interpreting data was familiar and simple. I think that the base that my final formal report suggests that I have some more work to do, but that my report will become stronger with the incorporation of more research information and by applying all the technical communication skills we have learned throughout this course.
A struggle that I will have to overcome for my formal report is to ensure that my formal report fits the required length of 10-15 pages without the use of rambling or ineffective and irrelevant sentences. I want to ensure that my final formal report is concise, clear, and effective. My formal report draft is enclosed below.
This peer review took longer than any peer review in the past. I wanted to ensure that I incorporated all corrections in my evaluation sheet as well as the writing tips in the instruction blog and the elements of technical writing in this unit. Writing with YOU attitude and avoiding imperative verbs while reviewing my partner’s writing skills took a lot of time and consideration. I wanted to ensure that my part of being a good team member by supplying Wendy with thoughtful, helpful, and constructive advice while remaining positive and encouraging. Writing an effective peer review for a large project such as this took time and effort. I had to reword many sentences and considered the delivery of my constructive criticisms in order to give a wholesome peer review that would hopefully inspire rather than discourage my partner. Regardless of how busy I was during this term, I wanted to ensure that my peer review was helpful and contained quality rather than leaving it as an afterthought or side assignment that I had to complete for the sake of completing. I understand the importance of peer review of the correct draft and am always willing to supply quality advice to my peers.
One thing that I believe I did well in this unit is my understanding and utilization of writing with YOU attitude in each assignment. After reading the handout and writing the memo to Evan Crisp, I realized the importance of writing with YOU attitude and how much more effective writing with YOU attitude can impact a reader.
For the next unit, I want to work on structuring my sentences so that they deliver a clear message without overusing words. I have trouble with using too many words or repeating myself when I want to get a point across. Another goal is to encourage my writing team to keep in touch and on top of our courses during the last unit so that we can initiate group organized peer reviews so that we can all submit solid final projects.
Enclosure: English 301 – Jocelyn Toledo – Formal Report Draft
The Fourth Reflection
As someone who enjoys creating websites and is heavily involved with social media, I enjoyed creating this assignment. As someone who is familiar with website creations and who has had great success in all previous assignments, I wanted to make sure that this web folio was unique, charismatic, and well organized.
In the creative process of this assignment, I created a storyboard, viewed several published web folios, and researched how to make effective web folios on several professional websites. I read and reread the instructions and requirements of the web folio and started drafting it early. Although I started working on the web folio early, I kept getting sidetracked by new ideas and how to make it even more unique than anyone else’s web folio. Following the directions laid out in the assignment requirements was easy, but trying to figure out how to make my web folio unique within the time constraint was difficult.
For weaknesses, I had difficulty in was submitting the perfect draft I visualized on the due date. I wanted to create an extravagant website that looked polished and professional, but since I had all of my exams and term papers due within the same 3-day period, I could not finish everything I wanted without compromising my study time for another course.
Now that this web folio is finished, I am happy to say that I am proud of it. Although there are a few more things that I wanted to edit and add to it such as:
- self-reviews on assignments that weren’t peer-reviewed
- final drafts of all assignments on the “Best of Jocelyn’s 301 Term” Page
and - a final draft of my formal report with Dr. Paterson’s evaluation notes added to it
I am still proud of my work and what I have accomplished. With the experience of being able to draft a full web folio in a short amount of time, I believe that I have the capabilities to draft other web assignments and projects in other professional settings.
The Final Reflection
This class focused on building effective communication between business, professional, and technical contexts while providing the students with the opportunity to practice the proper techniques to approach writing professional documents. In this course, I was able to explore the various ways to design report proposals and outlines, build exceptional resumes along with developing job application skills, as well as how to draft formal reports. By working collaboratively with each other, we learned how to properly communicate with our peers in an online setting and be able to practice positive interactions on various frequently used medium. As this course is an online course with no specific in-person meeting requirements, we were required to manage our time effectively and efficiently in order to excel in the course.
Looking back on the first website I have created for this course and the content within in and comparing it to this Web Folio, I am incredibly satisfied with what I have learned and all of the assignments I have accomplished. An expectation of English 301 that I had at the beginning of this course was that I would learn how to sharpen my language and writing skills in order to create exceptional professional documents for future job applications, graduate school entrance essays, and to use in my professional career as well.
One thing that I aimed to do at the beginning of the course was to read ahead and to draft rough copies of each of my assignments so that I would have a base when it came time to reread the lesson and create the actual assignment. I underestimated the time I had and did not follow through with that goal. My weaknesses in this course lied in over perfecting my documents and feeling overwhelmed with my visions of each assignment and putting it off to the side for a little longer to clear my head. Instead, I should have stayed focused and goal oriented in order to meet each deadline.
Initially, my writing used a lot of imperatives and had a strict tone to it. Through each unit and each reflection unit, I learned new strategies to improve my writing and communication skills, and aimed to apply them to the next unit. Rereading my writing and comparing it to my work now, I’ve applied the “You Attitude” and tips from the Instructors blog. In my learning process, I read and reread the course material as well as the assignments and ensured my assignment fit the rubric accordingly. I found that my assignments took longer than any other course this semester because of my objective to hand in a perfect draft of everything I worked on.
My greatest strength in this course was my ability to take direction and revise my assignments to reflect to construct criticism given to me. I wanted to do the very best I could in each assignment and I made sure to take every criticism as a positive rather than a negative. I am looking forward to drafting more formal documentation in my future career and applying all I have learned to future career and grad school applications. I am looking forward to strengthening my technical skills further by continuing to revisit the communications textbook and by staying in touch with my writing partners.
Working in an online group setting for the entirety of the course was extremely helpful when it came to peer reviews, but difficult and stressful in moments of time constraints. Being accountable to your peers throughout the course was an extreme requirement and it was difficult to make time several times a week in order to create an assignment, create a peer review that benefits your peer and their assignment, then edit your assignment. Although this process was stressful at times, it was incredibly helpful.
Although I thoroughly enjoyed this class, I am relieved to be finished the many assignments that were required throughout the course. We did it!
