Hiya fellow peers!
I have just finished up unit 3 of our technical writing course and I must say- it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be! I remember reading through all the course information, including the schedule and lessons in the first week of the semester and feeling VERY overwhelmed. Especially with this thing called a ‘formal report’. In all honesty, I had no idea what a ‘formal report’ was before starting this course but now I can add it to my list of writing capacities and knowledge! I am super proud of myself for all the time and effort I have spent drafting my formal report. It was definitely a long process, but well worth it as I have learnt the individual steps needed for the creation of a report.
I’ll start at the beginning, with my endeavour into the world of research! After getting my approval from Dr. Paterson to begin my research, I felt SO excited- which I never thought in a million years something like this would excite me, ha! I printed off my surveys right away and arranged some interviews with the people I had in mind, and everything went very smoothly! I think it was a big help that the participants for the surveys and interviews were my work colleagues- who are all aware that I am continuing my education, and I always have had their best interest in mind when it comes to their health and safety. It took me about a week and half to collect all my primary data, as the dental office I work at has many employees, some who are just there once a week for a short shift – so we don’t always run into each other. I am glad that all the participants were so open to helping me out and participating in my survey and/or interviews – I am forever grateful for my fellow employees!
After all the data that was collected, I felt the daunting task of analyzing and organizing it creep in to my head. I had no idea where to start, or how to even create a graph on Microsoft Word. So, I continued my readings that Dr. Paterson had set out in hopes of learning how to analyze and put the data together and along with a couple YouTube videos on how to create a graph – I got it done! It was time consuming, but the result of seeing all the data analyzed motivated me to keep plugging away at finishing the rest of my report. The analytics of any report I feel, is the most important aspect and I wanted to take my time and do it right!
Completing all aspects of the formal report draft went exceptionally well. As mentioned a few times above, it was fairly time consuming drafting the formal report. It wasn’t as difficult as I expected it to be because I had all the information that I needed, and I just had to write it out! I was surprised on how well everything flowed together as I was writing- it just seemed to make sense. I figured it was because there are many pertinent steps before starting to write it out, that the writing of the draft is actually the easiest part of it all!
The peer review aspect for this unit was very engaging for me. I thought it was really neat that I got to review my peer Jenny Z. formal report as I was the one to review her proposal! It was definitely cool to see all her hard work she has put forth into her formal report. The process of the peer review was like the others I have completed previously, but this one took a bit longer as I wanted to make sure I had given her a very thorough review as this is one of the biggest assignments we had to complete. While going through the different sections of Jenny’s report and making suggestions- I was also going back to mine afterward and self-editing again. This peer review seemed to help push my critical thinking skills forward and be very diligent with the advice I was offering!
The experience and skills I have gained from researching, organizing and writing my formal report is substantial. I would have never thought that I would be able succeed as well as I have with my formal report project. Sure, I have learned the ‘technical’ aspects and steps of drafting a report, but I have also learned that a formal report has MANY steps, and that attention to detail is needed for every aspect of writing one. I have learned that patience is key, and if you make good progress every week the outcome of it all will be worth it. I am grateful for my new-found knowledge and confidence on formal reports and am excited to add it to list of works!
Thanks for reading,
Meagan Rosenberg