Introduction

For unit 3, we were tasked to finish conducting our survey results, work on the formal draft of the report, and collaborate with our team members once again to review each other’s reports.

Formal Draft Report

As we approach the last few weeks of the technical writing course, unit 3 was the unit where we were applying all the learnings we have aggregated throughout the course.

I first started with engaging peers to complete the survey I had drafted. I had to ask a lot of friends and even their peers to retrieve enough samples to start the investigation. Because a lot of BCS students had friends who were taking this course, it was difficult to ask as many of them had completed them recently as well. To gain a further understanding of the numbers, I also wanted to conduct an interview to gain more perspective about the data. Therefore, I decided to conduct an additional interview after the survey was complete. Unfortunately, I first had difficulty asking for time from my friends for an interview as most students were busy with midterms. After asking my friend for her time, I was able to get her consent to finish the interview portion of the research.

After I retrieved all the information, I first started by analyzing the understanding the responses. I wanted to make sure that my viewpoint did not interfere in the analysis portion of the research therefore, I focused on looking at the empirical numbers so to objectify the responses. After my analysis of the data was done, I visualized it using excel and started to research some of the questions I had while researching to understand if there were any scholarly journals or articles that I could reference to enhance my understanding of affordable food visibility and affordability of UBC. Through secondary research, I was able to strengthen my arguments and provide a better solution.

Because the report not a short writing, I kept another document where I had the overall outline with the sub-headers and added bullet points beneath to organize my thoughts. Then, I proceeded to write the draft of the report. As I had a lot of assignments in the same week, I was not satisfied with how the draft turned out. Therefore, I plan to make a lot of revisions to the final report.

Peer Review Process

For the peer-review process, I was a bit anxious with Jake reviewing my work as I was unsatisfied with the draft I had written. There were grammatical errors that I knew I needed to improve on and wanted to strengthen my arguments as well. Surprisingly, Jake gave me a positive review of the current draft and also provided me with great suggestions such as removing negatives and adding sections correctly. Just as I did during the past peer review sessions, I learned greatly from this process.

Furthermore, when I was reviewing Jake’s paper, I found out that I could analyze my survey results more and make more figures to support my paper. I learned a lot about current technical students’ hiring process in labs and the current state of shortage as well. Jake also supported his arguments well with his data and I saw the need to incorporate his strengths for my final draft.

Conclusion

Unit 3 was the most challenging task so far. At first, I was confused about where I would start with the analysis and had trouble organizing my thoughts as there were too many data points. I have learned a lot during the peer-reviewing process and am excited to incorporate all the learnings in the final draft of the report.

Introduction

Unit 2:2 consisted of the beginning of developing the Formal Report, the survey, the formal report outline, as well as an additional project on LinkedIn. This project helped me develop my writing skills as well as furthered my understanding of different functions of LinkedIn.

LinkedIn

For Assignment 2:2, we were tasked to write a blog post for our group on the best practice of using LinkedIn. As a business major and currently looking for a coop opportunity in computer science, I found this task to be extremely relevant for my stage of life. Due to the lasting effects of the pandemic, and as a lot of the roles for software development are remote, the main mode of professional communication is LinkedIn; therefore, I have gained so much applicable insights that I could utilize personally. From the research, I found many tips such as the importance of comments, adding in marketing posts, and how to write a better profile overall. Before this task, I did not associate LinkedIn with a form of social media where I should consider engagements – it was a mere resume. This assignment was a realization that this was a form of social media like Facebook but just more professional. It also helped me realize that LinkedIn was much more personal than I originally depicted. Moreover, I was able to learn how to increase engagement, which could help increase my spectrum of a professional network. I am happy to have researched and learned about LinkedIn.

Drafting report proposal and outline reflection

When I started brainstorming the formal report proposal, I was sitting at UBC nest. As I read the outline required for the formal proposal, I reflected on topics that I was passionate about. Firstly, I am a foodie. Secondly, I am a student with a budget for monthly spending and food. These two components helped to choose the topic with ease as it was an issue that I was passionate about. As it was a daily task pondering what I should eat on campus within a tight budget, I knew that I should draft the formal report proposal about this topic. As a computer science student, I am also thinking about capabilities that the school can develop to help students’ lives. Therefore, I thought about researching the problem and devising a solution where UBC could develop a centralized system that offers all the menu items within different price points. Although I did make a critical mistake in not including the intended audience for the report, I was happy to have written a proposal that taps into my current passions.

After the topic was decided, drafting the outline and the survey was a smooth process as I had thought about this issue previously. I wanted to capture current student’s budget situation and reflect the hardships in the proposal. For methodology, I knew that survey was a great tool to understand current student’s situations without bias. The survey questions were drafted with details that satisfied my personal curiosity for the topic and details that were needed in developing a solution. The outline also helped me reorganize my thoughts and helped me devise an action plan for the following weeks.

Reflection on Ben’s Peer Review for my proposal:

Through the peer review process, and the instructor feedback, I found out that I missed a rather huge portion of my project. I have not added in the Audience Description. When I was adding the audience description, I also noticed that the proposal could be improved by considering components about what the end audience would desire to read and be curious about. After correcting, I was able to add more details that I needed to include. For example, I tried to consider, “why would they care about this research?” and tried to incorporate more details concerning the lack of visibility of affordable options and how it contrasts from their budget to help the end audience understand the gravity of the problem.

What I learned about reviewing the team’s forum

The peer-review process was a great learning experience. I saw that Ben had multiple solutions to his proposal to improve the quality of accessibility of financial literacy resources available to UBC students. As I only brainstormed, one concrete solution, I wanted to add other solutions for the problem to improve the quality of the report. By reading Ben’s report, I also saw his intended audience which helped me develop my intended audience as well. It was overall a great learning opportunity and a period of self-reflection as well.

Revised: Formal Proposal

Revised: Formal Outline

Peer Review Formal Proposal