In this reflection blog, I will discuss my creation of a LinkedIn profile, formal report, and the peer-review process. Furthermore, I will take into account the remarks made by Professor Erika Paterson during her assessment of my Unit 1 work.

LinkedIn is platform that I genuinely wish to harness as an avenue to build my career. Yet, this project was no easy task as one should acknowledge and speak to the specific requirements and tastes of potential employers. Targeting these employers requires a strong sense of purpose with regard to career goals, which many, including myself, may have not fully formed at this juncture. Through this exercise, my peer-review, and my research, I have learnt that building a personable, yet professional profile requires the succinct communication of qualifications and experiences, a strong summary, and a well composed profile photograph. My peer reviewer, Jamil Devsi, provided excellent advice in this area, especially in the formulation of a strong summary. My own review of Yasaman Fazel’s profile highlighted small organizational issues, which could speak to her impressive employment experiences. Overall, I found the LinkedIn exercises useful.

With regard to the Formal Report Proposal, I found this exercise to be challenging, as I am currently unemployed and my work on The Envoy is performed remotely. Therefore, finding a suitable issue to analyze or correct was a difficult task. I settled on examining a core problem of The Envoy: the stagnation of membership rates. This focus has allowed me to research an area that I am interested in and work towards furthering a project that is close to my heart. Analyzing The Envoy’s analytics on social media platforms will provide me with a good foundation of converting quantitative data into qualitative analysis. I am confident that I can produce a solid formal report for The Envoy. Stephen Razis’ peer review of my proposal provided an important reflection on this task. There was some confusion as to whether proposals are in letterform or longer piece, like the one I produced. Nonetheless, Razis’ emphasized organizational and language changes, all of which were valuable critiques. I have attempted to implement his suggestions into my formal report outline.

Finally, I thoroughly enjoy the practice of peer reviewing as a method to provide and receive constructive criticism. I sincerely hope that my reviews have been as helpful for my peers, as theirs have been for me. I am very impressed with both the professionalism of these individuals and their own, unique, experiences and vocations. I found Devsi’s review to be most useful with my LinkedIn, due to the immediate impact of the changes that he recommended. I will continue to offer my opinions, in an effort to provide helpful advice to my peers.

I have attached a link to my revised Formal Report Proposal below, a link to Stephen Razis’ review of my original proposal, and a link to my own review of Razis’ proposal.

301 James Watson Edit-Proposal for Formal Report

James Watson’s Review of Stephen Razis’ Formal Report Proposal

Stephen Razis’ Review of James Watson’s Formal Report Proposal

At the time of writing, I have not received a peer review of my definitions piece and, therefore, I cannot provide an account of my experience nor provide an updated definition piece. As soon as I receive this review, I will implement the necessary changes to the document immediately and note the advice given.

The lack of peer review, however, does not inhibit my ability to discuss my experience thus far and to comment on the advice provided by Professor Erika Paterson. I believe that I am prone to wordiness and over-elaboration. Prof. Paterson has corroborated this issue in her remarks concerning my letter of application and biography page on my blog. This is a serious issue for the reader as they can become either disinterested or tired when reading long-winded work. My central rationale for joining this course was to work on this aspect of my writing. I aim to build concise, readable prose for business, while maintaining some of my personality or voice in the writing. This is an area that I feel will affect my definitions piece and I will endeavor to deliver succinct work in this course.

I took the opportunity to review Stephen Razis’ definition piece, which was aimed at high school and university students who studied English and philosophy. My overall impression of this piece was very positive. Stephen’s organization was very clear and straightforward as he provided subheadings. Furthermore, his ability to break down  Pharmakon using three categories, such as etymology and modern usage, provided context for both English and Philosophy students. In fact, this is an approach that I would like to incorporate into my own work, as Stephen was able to accomplish the above with in concise and short sentences. I have pointed to where I think he could make a few changes in my review and it is interesting to discover that we both use flowery-language. This is an area that I would like to cut back on and work within established parameters of business language, rather than academic terminology. Generally, it was a pleasure to read Stephen’s work and reviewing his piece allowed me to reflect on some of my own issues within writing.

We all have areas to work on in our writing, I more than others. I took the opportunity to read a few of the students’ writing and I was impressed by their ability to unpack abstract or scientific concepts for the reader. With this in mind, I will attempt to work on my understanding of technical writing so that I am able to offer my readers short, succinct descriptions, briefs, and papers that are accessible. I look forward to reading more of my peers’ work and learning from both them and Prof. Paterson to gain a solid understanding of business English.

My review of Stephen Razis’ definition piece can be found here.