This semester has been quite a journey for me as a technical writer, and I’d like to take a moment to reflect on my progress thus far. A multitude and a variety of assignments were written this term, ranging from memos, to a formal report, and even a web folio. Although some people would not think this is a lot of writing, by volume it’s the most I’ve written in several years by far!

At the start of the term, we (students in the ENGL 301 course) were tasked with setting up our blogs and forming writing teams. Although I was uncertain what tasks we would need to complete as a team, or how this would work, I am extremely grateful that I had the chance to work with this team! I was provided with some very insightful advice, and in exchange I provided my best advice as well. Over time my peer reviews for my team definitely showed improvement. My first peer review before revisions was quite difficult to read with its blocks of text. By the last peer review I already memorized the content structure and kept important writing tips in mind, such as maintaining the “YOU” attitude, avoiding negatives, and re-phrasing pronoun sentences. In addition to improving the quality of the advice I could provide, I also learned how to format it in a way that is easy to read and clearly actionable.

Other assignments provided plentiful learning opportunities in a variety of formats. The wide range of technical pieces of writing I wrote strengthened my ability to keep a professional tone while being succinct, and deliver information in a way that is most beneficial to the reader. Some of these works include the formal definitions, analytical report proposal, report progress update, the report itself, and business letters. The advice I received from peer reviews and instructor evaluations allowed me to strengthen my writing across a wide range of media. I’m confident I’ll be able to manage any type of technical communication I need to write, even if it wasn’t explicitly part of this course.

Lastly, all aspects of the formal report were very helpful in improving my writing abilities! I think these set of assignments (the proposal, outline, progress update, and final report) had the biggest difference between the first draft and the final edits with peer reviews taken into consideration. Even seemingly small things, such as the introductory paragraph for a survey, was new to me, and I certainly learned a lot!  I’m very proud of the resulting analytical report and related writing, and I think this is a good way to show the iterative skills I gained along the way! A Statistics professor even expressed interest in the results of the report, so I made it as genuine as possible.

Lastly, I would like to express tremendous gratitude towards my group members, who were a pleasure to work with and provided thoughtful, detailed advice. Without them I would not have progressed as far as I have in this course.

In this post I will take the time to reflect on the process of creating a Web Folio, one of the final assignments for ENGL 301. This was a nice way to tie several other assignments together, by hosting the Application Package and showcasing several other revised works.

The application package was the largest update to my Web Folio, and a significant amount of work to put everything together. This exercise allowed me to update my resume, write a cover letter for a job I applied to, and write requests for references. Although I haven’t been asked for references recently, I’m sure the day will come and these letters will be sent out! I also learned how to change some of the properties of my website to customize it to my liking, and to fit the standards in the Technical Communication textbook. I’m happy with the result and I think it’s a good presentation of my personal brand! The page showcasing examples of my written work nicely summarizes the assignments completed this semester. It was fascinating looking back in time, revising my work from earlier in the semester, and witnessing the improvement.

The Web Folio can be found here: https://teetertater2.github.io

The third Unit has largely helped consolidate some of the things I previously learned with new techniques, such as the “writing with YOU attitude” methods. The formal report draft and peer review were excellent opportunities to practice these techniques!

The process of researching and organizing the formal report was trickier than I expected. I was happy to see that 49 students responded to my surveys and my professors were supportive when I posted them to class discussion boards. However, once it was time to draw inferences from the results, it was rather challenging to produce a clear narrative and logically connect the answers to the survey questions. Data analysis techniques proved useful and I’m glad that I have experience aggregating data– otherwise this would have been even more difficult! I was thrilled to find significant differences between the responses of students majoring in Statistics vs other majors, but I think there is more work to be done in analyzing the responses. Writing the first draft really forced me to think through the recommendations and how to relate them to the data obtained, although it is still very rough.

I had the pleasure of reviewing Tarandeep’s formal report. Since I have seen some of her previous work and know that she historically does a great job of following the formats specified, it was positively reinforcing to see that we shared many similarities in how we formatted our reports. I find that it is always a useful reference point to see the work of my peers. Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of her report also allowed me to reflect on whether I had taken those elements into consideration in my own.

Overall I found this unit to be very fast-paced and a bit difficult to keep up with next to exams, but useful in pacing the writing of the report. Being confronted about how the report can be improved has brought, and will continue to bring, new ideas between now and the final submission.

Formal Report Draft
Formal Report Draft Review for Tarandeep