Creating my web folio was a very useful learning experience. In the department of computer science, we have a e-portfolio competition every year and students are encouraged to make a web folio and apply. I never really thought about making a portfolio because I thought that a resume and a LinkedIn page would be enough. However, when I started job searching and talking to recruiters, I realized that a lot them expressed that they would like to find out more about me which included demos of the personal projects I have worked on. I am glad that we are given the opportunity to build a web folio to demonstrate some of the best works we have worked on in this class.

I decided to start off with creating pages and writing some brief notes on the things I will be putting on the page later. Having a layout before I started writing greatly helped me stay focused on the purpose of each page. The most difficult part was writing concise and personalized descriptions for each piece of work I wanted to show. I constantly thought about how to introduce the purpose of the piece of writing and at the same time add a personal touch to it by telling the reader what I learned from the exercise.

I started with the Home page because it is the first page a reader will encounter when they visit my web folio. I decided to add a picture of myself because I want the reader to have a sense of who I am and knowing how I look seems more welcoming. I then added a bit more about the purpose and which tabs they could click on for finding more information about me. I hope these navigation tips can engage the reader as it can be overwhelming as there is quite a bit on information on this web folio.

The page that I was most excited about was the Technical Projects page as it gave me the chance to show off some of the projects I have worked on. Most of the time we are only able to give links and brief descriptions on our resume. On this page, I can give links that the readers can easily click on to see a demo of the project. I will definitely be keeping this page up to date with more projects after this course ends.

Time flies, I can’t believe the semester is coming to an end. English 301 is definitely the most written intensive course I have taken in my degree. It was challenging at first because English has always been my weakest subject. However, after writing multiple assignments a week, I realized that I was slowly improving. The format of the course forced me to continuously improve on the pieces of writing I have written. I find that it is a good habit to have because we don’t want to get some suggestions on how to improve but never getting the chance to correct something.

The numerous peer reviews helped me understand how to look at someone’s writing and give them some suggestions to help them improve. I learned a lot about coming up with templates and reading repeatedly to see if there are any mistakes that I missed. This helped me greatly when I was writing because I learned to be more careful while proof reading. I find that reading something out loud helped me catch mistakes more easily. It also improved my weakness of being too wordy. I saw that my team members were more concise in their writing. I slowly started to be more aware and tried expressing the same content using less words.

My goal after finishing school is to be a software developer and hopefully own a software consulting business one day. The writing with “YOU” attitude we learned will definitely help as I will be communicating with co-workers and clients on a daily basis. When I was going through the process of applying to coop jobs last year, I often had to apply to 5 or more postings a week. I was overwhelmed trying to create application packages for the applications. I ended up getting rejected for quite a few jobs. Now, I know how to write tailored cover letters and resumes for each job. In addition, the web folio I created would have been a good addition to the application package.

I wish I took this course before going on co-op because the formal report would have really helped me with the final research report and the various documentations I had to write for the projects I completed. It was a long process but all the small assignments like the proposal, outline, progress report and draft helped me structure and write a professional report.

The most important thing I gained from this course is confidence in my writing. It was one of my weaknesses before the course. Confidence is important because a lack of it made me stress over little things and made the writing process more painful. Now, I try to enjoy the process of writing and editing.

Thank you Dr. Paterson for giving us guidance throughout the course and my helpful LLDJ team members for all the support.

Researching

My research involved an online survey and in-person interviews on corporate volunteering. The surveys were fairly easy to implement as I used Google forms where I just had to add questions and possible answers for the multiple choice questions. However, I realized from Dr. Paterson’s feedback that I was missing the introductory section. Therefore, before distributing the surveys, I added an introduction to tell the participant what the survey is about and how I will be using the results. After a week, I received 9 responses out of 13 employees (minus the CEO and vice president).

In terms of the interviews, it was different as I was conducting them in person. I found out that when conducting in-person interviews, I often had to ask follow-up questions to capture more details about the answer. It was a nice experience because I could get the interviewee to clarify their answer or ask followup questions. In the online surveys, I could not get additional feedback.

Organizing and Writing Formal Report Draft

I felt quite overwhelmed when I started to write the draft because it seemed so difficult to write such as a long report in an organized fashion. To help simplify the process, I looked back at the outline I wrote a couple of weeks ago. I started to narrow down which sections were needed and starting writing headings and subheadings in a logical order. I found this helped me focus on the purpose for each paragraph/section. In addition, it made it easier for me to plan my writing schedule. Instead of trying to write multiple sections in one setting, I could easily come up with a detailed schedule of which subsections I would focus on.

To make it easier for me and the peer reviewer to understand that some sections were incomplete, I made notes about what sections are in progress and some details about the survey I will distribute to another company regarding their volunteer program.

While writing each section, I kept thinking back to the writing with “you” attitude that we learned in this unit. It is definitely an important technique that will help improve our writing. The goal of writing is to communicate with the reader and it would be ineffective if the reader felt that they are not important.

Writing the collected data section was challenging because I had to decide how to present the data and interpretations in an organized fashion so that the reader can easily follow along. First, I decided that I should use pie charts to display some of the answers I obtained from the survey. I presented the answers from the survey and interviews first and then did an analysis of the data received. I felt this was better than constantly bringing up new information that the reader did not encounter.

I learned that writing a report takes a lot of time and it’s definitely better to start earlier and have a plan of how the various sections should be organized. I am glad we made an outline and a progress report with a writing schedule in unit 2.

Peer Reviewing

I peer reviewed Daniel’s draft on “Making Hackathon’s More Beginner Friendly”. It was a very interesting topic because it is something I can personally relate to as a frequent hackathon attendee. I am happy that someone is taking the first step to address this issue. I learned that peer reviewing a longer piece of writing was similar to a shorter piece. I applied the techniques that I learned earlier in the term. It is very important to know what we are looking for before reading the report. First I made a template with general sections like first impressions, content, design and style. After, I added more headings to the content sections. I think this is a good approach because when I am giving suggestions, I can put them in the appropriate section. It would be very difficult for Daniel to have to look through his whole report to find the sentence I am referring to.

I appreciated the fact that Daniel left many notes about the sections that were incomplete, since the event will not take place until this coming weekend. It was much easier for me to see which sections he is planning to write about and give additional suggestions.

I noticed that Daniel was missing the table of contents section. I suggested that he could use the built-in one in Word as I found it easy to implement. The other suggestions were mostly around sentences that I thought could be re-written to sound less awkward. I hope Daniel finds the suggestions that I gave useful for the final report.

In the peer review I received, Daniel pointed out to me that I was missing details about the background on the company and a solid connection between employee satisfaction and volunteer programs. These are important pieces of information that I need to add to make my suggestions persuasive to the reader. I am glad that Daniel pointed this out as it was something that I did not notice while I was writing the draft.

Through peer reviewing, I learned how I can improve my writing by incorporating the strengths of another person’s writing. While receiving feedback, I learn which parts of my writing needs improvement and incorporate some the suggestions the peer reviewer gave. It’s always better to get a second opinion of our writing.

Unit two consisted of more writing assignments compared to unit one. I was given the chance to practice many different styles of professional writing such as a proposal, an outline and a progress report in the form of a memorandum for the formal report. In addition, I also updated my LinkedIn profile.

LinkedIn Profile

I remember creating a LinkedIn profile when I first started studying computer science in 2013 because I was told that having a presence on LinkedIn is very important for students who are searching for internships. My profile only contained brief point form descriptions of my experiences. I left it in that state for almost two years because I did not feel having a LinkedIn profile was something that could help me connect with others. When I think of professional connections, it usually means exchanging emails. However, while I was searching for my first coop job last fall, I realized that many employers wanted us to fill in our LinkedIn profile link on the application. Also, during networking events, people would often ask about connecting on LinkedIn.

While I was updating my LinkedIn profile for the assignment, I started researching about the best practices regarding LinkedIn profiles because I did not know what a professional profile should look like and what details should be included. Writing the memo on the ten best practices helped me a lot with the assignment. The most important points I learned was getting a custom url, writing a short and concise summary, having a catchy outline and only including relevant experiences.

I hope after updating my profile, recruiters will be able to search for me more easily and reach out to me.

Report Proposal & Outline

The process of brainstorming and coming up with a suitable topic was a bit challenging in the beginning as I did not know where I could gather the data and how I could write a 12-15 page report. It is my first time writing an assignment that is longer than 6 pages. After reading the instructor’s blog and advice about drawing upon our own experiences, I started thinking about the problems I encountered during my previous internship. I decided to write about the feasibility of implementing a corporate volunteer program at Collabware, the company I did my previous coop at. I am fortunate because after discussing the details with my manager, she was happy to help me out by encouraging the employees to fill out my survey and answer my interview questions.

Formal Report Investigation

I started getting a better idea of how all the small assignments we are completing will guide us through the process of completing a formal report. From my previous experiences on writing essays, I simply followed the format the professors’ wanted. However, for this assignment, it will be different for everyone as the reports we are writing focuses on different things. The outline gave me a better idea what the layout of my report will look like. The progress report gave me the opportunity to plan out how I will carry out the research and put it together as a whole. The timeline is extremely useful for reminding me what tasks I should be doing each day to make sure I do not end up rushing to finish the report a couple days before it is due.

Peer Reviewing Daniel’s Proposal

I peer reviewed Daniel’s proposal on making hackathons friendlier for people with different technological backgrounds. The topic is very interesting because it is something I can relate to since I have attended many hackathons. I also experienced the situation where I have felt inferior because everyone else is more knowledgeable than me and there is very little support for beginners. I am impressed by the technological experience he has. I am looking forward to reading his final report because I want to learn about how to improve the experience of hackathons for all attendees. This will be extremely useful for me when I am planning similar events.

I noticed that Daniel is quite clear and concise when it comes to writing. This is something I can definitely learn from and think about when I am writing. The suggestions I gave were regarding minor issues such as avoiding abbreviations and giving more details for the scope section.

Peer Review Process

I learned more about my writing through the peer reviews. Daniel pointed out to me that I needed to improve the problem statement and proposed solution sections in my proposal. My statement of the problem did not explicitly state what problem(s) I am aiming to address. My proposed solution lacked details about the implementation. I think I made some improvement on making my writing less wordy in unit two. However, I need to make sure that I add enough details for the reader to understand what issues I am trying to address.

Peer reviewing Luke’s LinkedIn profile was challenging because we had to start from scratch. There was no template provided for us this time. I started to think about what I would want to see on the profile if I was a recruiter. I decided to organize the review by discussing what I thought was written well in each section and some minor improvements that I thought may be helpful. After carefully reading each section, I also applied some of the knowledge from researching about LinkedIn best practices and gave some suggestions on sections that could be added such as recommendations and projects.

One of the most important things I learned this unit through peer reviewing is the amount of time I should spend on each assignment. I often feel overwhelmed by the amount of English assignments we have each week because I am not use to writing this much. I tend to spend a lot of time on each assignment because I am worried that it is not good enough and there may be some mistakes I made but did not catch. I end up spending a lot of time thinking before writing and reading what I wrote over and over again. While it is important to treat writing assignments seriously and to proofread it to catch errors, I started to realize that we are all humans and we are not perfect. That is reason we have peer reviews. The peer reviews are there to help us improve our writing. I will start to have more confidence in my writing and spend a reasonable amount of time on the assignments. I look forward to writing more for the final report as it is a topic that I am passionate about.

301 Lisa Wong Formal Report Proposal Revised

Link to peer review of my proposal by Daniel Gipps

Definitions Draft

The criteria for the definitions assignment was to define a complex term in our professional field to someone who comes from a different background. I chose to define “cookies” because it is a word that comes up often when browsing the web and a couple of my friends have asked me what cookies are. When I tried explaining cookies to them, the feedback I received was that they were more confused because I used additional technical terms in my definition. The first thought that came to my mind was that I need to imagine explaining cookies to myself when I was not a computer science student. I focused on using simple words. After reading the textbook, I learned what a sentence, a parenthetical and an expanded definition consists of. After reading the example provided in the textbook, I realized it was easy to identify the purpose of each section because they were labelled with meaningful headings. Therefore, when I started writing, I wrote headings for each of my paragraphs. Not only are the headings helpful for the user, they also help me as a writer stay focused on the purpose of each paragraph.

Receiving a Peer Review

My teammate Jenny reviewed my definitions. After reading the peer review she gave me, I appreciated her honest feedback. I liked how Jenny gave me positive feedback on the parts that she thought I wrote well and the parts that need improvement. She pointed out that my sentence definition was too long. She suggested a shorter sentence definition to make the readers more engaged. I am aware that I tend to be quite wordy when I write. However, after editing my draft, I did not realize it was too long. After reading it again, I can see how others may find it too long because I put too much detail in the definition. I edited the sentence by taking out the details on what information a cookie can contain. This is information that should be in the expanded definition.

Jenny also noted that my visuals may be confusing for readers who only scan the document. For example, they may wonder why there is a cookie (pastry) in the visual. She suggested using an abstract figure. It was a difficult decision because I chose the visuals to show the readers the difference between browsing with cookies and without. In the end, I decided to add another visual in the example section of my expanded definition.

Giving a Peer Review

It was my first time giving someone’s writing a formal review. I found it challenging trying to create a template and give feedback in a way such that it does not sound too critical. Dr. Paterson’s blog mentioned that knowing what we are looking for before reading the document will make our review both positive and critical. I used this technique and wrote down my initial impressions. I noticed that Jenny uses less words when describing her term (computer drivers). This is something I can incorporate in my writing to make it more engaging. After reading it multiple times, I gave honest feedback on what I thought was written well and pointed out the typos/grammatical errors I found. I hope Jenny finds my suggestions useful.

In most of my previous English classes, only the professor gives feedback on the writing when it is being evaluated and there was no opportunity to make the necessary changes after receiving a mark. I enjoy the writing process of this class because we have the opportunity to improve our writing assignments after it is peer reviewed. I hope my writing skills will improve as the course progresses.

Revised Cookies Definitions

Peer Review by Jenny Lian

123 Bear Street
Vancouver, BC
V5R 2V5

Department of English
397 – 1873 East Mall
Vancouver, BC
V6T 1Z1

Dear English 301 class,

I am writing to express my interest for the position of a professional writing team member as posted on the English 301 blog. I am currently a fourth year Bachelor of Computer Science (BCS) student at UBC. BCS is an accelerated computer science program for students who have a previous degree. I completed a Bachelor of Science in life science and earth science at UBC.

From January to August of this year, I worked as a software engineer intern at a local company called Collabware. My duties included making applications for internal and external use. For example, one of my projects was to automate content creation within three weeks for the 2010 version of SharePoint. However, I exceeded my manager’s expectations by making the project compatible in both the 2010 and 2013 versions in the required time period. This shows that I am a fast learner and willing to accept challenges. I have also become more detail-oriented because when the code I write is not working as expected, I carefully look through many lines of code to find the mistake.

In the process of searching for an internship, I completed five applications a week. Each application consisted of a customized cover letter and resume written persuasively to attract the attention of potential employers. While working, I wrote email messages and memos frequently to update fellow co-workers on the progress of my work. I also wrote comments and instructions for the projects I completed. I took into consideration the audience I was writing for as the majority of the people reading the instructions do not have a technical background. I wrote short and clear comments frequently in my code to enable any developer to quickly understand my work and easily make changes in the future. My experiences in writing can be used to enhance the job application package and report that we will complete in this course.

I believe effective learning should be cooperative and active. One of the reasons I chose to study computer science is because the courses are more hands-on and we get to apply the knowledge that is taught in class. I am open to constructive criticism because I believe in order to improve our communication and writing skills we must consider the opinions of others.

I believe my work habits and previous experiences will make me a positive addition to your team. Please contact me at miss.lisa19@alumni.ubc.ca if you are interested in working with me.

Sincerely,

Lisa Wong

301 Lisa Wong Application Letter