This page hosts a collection of some of my best work during my time in ENGL 301. Many of these assignments challenged me as a writer and helped me improve my technical writing abilities. Click on the titles to view each of these writing assignments. Enjoy:
This assignment required students to practice writing techniques for parenthetical definitions, sentence definitions, and an expanded definition. Students had to choose a complex term and provided the three forms of definition for it. Ultimately, the assignment wanted to teach students how to communicate complex ideas to general audiences.
Peer Review of Definition Assignment
This was the first peer review for the course. Students formed writing teams, and provided peer-reviews for the definition assignment. This was a fun assignment, as it allowed me to meet new colleagues and learn from their writing strengths. I was ultimately able to apply these strengths to my own writing for the remainder of the course
Revised Formal Report Proposal and Progress Report with Surveys
The formal report proposal gave students an opportunity to apply all the lessons they had learned in the course and investigate a problem they were passionate about. I chose to investigate ways to increase customer numbers at my work place, Cactus Club. The proposal was written to investigate, and analyze and recommend solutions on increasing customer numbers, and company profits, during the months of January to April. The process of creating the proposal was challenging, as I had to find a topic that was both worthy of investigation and personal to me. It challenged me as a writer, and taught me the value of presenting difficult issues in a positive tone. The progress report was an assignment to let the instructor and writing team members know of the progress made on the report.
The proposal memo allowed students to practice their memorandum writing skills and techniques. It ensured that the instructor and writing team members were up to date with the research process.
Revised LinkedIn Best Practices Memo
This was one of my favourite assignments in ENGL 301. Students were tasked with researching LinkedIn best practices. Through the process, I was able to optimize my own LinkedIn profile and have already experienced the benefits of doing so. Students used the YOU-attitude to summarize the best practices and write a memorandum.
This assignment provided students with an example of what NOT to do when writing professional emails, then allowed them to suggest improvements. Students focused on using a YOU-attitude when suggesting improvements for Evan Crisp’s writing, and it helped develop my technical writing abilities.
Revised Peer Review of a Formal Report
This was the largest and most comprehensive peer review of the course. Students were tasked with providing a peer review for a writing team member’s formal report. As the formal reports were all at least 2500 words, the task was a large one, and required precision when delivering feedback. Specifically, students had to practice the YOU-attitude and include high levels of detail to provide the best review possible for their partner. Providing a review and incorporating the feedback I received allowed me to strengthen my own formal report. I especially found it helpful to have someone else read over my work to find grammatical errors that I otherwise overlooked.