Author: toman

Completing the course works of ENGL301 allows me to have a deep understanding of technical writing styles and not only will I be able to incorporate the lessons throught this course in my own employment communications, I will also be able to guide and motivate others to writing at a high-level professional level.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Comparing the different English courses available, technical writing comes the most natual to me.  In nature, I communicate factually and to the point, creative and descriptive writing tends to be difficult for me.  That said, I believe I have a strong technical writing ability and this skill has polished over this term.

My biggest weakness in writing is my tendency to over complicate sentences. I am inclined to add several sophisticated words into a sentence which does not always work as effectively as a simplified version.  This course has taught me to review my sentences and edit them if necessary in order to allow my audience to understand the message.

Impactful Lessons

A great lesson learned during this course is avoid using imperative verbs, and change my tone from demanding to positive for an overall more impactful message.

The most impactful assignments included those referring to correct letter structure, email formatting and employment application documents.  These types of documents are a common form of daily communication, therfore I found myself committing to a more sincere effort when completing these assignments.

Admittedly, the formal report although challenging and satisfying to complete, was not the most useful writing achievement during this course. This form of communication involves a substantial amount of preparation and research, which is not a daily task in the majority of future employment.  I found myself relieved to have it completed in order to move onto learning more useful forms of technical writing.

Where this Takes me from Now

Having been at an executive level position for over three years, incorporating  professional and academically accepted writing formats in my communication to management, coworkers and customers will become an invaluable asset.

Parting Words

In closing, ENGL301 has been an exciting journey and has substantially increased by ability to write technically in the corporate world. I look forward to incorporating this style as a director in my work life. I would like to thank my professor for the support and feedback throughout this course, and I wish my peers all the success in their academic and employment paths.

The final stage of growth of my technical writing abilities ends with this web portfolio.  Each assignment and every lesson is polished to complete a final showcase of my works.

Designing

I thoroughly enjoyed designing a page that reflected my personality as well as keeping a professional feel.  I found myself overthinking the design and color schemes throughout the creation of the page, however I am confident that my personal branding comes through.  Although completing this page took an impressive amount of time to design, the majority of the work came from reviewing my course work.

Reviewing Feedback and Editing

Reviewing and editing each assignment from professor and peer feedback seemed like a distinct evolution of my English capabilities. As the coursework progressed, the feedback became more excellent and lesser amount of corrections were needed.  Going back to edit and correct prior works taught me how to look for simple errors for future courses.  I particularly enjoyed using a flower as a metaphor for the growth of my writing skills in my reflections.  From a seed to the evolution of becoming a mature flower, to planting a seed for someone else felt appropriate and relatable. 

Student Access to Blogs

I am thankful for the University of British Columbia’s blog system, where these pages are available for students for free.  Prior to this course I had contemplated on numerous occasions creating a personal blog, I was not aware a free and easy to navigate page builder was available to me as a student benefit.

Having a page that displays the final version of my works comes with an array of emotions including intimidation to pride.  Admittedly, this web folio has encouraged me to help my peers create portfolios of their work to strengthen their job applications.

Final Thoughts of the Web Folio Process

Lastly, designing my web folio has also been a bittersweet experience.  As each assignment is polished, the term comes to an end and the students in this course either continue their academic journeys or they move into what can be a harsh real world.  ENGL301 is arguably one of the most practical and useful courses I have taken during my undergraduate experience. Having hands on experience with correct forms of memorandums, emails, formal reports and employment applications, is a wonderful way to distinguish myself in the corporate arena.

Unit 3 involved using our new writing skills for more demanding assignments. My technique blossomed the most in this stage of the course work, particularly when learning how to write with a YOU-Attitude and then applying it towards compiling the first draft of the formal report.

1. Practicing YOU-Attitude Writing Techniques

Memorandum of Advice

Reviewing Evan Crisp’s email to Professor Lambert was an exciting assignment. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about writing with a YOU attitude and applying it towards a useful email with technical writing recommendations.

Complaint and Bad News Letters

Both of these letters were a great way to learn how to use this writing style in either personal or professional aspects.

Learning about a new technical writing style was interesting, useful and I learned how to write a request confidently although keeping a positive and friendly tone.  This lesson will be applied to documents written daily in my professional life.

2. Organizing Ideas into a Formal Report Draft

Researching

Primary Data: Having a science background, this section of the formal report was familiar and allowed me to incorporate several lessons taught in CEGEP and previous research courses. Creating an ethical survey introduction was new and insightful.  With my position at the office, I was able to easily send the surveys to Realtors and easily interview administrative staff members to obtain data regarding costs and printing habits relatively easily.

Secondary data: The research applied to learning more about global deforestation and how the pulp and paper industry actually contributes to the issue allowed me to enjoy my subject even deeper.  Real issues are happening around us and this was a great way to acknowledge how realistic changes can be applied to one single issue in order to minimize negative impacts.

Organizing

The example in the textbook was an incredibly helpful source when outlining the elements of the report.  Having pre-structured the draft and applying the data in each section helped me when formally writing each paragraph.

Writing

I found the writing component to be intensive. The draft took a significant amount of time to compose even with an optimal outline and organized information.  I found it easy to get lost in the data sections which was a trigger to edit and review my headlines.  I had underestimated the amount of time it would take to write the draft, however I look forward to applying a great amount of effort to finalize the draft by using Zoe’s peer review and fine-combing all my sentences.

Zoe Maika’s Peer Review

Peer Review

I found this component of Lesson 3 to be difficult.  As with any peer review in this course, there is a higher level of reading analysis applied to editing the document in order to offer useful recommendations.  These reports are long and peer reviewing each element of Zoe’s report in order to offer helpful advice was difficult as I am not familiar with the topic.

Reviewing Zoe Maika’s Formal Report Draft

To conclude, unit 3 was intensive, challenging though enjoyable. I have learned how to apply YOU attitude to professional communication as well as apply research methods to find realistic solutions to an issue that relates to me.

Unit 2 was an important growth stage of my technical wriitng skills. This unit challenged students to start developing researching skills which was a critical task for future assignments.  Our first research assignment was composing tips for best practices when using LinkedIn, the final research lesson in this unit was building a proposal for a formal report.

LinkedIn is Worth the Hype!

The excessive use of social media streams has repelled me from having an active profile on any of the various platforms. Assignment 2:2 highly affected my opinion in the opposite direction; after researching various forms of LinkedIn practices, I am motivated to revisit my profile and commit to using this platform as a means of making important connections.  There is vast information regarding how to use LinkedIn to your advantage throughout the internet, each article is logical and inspiring. I am excited to complete a professional networking page and explore the opportunities in marketing myself with industry peers.

The writing assignment in itself taught me how to avoid using imperative verbs when writing tips or suggestions to a peer in order to improve the tone on a more positive level.

LinkedIn Best Practices

Building an Idea for a Formal Report

The most difficult component was brainstorming an idea that relates to my academic and employment worlds, as well as a concept that can incorporate the several requirements for the final draft.  Once I committed to the idea of reducing the environmental footprint at the Real Estate office, the subsequent assignments were straightforward and exciting.

Formal Research Proposal

I wasn’t sure what I was working with until I compiled the proposal.  The abstract of my research evolved as I read through new information on the topic I was dissecting.  This assignment allowed me to work with an idea that was later shaped into a concept for a formal research report.

Formal Research Proposal

Formal Research Outline & Progress Update Memo

This section felt like the most useful.

1. Outlining each step of the process in an outline was surprisingly quick and allowed me to visualize completion of this project.
2. The survey creation portion of this assignment was intricate. I realized how easy it would be to offend a surveyor, therefore each word needed to be evaluated accordingly.
3. The writing schedule was particularly useful to ensure the final draft was on a logical, timely schedule, as well as ensured I time-blocked the necessary moving parts into my calendar.

Report Outline

Progress Report

Continuing to Develop Review Skills

My experience with reading Helene’s proposal is similar to the peer review in unit 1, where a higher level of reading analysis is needed to offer useful suggestions.  That said, I found the outline to be more difficult to review, as the topic and research processes are both new to me.  I felt my recommendations were limited.

Reviewing Helene Tran’s Proposal

Helene Tran’s peer review of my work helped me realize my sentence structures need improvement. I need to focus on using articles and prepositions correctly.  Secondly, as I find this formal report writing process to be intimidating, it was comforting to read a peer’s positive view on my topic and proposal.

Helene Tran’s Peer Review

Thoughts on the Formal Report Process

The course broke down the Formal Report into several smaller parts. I find this structure to not only be logical, but extremely helpful.  Reading assignments from my peers, who are working on a similar writing project, offer valuable insight to the level and expectation of quality for my own assignments.

Completing another Unit

Upon completing unit 2, I noticed the quality of my writing according to the feedback given was growing stronger.  Completing the halfway point and continuing into unit 3 was exciting and accomplishing.

Unit 1 was the start of a demanding and intensive journey through this technical writing course.  Upon creating a student blog and forming a technical writing team, the first assignment was to choose a relatable and relatively complex term and use the three methods of writing definitions to explain the meaning of the term.

The Three Methods

This lesson taught students three methods of definitions: parenthetical, sentence and expanded. Each version of the same term has a place depending on the situation.

Understanding your Audience

A key takeaway from this assignment was to understand the importance of writing according to a targeted audience. This is critical in a professional role, where measuring the level of familiarity your audience will have and communicating accordingly will ensure optimal understanding. Various circumstances can lead to various levels of technical communication, such as purpose, audience and scenario.  This lesson allowed me to set up a typical Real Estate scenario that would occur in a lawyer’s office and define the term Real Property to a non-technical audience.

Organization is Important

A final lesson I took from this assignment was the importance of organizing a writing work logically to ensure your reader takes back as much as possible.  It was critical for the expanded definition to be laid out in a logical way in order for my audience to understand each key component of the term and then to fully understand the concept as a whole.

My First Peer Review 

When reviewing someone else’s work, there is a higher level of reading analysis that is used to understand the written material as well as identifying areas that may need further clarification.  The peer review allowed me to analyze a writing work objectively and offer an honest opinion on some areas that I found confusing.  Reading the document multiple times ensured each sentence was fully analyzed and did not leave out any recommendations that may have been useful. This review involved a higher level of effort, since I wanted to ensure Karissa received the most helpful feedback possible in order to edit her final definitions in the most flawless way possible.

I sincerely enjoyed reading my peer’s definition of an oral and maxillofacial surgeon.  Not only am I unfamiliar with dental terms, but I was able to fully understand Karissa’s explanation of the term.

Reviewing Karissa Garneau’s Definition

On the opposite end, reading my peer review from Karissa offered fantastic advice on how to finalize my term of Real Property.  Receiving suggestions and opinions from my audience on the areas that did not work well is critical feedback to ensure my final draft was as complete and concise as possible.

Karissa Garneau’s Peer Review

Using Feedback for Editing

Updating my original definitions using Karissa’s suggestions and comments on her overall impressions she had helped me realize there is always a need to review instructions fully, and to always review repeat sentences that may be confusing to a reader.  After finalizing my definitions I am confident a non-technical reader will easily understand the concept of Real Property.

Edited Definitions