Daily Archives: December 20, 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.