September 30, 2015
Reflecting on Unit 1, the Definitions assignment and Peer Reviewing.
Unit one looked at writing, peer reviewing and editing. I found the third working assignment, defining a word for a target audience, was technically challenging as you had to develop the right mind frame. There were three steps to the assignment. Firstly, to take a word and define it using parenthetical, sentence, and expanded definitions, all while catering to a audience which has “no technical knowledge”. Secondly, was to peer review a colleagues work on their definition of choice. Thirdly, was to edit your writing after receiving feedback. Below are my thoughts on my writing techniques at each step of the assignment.
For the creation of the original draft of the definition of motherboard (edited word document attached below), my focus was on ensuring punctuality in the delivery and a writing style with a non-knowledgeable adult in mind. I am happy to say, I was successful in submitting my work on time. However, I didn’t complete the assignment without hiccups. My largest issues when I was writing, was I jumped around. After looking at the criteria I was worried that I was going to forget something or incorporate to much jargon so I found myself adding information randomly in the document. I always have a tendency to do this. The reasoning behind it is to ensure I hit all of the check marks to appease the graders. This leads to very fragmented work which takes time to edit. Going forward, I want to focus on one part of the assignment, tag any relevant information, and integrate it once I approach a suitable point. This should help with overall fluidity of the document.
As for the editing component (Jared Kim’s review of my definitions can be found here), based on the feed back I received, the general consensus of my writing was very positive. The assignment was “clear and concise” and it was “virtually free of spelling/grammatical mistakes”. I can attribute this to having scrutinized my writing before submitting it. However, the comments weren’t constructive or critical which made me stop and scratch my head as I wasn’t sure what I should add. Maybe my writing was too structured and wasn’t very original? However, I still looked to improve my definitions and after reading a few other assignments and conducting a peer review, I realized that I hadn’t really incorporated a lot of primary resources such as peer reviewed journals. Thus, I have gone back and integrated some sentences which I believe adds a responsible amount of depth. I didn’t want to add too much jargon into the expanded definition as this would impact the audience.
I found while peer reviewing Paul Lee’s, Definition of Anthropometry (link can also be found below) I was quite biased after creating my own document. I compared what I had done and set it as a criteria to see what he had missed. Thus, I approached the definition with a narrow mind, which wasn’t fair to Mr. Lee. I hope to work on this for my next peer review assignment. While writing, I made sure I was positive and had clear constructive criticism. I thought, “treat others the way you want to be treated”. Having no prior knowledge of the word Anthropometry I felt Lee did a great job writing to a “non-technical audience” and this was expressed in my peer review. Importantly, I must add that I was impressed by the clarity of the writing. It wasn’t wordy, it had good flow. As a result, I felt more engaged. I hope to focus on this with future projects. I also noticed in Paul Lee’s definition he had incorporated peer reviewed journals. This added considerable strength to his writing and I have edited my definition to mimic this.
Unit One tested my technical writing abilities. I have definitely learned more on peer reviewing, editing and how the connotations of a word impact the understanding of a reader. In Unit Two I hope to integrate more creativity and clarity into my writing and look forward to other technical communication projects such as formal reports and application packages.
By Mitchel Sharko
Jared Kim’s Peer Review of Motherboard (My Definition)
Mitchel’s Peer Review of Anthropometry (Paul Lee’s Definition)