Month: June 2017

I had already created my Linkedin profile prior to this assignment so I was more focused on editing and updating my information. Linkedin is an amazing tool for all professionals, especially for those who are soon to be graduating or those who are looking for jobs. It has the ability to connect you with others in your industry and can provide opportunities for you at any time. That is why I think it is extremely important to keep it up to date and make sure it is a good representation of who you are as a professional.

I found the process of preparing the proposal, outline, and research plan to be relatively difficult. You begin to realize how many things there are to consider and I was concerned that I was going to miss something important. That is exactly what happened when I was writing the proposal as I missed a couple key points that I had to add in when I was forming my outline and research plan.  In general, I am progressing pretty well with my report but as of right now I feel a bit rushed. I am currently studying for finals so I was not able to give as much thought to the proposal and outline as I wanted. But the course is finishing soon and I will be able to focus a lot more of my attention on the report. After creating the outline and research plan I have a pretty good idea of how this investigation is going to become the Formal Report. Having all these planning stages has definitely helped me to structure my ideas and organize them in a way that will hopefully make a more cohesive formal report.

Through the peer review process, I have learned that while my writing is descriptive it can be wordy. I also struggle with grammar and using the appropriate active/passive voice. I knew those were my weaknesses even before starting this course and as the term progresses I hope to improve upon those aspects. Another big thing I struggle with is wording what I want to say in a clear and concise way. This weakness has become even more apparent to me as I review my peers work as they are able to do this very well. That is also something I want to improve on because being able to communicate your ideas eloquently is such an important skill.

Attached is my Revised Report Proposal

Link to Peer Review of Report Proposal

I thought that working on this exercise provided really valuable experience in writing to many different types of audiences. I know that in the future there will be plenty of times where we have to write to readers who are not in the same field so the perspective I gained from writing the definition and doing the peer review will be useful.

The word I chose is actually a subject that I am very familiar with.  During my internship, I spent a majority of my time trying to improve the scalability of the product I was working on.  I have a lot of practical experience and I have a good understanding of what scalability means but putting it formally into words was actually quite difficult. I found myself having to reference other sources and see how other people defined scalability which turned out to be a really good learning experience. As I was researching, I was able to learn even more about the subject and while I didn’t include that sort of technical information in my definition, I was able to gain an even deeper understanding of scalability.

Giving feedback also proved to be quite interesting. The word my partner choose to define is one that I had never heard of before so I was in the same perspective as a reader who needed to read and understand the definition. The definition was overall very well written and I only had to provide comments on some things I wanted my partner to add to make the definition more clear. Doing this peer feedback also helped me to think about what I needed to do to help a reader who has zero technical knowledge of the subject I am writing about. Even things as simple as properly labeling the diagram or adding the origin of the word could help information click in the reader’s brain.

My partner also provided me with good insight on my writing as he pointed out things that I hadn’t realized while I was writing the definition. I had used some ambiguous vocabulary while defining tolerance of bad scalability and by using his advice, I was able to improve my definition and make the ideas sound more logical. My partner brought up an interesting question regarding what are some characteristics that make a good system scalable. That got me really thinking about how I could explain it in a way that is easy for a non-technical audience to understand. Eventually, I decided to not include it as a good explanation would be too technical and it would be outside the scope of the definition. But it was a really good point and it made me really realize how difficult it is to write to different types of audiences who have differing backgrounds.

Edited Scalability definition
Scalability – Peer Review