Writing the Definitions
For the first part of lesson 1:3, we wrote three definitions for a relatively complex term used within our profession. While I do have experience writing manuscripts for research and essays for past English courses, this assignment was a brand-new experience for me, and I found the onset of the process quite challenging. From my past works, my audience would already be familiar with my topic and terms used, mainly because I was writing for academia, or I would quote an outside reference which would be sufficient. I quickly realized that these same preconceptions would not be suitable for this assignment. Firstly, I need to eliminate any jargons I normally use or provide further explanation for them. Jargons can be very difficult and discouraging for readers who are not familiar with that field. They quickly lose interest or fail to grasp what the sentence is trying to explain. Furthermore, I need to cater my writing style towards an audience that does not have knowledge on the term I am defining.

In addition to my realizations of how I needed to change my writing style, I also learned how to create three types of definitions for a term: parenthetical, sentence, and expanded. After reading about them in the textbook and writing out definitions for my term, I realized each of these types had their own strengths and weaknesses. For example, while the parenthetical definition describes a term in parentheses which makes it succinct and easy to read, it may not provide enough details for the audience to properly understand the meaning of the term. In stark contrast to this, the expanded definition offers a lot more information and thus can properly educate readers about the entire scope of the term. However, because it is longer, it can be quite tedious to read and could take up a lot of room on a page-limited assignment. The sentence definition was right in the middle of these two where it elaborated further than the parenthetical definition, but not to the extent of the expanded definition. In my opinion, the context of the assignment will really determine what type of definition should be used. When trying to give an in-depth explanation about a term, the expanded definition would be the most helpful. Yet, if the term is just being used in the context of a larger topic, a sentence definition or parenthetical definition would be more appropriate. For this assignment, I felt that using the expanded definition along with different expansion strategies really helped illustrate the term to the intended audience.

Overall, this part of the assignment was a great learning experience as I was able to learn different ways to define a term and adopt a new writing style for a different type of audience.

Peer Review Process
After writing three definitions for our term, we partnered up with one of our writing team members to conduct a peer review on their definition assignment. For this part, I had the pleasure of working with Jordan Zhao and reviewing his definition of “virtual reality.” Jordan did a fantastic job defining the term and reviewing his work ended up being very beneficial for my own definition assignment because I gained many insights on how I could improve. For example, I noticed how he had directly referenced the visuals in his text which helped connect readers to the relevance of these pictures. This was something I lacked in my own assignment and seeing him utilize this technique made me realize how helpful it was in furthering my understanding. In addition, as I was checking over his citations, I became aware of some careless mistakes I made in my own citation list. As I transitioned into the research field shortly after graduation, I started utilizing the more commonly used IEEE citation style which made my skills with APA and MLA a bit rusty. It was very helpful to review Jordan’s work here to see a properly styled citation list. All in all, this was such a rewarding process as I was learning how to improve my own work while editing my peer’s work.

Revision Process
For the last part of this assignment, I received Jordan’s peer review on my definition of self-management and edited my own work based on his critiques. While there were some mistakes that I caught myself during my peer review, such as my lack of reference to visuals and a need to improve my citation list, Jordan pointed out a few more areas that could be improved. This is why it is always helpful to have a second pair of eyes look over your work. Whenever a person reviews their own work, there are always bound to be some things missed. For example, Jordan indicated to me that my required conditions section needed further explanation. While it may have been clear to me, it was clearly not understandable for my intended audience. I should have elaborated further with examples of what knowledge, skills, and multifaceted approach pertains to. Additionally, there were some areas where my language use was incorrect, and this caused my sentences to have errors. It was great that Jordan highlighted this to me because I would not have been able to see it otherwise.

Final Thoughts
In conclusion, this assignment taught me many new skills such as learning different ways to define a term and gaining knowledge from a peer review. To me, the most enjoyable part was the peer review because it was such a full-cycle moment to be able to learn how to improve my own work while reviewing others. I believe I gained a lot of valuable skills from this assignment that I can apply into my future works. I look forward to learning more from future assignments and improving my technical writing skills further.

Link to Revised Definition Assignment: Revised Definition of Self-management
Link to Peer Review of Definition Assignment: Peer Review of Definition by Jordan Zhao