Final Self-Assessment Reflection
I had a terrific time being a part of this intensive writing course, as I feel it really helped me learn practical technical writing tips that I hadn’t been exposed to in the past. The class was always engaging and never dull, as every week we were learning something relevant to the work environment, which I really enjoyed. I believe I have learned to write in a more professional tone through this class, along with learning how to react to different situations in the work environment that I wasn’t exposed to before. I learned simple things like formal emailing format and tone, how to write progress reports, writing with ‘you attitude’, handling complaint letters in a professional matter, all the way to large tasks such as writing, formatting and submitting formal reports. My skills as a future employer have really improved thanks to this writing class.
I was also able to identify some of my weaknesses in this class, which was another major help this class has taught me. My biggest weakness in this class was balancing the work with my outside-of-this-class life and managing deadlines. I often handed in work a day or two past the scheduled deadline, which I am not proud of. It was tough to keep up with for myself, as I was balancing a full-time work schedule outside of this class, but nonetheless, managing my time and meeting deadline expectations is one aspect I will be focused on to improve.
As for strengths, I wholeheartedly believe my overall writing skills have improved during this class, which will support my future career endeavors. I think the most important thing I will take away from this class is tone, and learning the correct tone for the correct situation. I feel as though I have attained a good grasp on this concept, and will be able to carry it on into my future employment. I also believe that this class has taught me how to market myself much better. I’ve learned to create application packages, resumes, cover letters and even this web-folio. This will of course become helpful when selling myself and my abilities to a future employer.
Web Folio Reflection
Creating the web-folio as the final assignment in my ENGL 301 class was quite a fun experience. For the first time, I got to put myself in front of the work I was doing, and show off my work and skills. I created my web-folio as a website for respective employers to be the audience. I wanted to show potential employers who I was as a person, along with showing them some of the skills I have attained throughout this intensive writing course. By organizing the site into different pages, each with their own respective purpose, I feel that I have made it easy on the viewer to be able to travel the page freely and without headache to look for what they wish. Overall, I think my web-folio was a success in bringing all the necessary elements together in one organized place. I did, however, find some difficulty with the ‘individualizing’ aspect of the assignment. I’m an organized person, so that part of the assignment came naturally to me, but making the website original to my own specific individuality was a task that I found difficult.
Unit 3 Reflection Blog
Unit 3 was a really interesting unit as we covered the ‘You attitude’ and how to write with it. We also went over writing complaint and bad news letters practicing using this ‘You attitude’. We ended the unit with our formal report drafts and then our peer reviews following them.
I had a difficult time creating my formal report draft, mostly due to late responses to my survey. They were given out to the employees fairly early but most were not able to complete it until it was almost due for my formal report, so I was a little rushed in compiling my data. I was also unsure of how I wanted to organize my report so I left myself a hard time in putting together a solid report draft. Nonetheless, I was able to complete it, even though it is still missing much of my concluding remarks and some more data needs to be pulled. The actual process in the research was quite simple; it relied heavily upon taking answers from surveys and sorting out the patterns in the answers. It also involved creating a new method for online orders which took some work, and tracking the progress of the new and old methods.
I found the most useful part of the unit to be the peer review process yet again. This aspect of the course has been a huge help to me and the overall quality of my assignments. Getting a teammate to go over my work and tell me what I have done well on is very reassuring and really helps boost your confidence in those areas of the assignment. More importantly, their criticism of other aspects of the assignment is the most useful. Claire Abramski’s comments have really helped inspire the next steps that will be made in my report.
Furthermore, being able to review Claire’s work also helped my process for my own report. Reviewing the organization, style, data and overall format of the report has helped me understand some of the expectations required for this assignment. Her report was super insightful and an overall pleasure to read.
Attached is the first draft of my formal report:
Unit 2 Reflection Blog
I found the most useful part of this unit to be the research revolving around the LinkedIn profiles. Previously, I hadn’t done almost any research into LinkedIn or even had a profile myself. I understood what the advantages of the website were, I just had yet to dive into it. As I will be finishing up my undergrad soon, it will be helpful to start learning and preparing a LinkedIn profile so I can start networking with other professionals. Researching the best tips for a LinkedIn profile really eased my tension about how I was going to jump into this aspect building my personal networking profile.
The report proposal and outline helped my confidence coming into our formal report assignment. At first glance the assignment seemed quite daunting, but breaking it down and getting an outline for the project helped me relax and scope out what I need to do to make a successful assignment. I’m confident I can conduct my research and come out with positive findings revolving around my research questions.
The peer review process was very insightful for me. Getting my fellow classmate Alirod to read through my assignment and point out my flaws and mistakes was immensely helpful. Between this peer reviewed assignment and the last one, I can see a couple of trends I would like to nip to make my work a little more precise. Overall, I’m grateful for the positive feedback. Furthermore, providing the feedback for Alirod was also helpful for myself in my skills as a writer. The minor mistakes that I noticed in Alirod’s work I also noticed in my own. These were little things, like ambiguity in my writing and grammatical errors, but seeing them being prevalent in more than just my own work really shows me that its important to keep an eye on these mistakes. It’s something that can be very easily overlooked, yet also very easily fixed. Avoiding these mistakes creates a much more competent report, so it is well worth the time to iron out these bugs.
Revised Report Proposal: https://blogs.ubc.ca/willj99/2021/06/29/revised-formal-report-proposal/
Report Outline: https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-98a-2021sa/2021/06/24/301-william-jackson-formal-report-outline/
Unit 1 Reflection Blog
This post is for my Unit 1 Reflection and is broken into three parts: lessons from the writing process of my definition assignment, the peer-review process and finally the editing/self-reflection process.
The definition writing assignment was a terrific learning curve. Previously, I was unaware of the different types of definitions there were; to be frank, I didn’t really know there were so many different definitions. Writing the different definitions helped me focus on my audience when writing, making sure I know what audience I am trying to reach (informed readers or non-technical readers) and what kind of language to use in order to reach them in the best possible way. I also learned some new organizing techniques from this assignment which I will take value in.
The peer review process made me focus on an entirely different audience, and that was an audience of one. When peer reviewing, the only person in mind is your colleague which you are working with. You want to make sure you are writing clearly and concisely, while maintaining a professional and respectful tone. It was good practice for my critical reading skills and I enjoyed the process.
Finally, the self-reflection process was an interesting one because it highlighted my weaknesses in my writing. There were times in the assignment when my writing seemed rushed and lacked the precision in needed, like when citing my visual for example. These exercises and peer help is really helpful in reminding ourselves in what we need to work on, and I take great value out of that.
Attached below is my revised definition assignment if you wish to view the changes I made: