To: Samantha Teeple, ENGL 301 Student Writer
From: Kristy Vyfschaft, ENGL 301 Student Reviewer
Date: July 27, 2022
Subject: Peer Review of Formal Report Draft; Adopting postural awareness techniques to minimize injuries at a general dental practice.
Thank-you for a well written formal report draft. You clearly used the collected data to demonstrate a need to act in the draft. The following are suggestions to improve the document:
First Impressions:
- Good use of primary and secondary data sources to provide the reader evidence of common musculoskeletal disorders in dental practice and the feasibility of postural awareness to decrease frequency and severity of disorders.
- Including many visuals is great to explain data and the inclusion of the visual to demonstrate sitting positions in practice are excellent
- Be sure to label the figures consistently throughout the document
- The intended audience for the formal report is not needed. It is addressed to your intended audience on the title page
Table of Contents:
- Easy to follow and find corresponding pages.
- Including figures and tables after table of contents or on a separate page to ensure reader can refer to figures in the document.
Introduction:
- Opening with the definition of MSDs is well organized and concise. This clearly identifies the topic of the document.
- The introduction contains a lot of information for the reader to understand the topic before reading the whole document.
- When stating the purpose of the feasibility analysis it may be helpful to reword “determine prevention strategies for workers” to “determine the feasibility of using prevention strategies for workers”; this could make it clear to the reader why this is a feasibility analysis.
- The inclusion of confidentiality during the study is excellent; demonstrates high level of professionalism.
- Following the example from the instructor’s blog and the text (pg. 498) of the survey description and other sources is helpful; ensuring the necessary details are included for the report.
Collected Data:
- Good bold headings that are easy to recognize.
- Good use of bullet points to get the information across quickly and concisely to the reader.
- Avoiding repeating information unless it is important to reiterate to the reader. The last sentence under dentist subheading, restating that back pain is leading could be eliminated or reworded.
- Good concise paragraphs. The reader can gain enough information to understand the topics.
- Interesting point about limited time to prepare for clients with different needs; an area many dental practitioners may have overlooked.
- Excellent to mention that some interventions are useful in combination with another method. This demonstrates the feasibility of the intervention to the reader.
- Employee Retention: It may be helpful to add data about early exits, staff turnover, or disability as previously mentioned in the report. Using the valuable information could remind the reader and signify the importance to follow recommendations.
Conclusion:
- Good use of numbering to summarize the techniques to prevention injuries.
- Before making recommendations, it might be useful to include a small paragraph to tie the recommendations to the report.
Grammar and Technical Errors:
- Some references to MSD are “MSDs” others are “MSD’s”, removing the apostrophe to improve consistency throughout the document.
Title Page:
- Including the details of the reader and author. The text has a useful example – page 498
Table of Contents:
- Including the figures or tables on a sperate page or at the bottom of the page.
- Indenting the subsections will improve readability.
Introduction:
- Using a period after “et al.”
- Under purpose subsection, a missing comma after “relationship of injuries.”
- Bolding headings to show separate sections easily
- Labelling the figures, ensuring the readers understand the figure’s purpose
- Avoiding the use of pronouns whenever possible to maintain a professional tone. Under the subsection Purpose instead of “my goal” it may be more professional as “the goal”
- The second line in the second paragraph “within these papers the limitations included…”; rewording will improve clarity and active tone “the limitations of the studies include”
Data Collected:
- Good bold headings
- In-text citation for page numbers “pp.”
- Repetitive strain heading: a typo “then”, should be “than” and “this time” should be “this type”
- Time constraints heading: there may be a typo “is to be consider in office acceptance…”, may be it should be “considered”
- Rewording the subsection titles to a statement that includes area of inquiry would be more confident. Maybe something along the lines of “Causes of higher incidences in dental clinicians”
- Writing in a professional, confident tone will engage the reader to act; “can minimize” to “minimizes”.
- Causes of Premature Exit and Long-Term Disability. Moving these topics to a separate subsection may underscore the importance of the topics with reader perspective in mind; maybe “Effects of MSDs”. Emphasizing the impact to the reader and encourages them to act.
- Avoiding openers will improve readability and conciseness; try removing “both primary and secondary data sources indicate a high prevalence…” it may be more direct as “There is a high prevalence”
- Avoiding the use of big words. Try changing “Utilization” to “using” or “use of”
- Editing for correct punctuation throughout the document.
Conclusion:
- In the second paragraph, second sentence removing “through research” will be more direct in confident”.
Formatting:
- Ensuring the same font throughout the report.
- Eliminating the spacing between small paragraphs or single sentences to create a singular concise paragraph for the reader to gain the information efficiently.
- Page numbers are missing.
Final remarks:
These revisions will improve the quality formal report. Below is a summary of the suggestions
- Labelling figures consistently.
- Avoiding openers that are unnecessary.
- Editing for typos and grammatical errors.
- Rewording headings and document to have a confident tone throughout.
The formal report draft is well written overall and clearly MSDs are prevalent and preventable in dentistry. Your recommendations present reasonable solutions. Hopefully the suggestions are helpful. If you have any questions about the review, please contact me.