Monthly Archives: October 2016

Unit 2 Reflections

Writing and creating a LinkedIn profile was a satisfying assignment. It encouraged me to go beyond merely creating a profile for the sake of joining the network, but researching the best ways in which I can use this tool to my professional advantage. I was also unaware of how widely used LinkedIn is and how many tools and apps it includes to enhance the experience of joining the ‘professional social media network’. It was also a pleasure to review another’s profile and have mine reviewed as it increased my awareness of what draws a reader or viewer in and what information may be missing or misread. Hannah offered valuable advice of which I very grateful for. I had signed up for a LinkedIn profile previous to this assignment, though it was quite incomplete—I did not even have a profile photo, and after this assignment I feel confident and inspired to share my profile with prospective networking links.

The process of brainstorming, investigating, creating, researching, and writing my formal report was exciting and rewarding. I chose to use my dental hygiene diploma to finish with a bachelor’s of dental science so it would open doors to progress my career from merely working in a dental clinic. I have dreamt of creating my own dental products, being a researcher and writer for dental or other health magazines, and possibly opening up my own clinic, so this assignment has been greatly inspiring as I feel it is solidifying my goals. I had to do some necessary research to decide who I wanted to address my report to, and even then, as this company will be representing my project. I have to say, this was—so far—the hardest part of the report even though it takes on the smallest ‘word count’. I have been doing research for this project long before this program started, so I feel confident in my idea and excited to move forward into professionally recording this research as data.

I found my partner’s proposal brilliant and quite different than my own. While both of ours addressed a specific issue relating to consumers in a certain niche, our writing styles were very different and we offered each other a balanced perspective (or critique) in that way.   It’s great to make the connection that we as writers are also very observant problem solvers, and to have the opportunity to put those problem solving skills to test in this course is a valuable experience. Now that I have some peer-review experience, I see myself paying closer being hyper-aware of the subtleties in pieces of literature, websites, profiles, etc. and of their pitfalls or advantages—of which I will take note for my future studies.

Enclosed:

Updated LinkedIn Profile Url – https://ca.linkedin.com/in/siarrasens

Rewritten Formal Report Proposal – report-proposal-rewritten-siarra-sens

Peer-review of Report Proposal by Andiry Bolyachevets – Peer-review of Research Proposal

I grew increasingly frustrated with my choice of term, vitrification, the more I researched it. The term is involved in several fields of study with a minor tweak in its meaning in each of these fields. In this way, it challenged me to define the term broadly to firstly encompass all of these fields, and secondly to narrow down the expanded definition to ensure the reader was clear about the process as it pertained to each specific field.

From the peer-review, I discovered that in an attempts to “play it safe” with a vague target audience, I ultimately confused my reader. Similarly, while I enjoy creatively writing, I must work to know when specific, organized, clear and concise writing is essential as opposed to creative writing with use of metaphoric or allegoric writing–which was the case of this assignment.

From performing a peer-review of another’s work, I exercised my ability to take a step out of my viewpoint, and step into the viewpoint of the author’s target audience and to analyze the piece from there. This is a great task to practice as it not only picks up on one’s own critiques but can more openly pick up on a broader range of suggestions and questions for the author which ultimately accelerates the process of critiquing and editing. This process gave me an idea of the work and in-depth, thoughtful communication that must be put forward to thoroughly critique a piece of literature. Additionally, a lot of critique is purely subjective and I see the value in having multiple individuals and viewpoints collaborate to effectively edit one piece.

Enclosed:

Peer-review of Definition Assignment by Andriy Bolyachevets

http://engl301.arts.ubc.ca/2016/09/28/peer-review-report-of-assignment-1-3-definitions/

Rewritten version of Definitions Assignment by Siarra Sens

http://engl301.arts.ubc.ca/2016/10/02/13-edited-definitions-assignment/