Monthly Archives: December 2019

Dear Reader,

As the course has ended I would like to share with you some of my thoughts and suggestions about ENGL 301 course. This class opened a whole new previously vague system of professional communication, the importance of social networks in professional networking and unrevealed importance   of effective cooperation in a team. With effective guidelines from Professor and meaningful feedback throughout the course from my writing team colleagues I significantly improved my skills in technical communication.

The most significant piece of my work during the course is a formal report, at the same time it was the most difficult assignment to handle. After brainstorming and tips from Dr. Paterson,  I chose to make a report on improving mental health and wellness among graduate students at the BC Cancer Research Center. I should admit that  I had some difficulties looking for the topic of the report and during creating survey and interview questions. However, the assignments for creating report outline and report progress made writing much easier and optimized. Additionally, I also should say that this course was challenging as I have not had a previous strong background and experience of writing in professional language. Therefore, preparing some of the work took me more time and efforts then I expected, but the feeling of pleasure after submitting counterbalanced all previous struggles.

Although the course was strenuous, one of the rewarding features in the class is the possibility of multi-sided edditing. Peer reviewing done by writing team members and the final professor`s suggestions helped me to understand what aspects in my writing I should improve. One of them is reader-centered writing with avoiding imperatives and significant role in its refining has played the YOU-attitude guideline. Another aspect that I improved throughout the course is reducing the number of unnecessary pronouns in texts. I overused them at the beginning of the course, but significantly eliminated pronouns in final assignments.

After the course, I feel more confident writing professional emails and memorandums. These documents are crucial components of day-to-day communication at the workplace. Also, peer-reviewing is another key aspect that I have refined through the course and which I will use frequently in my future career. Nevertheless, I still need to work on expressions and practicing my professional language as I unpleasantly often used awkward phrases. This habit is the thing that I would like to exclude from my writing as soon as possible, and the course initiated and notably assisted me to express more definitely.

Overall, I could not imagine how beneficial ENGL 301 would be for my professional progress and how it facilitated my communication with colleagues. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Pr. Paterson and my writing team members for fruitful collaborations and input that you brought to my progress.

Have a splendid holiday season and a joyful 2020 year!

Dear Reader,

As the main assignment of Unit 4, I created Web folio that contains almost all the materials prepared throughout the course as well as some additional resources that introduce my progress during ENGL 301. One more additional function of the created Web folio is to represent my works, which include application package for prospective employees. The short time-frame for this assignment was the main challenging, as creating Web folio demanded attention, a bit of creativity to present your qualifications for readers in the best way.

Before ENGL 301 I have not worked much with on-line resources for job searching and definitely never prepared electronic portfolio such as Web folio. I chose to convert the previously created UBC blog page into Web folio. For this were organized additional headers and folds that contain my resume, link to LinkedIn page, application package. Organization of Web folio took me more time and effort than I expected. One possible reason for this is a big amount of information that I included in Web folio, and the second reason is that I just started to work with an electronic portfolio. Nevertheless, performing this assignment was quite enthusiastic and informative, as it opened me another way of showcasing my qualifications and skills.

Overall, as I realized during the process of creating and including materials into Web folio, it is a powerful and applicative tool for demonstrating scholar progress which I can use during the process of job application. I am strongly sure that I will add additional works to my Web Folio and expandit with new courses that I will take. Therefore, as many other assignments in the course creating Web folio is very beneficial, because of its practical side for using in future career development.

Hello class,

As we are approaching the end of the course, assignments became more difficult to perform. Unit 3 was the most challenging unit for me so far. In this unit, the main assignment was writing the formal report, and I tried to prosper in it as the report has the biggest impact on the course score. Also, it was both challenging and intriguing to peer-review the formal report. One of the reason, is the size of the document, and the second reason is the responsibility to provide a thoughtful review for your team member.

Formal report

The formal report in a central assignment in the course and I was prepared that its value will mirror its difficulty. Gathering information for the report was the most profitable part of this assignment, as I established good connections, discovered all available resources that UBC provides for the students. However, I also discovered possible caveats in the mental health support and in the conclusion of the report I gave suggestions on how they can be eliminated.

I should say that forehand prepared report layout and progress report were great toolls for final writing and made this process much easier. I just needed to sit down at put all the data together. However, the most strenuous in this assignment was to find this free time, as at the same time an exam period started. So with a small delay, I accomplished the report, as I know that it will impact my groupmate`s schedule, who will be reviewing the report. But I should say, that Morgan and Ranjit, my writing team members, also faced some difficulties in writing their reports. Overall, I enjoyed wring the report and hope with Ranjit`s feedback I can make it even better to propose thoughtful recommendations on how to improve graduate students` mental health support. 

Peer-reviewing

As was mentioned in previous reflections, peer-reviewing is also one of the crucial aspects of this course. YOU attitude (i.e., reader-centered writing) and recommendations from the instructor blog facilitated the peer review process. They also pointed me out on some mistakes that I did before reviewing works in the writing group. For this lesson, I reviewed Morgan`s formal report, which was titled “Analysis of Hour Allocation and Job Satisfaction at SW Event Technology”. I understood how important for proper allocation is important for job satisfaction and Morgan made interesting suggestions in the report which I think I also can use at my work. However, the most challenging in this peer review was the size of the report as you have to thoroughly read the report to provide your team member with meaningful feedback. I believe that Morgan will find my peer review helpful and it will alleviate her preparing a final version.

Overall, I enjoyed unit 3 and even it was challenging, I have to admit the assignment. I am looking forward to finishing the formal report and application package. As it is the last reflections in the course I would like to say that ENGL 301 helped me to refine technical communication skills and made clearer the work communication etiquette.

Thank you for reading my reflections,

Taras Shyp