Upon contemplating Unit 1 of ENGL 301: Technical Writing, culminating in the Three Definitions assignment, the tasks completed seemed most notable for acquainting me with the huge variety of platforms for technical communication in the digital age. Along with this acquaintance came definite struggles; I found myself wrapped up in technical glitches and formatting issues more often than I found myself struggling with writing. I have without a doubt come out the other end of the first unit alone more confident in my abilities to professionally and clearly express myself through at least two of these online forms of communications: blogging and use of the team forum. Having said this, a lot has been gained already in my writing capabilities as well. In the digital world of enormous visual stimulus and constant attention-grabbing rotations of seemingly limitless information, I feel extremely aware of trying to be as clear, concise, and engaging in my writing, a style that certainly does not come naturally.
In writing my definitions, the above mentioned struggle was particularly real, as the subject matter I chose to discuss (the term boudin) was very technically rooted in my particular discipline of study (geology) and therefore not necessarily inherently interesting to any of my peers in this course who do not necessarily feel my passion for rock. By far my largest challenge, particularly in writing my expanded definition, was in not becoming wrapped up in the technicalities of this discipline, and staying very conscious to write in accessible terms. My initial choice of a term that I am very familiar with in fact began to make this assignment more challenging, ironically, because of this. The expanded definition, immediately upon beginning, felt very much like writing a technical geological paper or abstract and it was particularly hard to break it down and define it in an objective way.
The peer review portion of this assignment felt, on a whole, extremely useful. My reviewer, Erin, was very well-spoken and positive, while still maintaining a critical approach and to my relief did not feel that I got lost in the technical details of my term as I had expected. Erin provided useful feedback, notably the suggestion to use parenthetical definitions of necessary geological terminology in enhancing the reader’s understanding. Also suggested was breaking up some of my run on sentences, which she specifically cited. Beyond this, peer-reviewing Erin’s piece was equally useful. I thoroughly enjoyed the format and high degree of organization of expanded definition, and her successfully laconic writing inspired me to be evermore conscious of trimming the fat from my writing. In editing my original work, keeping in mind the structure of Erin’s piece as well as her suggestions specific to my own definitions, felt equally important.
In summary, Unit 1 of this course felt very successful. Moving into Unit 2, I feel endlessly more capable of navigating the online platforms through which this course operates. I am excited to apply the time saved from my newfound efficiency in operating these platforms to my writing itself and focus even harder on developing and refining my technical writing skills.
Below, please find attached a downloadable link to my edited Three Definitions assignment, as well as a hyperlink to Erin’s peer review of my work:
Click here for my edited assignment: ENGL 301 Hayley McIntyre EDITED Definitions
Click here to read Erin Cederberg’s peer review of my piece.