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