Monthly Archives: February 2016

English 301 students are asked to create a LinkedIn account in Unit Two. I already have a LinkedIn account, so I updated it with the suggestions from peers and researches. What I had on my profile were past work and volunteer experience, as well as awards and skills. I added summary to make my profile look more clean and easy to understand. I also added some descriptions to my past experience. I feel that having a LinkedIn account is a good way to express myself without a formal interview or a paper resume. Employers are able to understand my personalities and past experience just by reading my LinkedIn account. As a job seeker, I am able to check out companies’ LinkedIn accounts to see if the company interests me. I am also able to look at other people’s profile and find similarities or connections who have similar background as myself. I feel that the endorsement feature on LinkedIn is really useful in terms of listing out my skills. Having endorsements means that my skills are approved by other people, which further proves that I have the ability to do work related to those skills.

We are also required to create a report proposal and outline in Unit Two. It took me sometime to come up with a topic that is both objective and significant. I feel like the topic would help in improving team work efficiency. Since team work is essential in almost every work environment, it would be great to address the issue that affects efficiency. I read the textbook and outlined my proposal accordingly. I decided to use surveys and interviews to carry out my data. I also thought about possible solutions that are objective. I believe that I am qualified for this task because I used to work in that student club and I understand how the team works. I feel that my progress with the report is great and I definitely have enough time to collect enough surveys and have sufficient interviews with club directors. At first, I was worried that this topic is not significant enough in terms of influencing the community. After thinking about it, I decided that team work is important in every aspect of work, like what I said before. Therefore, I believe that it is not a problem to put everything together as a formal report.

While reading my peer’s report proposal, I learned that I can collect primary data from different sources to make my results more accurate. There are also many interesting topics that I can investigate in. I also learned that research questions should be detailed but concise at the same time to make it clear to the audience about the purpose of the investigation. The process of peer reviewing is smooth and interesting. I was able to see my weaknesses by reading my peers’ work. I improved my writing after reading peer reviews. I also improved my reading skill as I was able to quickly highlight the main point of the proposal. I was surprised that my peers’ writing skills are excellent and I hope I can learn from them. Once again, I think peer reviewing is a great way to improve my writing and reading skills. It is always easier to find errors from other people’s work than my own work, so peer reviewing definitely makes it easier for us to revise our works.

Revised Report Proposal: Formal Report Proposal by Noelle Hsieh

Peer Review for Helen Seto: Peer Review for Helen Seto’s Report Proposal

The first task of this unit was to write three different definitions of a word for non-technical readers, then we were asked to peer review one teammate’s definitions and give suggestions on what may be improved. The final task was to edit our own definitions based on one teammate’s advices.

First of all, I started my definitions by thinking about what I learned back in my first degree, and I figured that choosing a word from food-related field would be great for audience who do not have a background in food science. I read through my old assignments and picked the word “osteoporosis”. I thought it may be interesting to have clear definitions so that non-technical readers could understand the word easily. I began writing the first and second definitions by thinking about examples used in daily life. Next, I used dictionary.com to find out the meaning of each broken down pieces of the word. Then, I searched online for a suitable visual aid that would represent “osteoporosis” the best and found a simple one which compares normal and osteoporosis bones. I thought it would be the best way to see the difference between normal and damaged bones. I also searched up for the reasons of osteoporosis and the ways to reduce risk. I ended the definition with similar phenomena which compared osteoporosis with another similar word that has a slightly different meaning. I found this assignment interesting but a little challenging at the first. Without peer reviewing, it is difficult to see the problems in my own writing, such as grammar errors and wording.

Next, I worked on peer reviewing Selena Rai’s definitions. The reviewing process went smoothly. I read three definitions and gave her a few suggestions. It was clear that her writing had little grammar errors. However, I found that she used many technical words in the expanded definition. Although she explained every technical word, the audience may be confused and shift focus away from the main word. I read Selena’s suggestions on my writing as well. She definitely gave me some good advices on how I should make it more clear when specifying the audience. She also corrected my grammar errors. It was great to have a peer review on my three definitions so that I could improve my writing skills for the next assignment.

Finally, I edited my three definitions based on Selena’s suggestions and I figured that I had some spelling errors when I typed. I like how Selena pointed out my errors so that I could correct them easily. I also made my wording more specific so the readers could understand the word better. Overall, this assignment was helpful in terms of improving my writing skill and peer reviewing skill. Some errors may not be obvious to me when I write my three definitions, but the peer reviewer may catch the errors by the first read. From this assignment, I learned that peer reviewing is a process of learning how to give good suggestions. It is also a way to improve our writing skills. By comparing my work to other students’ work, I could see my weaknesses and strengths in writing and try to avoid making same mistakes next time.

Here is the rewritten definitions: Rewritten Three Definitions

Here is the peer review: Selena’s Peer Review