Reflecting on all the work I’ve completed in ENGL 301 this semester, I truly wish I had the opportunity to take this course in my first undergraduate degree. Of all the courses I have ever completed, ENGL 301 has been the most relevant to a professional setting and many of the skills learned here are transferrable to future workplaces. For example, in this course, students have the opportunity to learn how to properly write emails and create resumes and cover letters for job applications. When I first graduated, I did not learn any of these skills from previous post-secondary courses. In fact, when I started my first full-time job, I was taken aback by the differences compared to school. I had never sent so many emails daily and did not have a good sense of how to properly write these emails. Consequently, I learned mostly through trial and error and mimicking the styles of my colleagues. It was a very painstaking process and I wish I could have had the opportunity to properly learn and practice these techniques like we did in ENGL 301.

While some concepts such as resume building and emailing techniques I learned from my previous full-time job experience, I was still able to improve upon my current writing style and acquire new techniques from the concepts taught in this course. Firstly, upon entering this course, I knew one of my biggest weaknesses was not being concise. I know I tend to write too much and use unnecessary words at times. However, through the process of peer review and direct feedback from the professor, I started to learn how to cut down on my words and sentence structures. I can now stop myself from using unnecessary words or catch it afterwards in my proofread. Moreover, I learned the importance of writing with a you-attitude. Before this course, I had no idea what this term meant or how it applied to writing. However, after being shown the difference, I can see how effective it is to utilize this writing technique and will be incorporating it in my writing style moving forward.

Of all the assignments completed in this course, my favorite was by far the peer reviews. I was able to learn so much not just from the direct feedback from my peer, but also from reviewing someone else’s work. From marking a peer’s work, I realized mistakes made in my own papers and learned from their writing style. This was such a valuable learning process, and I will miss it after this course, since I know it is very rare that you get the chance to work on the exact same assignment as a peer in a workplace setting. Additionally, another project I enjoyed was the last one – the Web Folio. It was such a full-circle moment to review and edit all our previous works and then combine them into one platform. I saw how my writing style changed over the course and I was able to improve upon mistakes I had missed before. As I was designing my web folio, I wanted to ensure that it was both visually appealing and user-friendly. I believe I accomplished my goal as I incorporated a readable color scheme along with relevant pictures in each section. As well, I used many clickable links throughout the web folio to allow for easy navigation to different pages.

In conclusion, I have developed many new skills from this course that I will be incorporating into my current skill set. When I graduate from the Bachelor of Computer Science Program and enter the workplace again in the technology field, I believe that the technical writing skills I learned here will  strengthen my communication skills. I need to ensure that I can properly convey my software code and design to colleagues who will be working alongside me on projects. Strengthening my communication skills also helps to build more personal connections with my colleagues so we can work better as a team. In addition, while it won’t be exactly like the peer review process learned in this course, I will work together with my colleagues in checking why a program is not functioning properly. This process shares some similarities with the peer review process as we will be analyzing each other’s code and explain why it is not working. I look forward to utilizing my peer review experiences here.

Before I complete my last reflection, I just wanted to give a big thank you to my Twirling Gold Team Members and to my instructor Professor Erika Patterson. It was such a great experience working with everyone throughout this semester. I really enjoyed exchanging knowledge and values with all my team members and always received valuable feedback and quick responses from our instructor. Thank you everyone for working with me through this semester and I wish you all the best in the new year.

A Web Folio is an important tool that highlights all of an individual’s accomplishments and achievements. The design and content of the Web Folio will depend upon the target audience. For example, for an individual entering the job market, the Web Folio would be designed to include marketable skills relevant to the career path. However, for an individual entering graduate school, the Web Folio would underscore all their academic achievements and future goals.

For our final assignment in ENGL 301, students were tasked with creating a Web Folio which showcases all their work and growth throughout the semester. I wanted to create a Web Folio which would highlight all of my best work and illustrate how I incorporated new writing techniques that could be transferrable into future professional settings.

Upon analyzing my previous UBC blog page, I decided to create a new UBC blog page as opposed to re-use my old one due to several reasons. Firstly, while initially I thought that the dark theme looked aesthetic, I later discovered that the dark background made it difficult to read my content. In addition, there were multiple factors in the layout that I did not like. When working on my old blog site, I found that the layout was not easy to navigate and did not provide me with options to improve this. Thus, due to the reasons outlined above, I created a new page on UBC blogs for my web folio.

For my new Web Folio page, I knew the two most crucial aspects I needed to address was the color background and easy link navigation. After testing many of the themes available, I decided upon the Flounder Theme as it met all my criteria. There was a dark color that I always like; however, it was not a pure black color like in my previous theme, which makes the content easier to read. Moreover, there are lots of options available for navigation links which makes it much easier for readers to access.

While designing my Web Folio, I planned my layout to be visually appealing yet still professional-looking with user-friendly navigation. I accomplished this goal through a combination of different colors and using the Flounder Theme. I incorporated relevant pictures for pages in my Web Folio and included easily clickable links that would give viewers the best user experience. Many of my work from ENGL 301 was included such as the application package, reflections for each unit, and all my best works such as the formal report and definitions assignment. To individualize my Web Folio, I created a page with pictures and links to all the organizations that I am associated with, including a short narrative for each association.

Overall, I really enjoyed designing this Web Folio. While I am not the most creative person, I found this final assignment to be very open-ended and allowed me to create what I wanted. I am very happy with what I created as it is a good mixture of being both visually appealing and professional. Moreover, as I was compiling all my previous works and doing final revisions, I noticed how my writing style had changed over the term as I started incorporating new techniques such as writing with a you-attitude. This was a concept I was not familiar with before and will be using it consistently moving forward.

3:3 – Reflection Blog
For the penultimate unit in our ENGL301 course, students started writing a draft of their formal report, building off the work from previous weeks’ report proposal and outline. The majority of this unit focused on writing the formal report draft and peer reviewing our fellow student’s work. In this reflection blog, I will reflect on the process of researching, organizing, and writing the formal report and the task of reviewing my peer’s work.

Research for the Formal Report
From my perspective, the work involved with this formal report is very similar to my experience in the research field. As I’ve first-authored two scientific publications and co-authored several others, I applied the lessons learned from those experience directly to this formal report. First, I started off with data collection by conducting background research on home thefts, security measures in condominiums, and distributing a link of my survey around my condominium. In regards to the background research, this process was very familiar to me so I found it quite simple. I have lots of experience in finding scientific articles and know how to effectively read through them to find the ones that are most relevant to my topic. I used the UBC library page and google scholar to find scientific articles. In regards to the survey distribution, while I had it prepared and approved by the Professor already, I have to confess I was a bit nervous sharing it with so many individuals who live in the same condominium as myself. I was unsure how my survey would be received by fellow residents and if anyone would take the time to respond. Luckily, my building manager is very friendly and allowed me to put up my survey link in the clubhouse, local bulletin board, and the elevators. This really helped me to spread the word about my survey and to my surprise, I received many responses to the survey.

Writing and Organizing the Formal Report
Before I started writing, I first collected all my survey results and cleaned all the raw data. Following that, I analyzed the data with previous scientific findings to see if my proposed solutions would be feasible. It was very interesting to see correlations in my data with other research and that helped determine the validity of my conclusions.

After I completed my data analysis, I started organizing the different parts of my report to make sure everything was laid out in a logical manner. From my own knowledge and experience, I knew to start off with an introduction, lead into the data section, and then finish off with some proposed solutions and a conclusion. For this formal report, I also ensured to include a cover page and a table of contents at the start. Creating a skeleton of the formal report draft helped me lay out a foundation of what I need to write and pinpoint where I should begin.

Then came writing process. While I have written scientific publications many times in the past, it is never an easy process and I find it difficult each time. This formal report draft was no different. It may perhaps just be my personality because I always find myself debating each word utilized, thinking of different ways to structure all the sentences. In addition, I tend to stop and re-read past sentences to see if I made any mistakes or if I can improve anything. This causes me to spend a prolonged amount of time on papers I write. However, this time around, I did find it a bit easier having created an outline and organizing my paper beforehand. This helped map out my thoughts and I knew where to focus my ideas.

Peer Review of Formal Report
For the final part of Unit 3, we conducted a peer review of formal report from a team member in our writing team. Once again, I found this process to be immensely helpful and overall, it has been such a valuable learning experience. I learn so much from these peer reviews and it is a shame that I most likely won’t be able to have this opportunity in workplace settings. When doing these peer reviews, it gives me the rare opportunity of comparing my work to someone who has been given the exact same task. While I am reading over their work for any mistakes, I can refer back to aspects of my own work to see what I can improve on. I may also catch some mistakes I made in my own work while correcting others. I had the chance to work with Jordan again and it has been such a pleasure working with him through this course. He always provides great feedback in his peer reports to me, and I constantly learn from editing his work. This time, from reviewing his formal report draft, I learned how to properly paginate my own formal report and how to make my data figures more visually appealing.

Link to Formal Report Draft: ENGL301_Formal Report Draft

Formal Report Proposal
Unit 2 started with writing a formal report proposal in which students would investigate a problem or inefficiency and then determine a potential solution. The problem would have to be from a public setting, like a workplace or community organization, and the topic needed to be well-planned to ensure we are asking the right questions and considering the target audience. I decided to write a proposal about creating a three-step plan to reduce screen time, an issue I am currently suffering from as I am majoring in computer science. The remainder of this proposal included outlining key areas of inquiry, designing a process to collect data, and determining a potential solution for the problem. Fortunately, these aspects were all very similar to work I have done as a Research Coordinator. Drawing from my past experiences, I drafted all the necessary components to obtain a solution and provide potential recommendations based on my findings.  When writing this proposal, I kept in mind my past experiences of writing grants and research papers and the work I have done in randomized controlled trials. I would soon come to realize that some of my thought processes here would not be correct (more on this in the next two sections).

Overall, while I did make a critical mistake with my assumptions, it was a delightful process to connect my learned work experience, such as outlining data collection methods and writing reports, with my school assignment.

Peer Review for Partner’s Proposal
As part of lesson 2:1, we partnered up with a writing team member to conduct a peer review on each other’s proposal. I was fortunate to work with Jordan again who I believe has very strong technical writing skills. Once again, Jordan did a fantastic job in his assignment, and I gained a lot of insight for my own formal report. One of the first things I noticed was the length and style of his proposal. It was in stark contrast to my own, which was lengthier and similar in style to an essay. Of course, this was attributed to the fact that I was writing the proposal with the style of a scientific paper in mind. This difference made me think I may have committed a mistake in my original assumptions. Additionally, while leaving a comment to Jordan about elaborating on his intended audience, I realized that my intended audience did not have the power to act on my recommendations. Giving advice on a specific aspect here helped me realize how I had forgotten about a crucial factor for my own proposal.

Soon after, I received some feedback from Dr. Erika Paterson that my proposal was too long in length. Combining what I learned from peer reviewing Jordan’s proposal with the feedback gained from my professor, I confirmed that my work needed to be more concise as it is just a proposal, and my readers are most likely very busy. Furthermore, I learned that my three-step-plan would not be appropriate for this type of report because I could not collect sufficient data for a 12-15 page report.  My research at work collects objective data to measure changes in physical activity level and also analyzes the adherence to an intervention. However, for this report, I would not be able to track how a student adheres to the plan and if there is any change in their lifestyle.

With all these lessons learned from the peer review and Professor Erika’s feedback, I realized I would have to re-write the proposal with a different topic.

Peer Review Process
From reviewing my peer review feedback, one thing that I can improve on is providing further clarification on certain topics. My partner has correctly pointed out instances in my work for both units where more details were needed. It makes sense when read it in my mind, but when reading from a different perspective, there are key details being left out that I need to include. I am trying to actively keep an eye out for this issue now by re-reading my assignments multiple times from the perspective of someone who has little to no knowledge on the topic.

Overall, I have really enjoyed the peer review process because I am learning from reading others’ work. For example, for the LinkedIn assignment, I took the time to read my entire team’s best practices memo because I had little knowledge of LinkedIn prior to this assignment, and I wanted to absorb all the knowledge I could to build an exemplary profile in the future. Additionally, I am also learning from editing others’ work as I begin to realize mistakes I made in my own work. As an example, in the definition assignment, I learned about mistakes I made in my citations from reviewing Jordan’s work and for the proposal, I realized I forgot a key aspect about my intended audience. While I do re-read my own work multiple times before submission, I know that having a different set of eyes reviewing makes a world of difference.

 LinkedIn Profile
For lesson 2:2, we conducted research on some of the best practices for using LinkedIn as a professional networking site and shared a list of ten with our writing team members.  Since I have never used LinkedIn, I found this process to be extremely informative. LinkedIn has evolved to become such a powerful networking tool and companies around the world utilize it to scout employees. I know how vital it is to have a LinkedIn profile; yet, I never had the chance to create a profile and most importantly, did not where to begin. Fortunately, this assignment gave me a great opportunity to start learning by doing background research and ultimately, map out a plan for creating a profile. From the research conducted, I learned many tips about using LinkedIn that I plan to incorporate in my future profile. For example, I learned about the importance of collecting recommendations and endorsements to stand out, engaging in industry-specific groups to network with other professionals, and consistently posting quality content to drive more traffic flow. Before this assignment, I did not know what LinkedIn aspects like “groups” and “endorsements” meant or even that they existed. I can now have a head-start in building my profile by incorporating these aspects. Without a doubt, this assignment was a great learning experience and I feel much more confident about using LinkedIn.

Please see below for the peer review of my (old) report proposal, the revised formal report proposal, and the formal report outline.

Link to Peer Reviewed Formal Report Proposal: Peer Review of Formal Report Proposal (old version)
Link to Revised Formal Report Proposal: Formal Report Proposal (revised)
Link to Formal Report Outline: Formal Report Outline

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