In Unit 1, students had a chance to improve their writing with respect to definitions. Each student had to write three definitions of a chosen term: one parenthetical, one sentence definition, and an expanded definition. The last one gave a bit more freedom to students in the sense that they can choose what sections to include in the writing.

The term I chose was probably not the easiest to define, but it was all could think of at the moment. After a session of brainstorming, I ended up choosing a key concept for programmers: the boolean variables. My main problem was that I would not be able to give a one-sentence definition of the term, but a friend of mine immediately reminded me to use the light switch analogy, and I think that worked well. I tried to steer away from using too many jargon words, but computer science is very esoteric in its nature, so I had to use a few. As pointed out by Kaylee, I should have explained better what a function call is, or what logical operators are.

Peer reviews are undoubtfully the most meaningful part of this assignment. When I read Kaylee’s article about Prosopagnosia, I realized that there are not many things that she can improve on. Her assignment contains good explanations, and the picture provided offers an interesting perspective on what Prosopagnosia is.

With Kaylee’s review in mind, I was able to modify some key areas of my assignment. First of all, I managed to change the vague introduction, and I made more explicit that my intended audience is people who never coded before. I also excluded the digression about Boolean Objects, because it is indeed a bit irrelevant to the topic presented. Furthermore, I added an explanation of function calls, and I included some relevant information about naming conventions for boolean variables.

Overall it was a great experience, and I admit that I have learned a lot by writing the three definitions for boolean variables. The peer review provided me with some good insight into what was to be done.

Attached Revised Definitions: 301 Razvan Nesiu Definitions

Link to Peer Review: Peer Review of Definitions for Razvan Nesiu