In this unit, our task is to choose a complex term within our profession for a non-technical audience. I decided to define Vitamin K to online readers without a science background. My purpose is to encourage the audience to increase their Vitamin K intake after reading the post.
Writing process
Having a clearly defined purpose and audience was the most critical task in the writing process. It helped me select the appropriate words, length, and methods of expansion for my definition. I chose to give a brief history, food sources, functions and visuals with bold captions to help the readers remember the key features of Vitamin K. As a nutrition science student, the definitions and functions of vitamins in the lectures, journals, and textbooks use scientific terms. Choosing the right words to define Vitamin K that people without a science background can understand was challenging, and I found myself veering off from my focus a few times during the task. I had to remind myself of my paper’s purpose several times while writing the expanded definition to ensure that I only included details that would not confuse the readers or make them lose interest in reading the whole document.
Peer review process
I found receiving and giving feedback insightful in the peer review part of this assignment. As an ESL student, I have always thought that people with no science background understand the word “coagulation” because there was a word in Filipino that directly means coagulation that we often use in cooking. However, my peer review partner pointed out that people without a health science background may not understand the word coagulation and suggested a different way of defining the word coagulation that my intended audience understands. I found her suggestion culturally insightful because I realized the complexity of the English language and how asking for feedback could help me find the right words to reach my target audience. My peer review partner also gave me useful feedback regarding the consistency of my use of labels which helped me realize how small details matter in improving my writing. As for giving feedback, this assignment helped me understand how organizing my peer review of my partner’s work into different categories such as clarity, organization and layout made my peer review look polite, formal and professional.
Editing process
Having the opportunity to edit my work helped me realize my strengths and weaknesses in technical writing. Overall, I conveyed my message about Vitamin K to an online audience well by using plenty of visuals that help the readers remember its function and food sources. However, I realized that I needed to slow down and check that the details in my document such as visual aid labels and sentence structures were consistent throughout the document during the editing process. After editing my work, I found that the consistency in the format of the final document made it look more professional and helped me convey my purpose to my target audience more effectively than the first draft of this assignment.
Overall, I found that this exercise was a good learning experience. Reading the textbook was very helpful in breaking the task of writing definitions and peer reviews. I could apply the writing concepts smoothly, and I am eager to use the writing guides as a reference in my future courses and work.
Here is the link to my edited post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-99a-2021wa/2021/09/29/write-three-definition-by-lea-ang-salamanca/
Here is the link to my peer’s review of my assignment: https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-99a-2021wa/2021/10/05/peer-review-of-vitamin-k/