During this Unit, I felt I acquired a certain discipline through the trial and error process of starting and restarting new versions of my Formal Report. While it often felt like I was facing a brick wall, I noticed that taking time away, and even going for a walk and easing the pressure on myself to produce something of high quality “right now” really helped free up my problem-solving abilities to explore different ways to surmount the blocks I was facing when sitting down to write.
Completing the “Writing with You Attitude” memo to Evan Crisp was also helpful. This assignment allowed me to reflect more closely on how I communicate in formal and academic settings, and if any improvements to my current correspondence with professors could be made. I had a personal realisation that I used to – subconsciously – equate formal writing with flowery language. I used to write using long-winded, or somewhat cumbersome language when writing in a formal context. This usually weighed down the actual content.
Now, I use a bare-bones approach when writing formally. I seek to strip a sentence down to its absolute skeleton structure. I value clarity over “sounding smart.” This Unit, and this course as a whole, has helped instil this new perspective in me.
Being able to peer review a classmate’s Formal Report Draft also helped me gain greater perspective on my own writing, and components of my writing I often overlook. It is always easier to spot patterns in someone else’s less familiar work than it is in our own, which we typically get desensitized to. While I was providing advice on a classmate’s draft, I also felt I was greatly gaining from the experience, being able to pick out similarities between elements of their writing I critiqued and my own.
On the whole, this was a great Unit for self-learning. The trial and error process of drafting a formal report, along with applying the critique I gave a classmate’s work to my own writing, helped me to better understand where my writing needs improvement, and gave rise to a lot of mini-epiphanies about how to shore up my writing, making it tighter and clearer. Lastly, to reiterate, this Unit was also helpful to reflect on how I communicate with professors and other academic or professional figures in an effective but proper way.