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Mariela's Perfomance Review Memo

Page history last edited by Mariela Sanchez 8 years, 11 months ago

To            Jared Grogan

From        Mariela Sanchez

Date         April 22, 2015

 

Subject     Performance Review Memo

 

 

Introduction

 

The technical writing course offered for us this semester was full with many skills needed for future writing and collaborative work. This memo includes a set of analysis of the work I have completed. The analysis is focused on what the projects included, the strengths and weaknesses of my work, all around the learning objectives of the course. These objectives, according to the course's syllabus are as follows. Writing and Designing consists of effectively writing different technical documents, including proper use of grammar and design for the different types of documents. Reading and Design includes knowing how to read and evaluate the design, audience, and purpose of the multiple types of technical documents. Researching and Documenting requires us to design and conduct primary and secondary research, and evaluate the sources in support for the documents. Using Technology and Media asks to make productive use of the technologies for reading, researching, writing, and designing technical documents. The following analysis reflects on how well these learning objectives were fulfilled with the projects.

 

Performance Review 

 

Individual Performance

 

The projects that were completed individually successfully fulfilled the learning objectives for this course. These projects also served as important learning lessons for my future in the workforce. The writing and designing objective was fulfilled with the professional documents that we were required to compose including the resume/cover letter, professional website, WikiHow Cite, and the short assignments. All of these had a different format that one had to learn how to do. The resume was one of the best documents, in my opinion, that I have ever composed in a professional level. My resume included the necessary components and was organized in a clear and concise manner. My cover letter was probably one of the weakest works I have composed because I had never composed one. I feel that the organization was good, I just needed to be more persuasive and research some more about the company. The professional webpage was definitely one of my weaknesses because I am not a person that is super creative when it comes to designing. I needed to better organize the sections of my professional webpage in a way that would allow my user to navigate it easily. I had a hard time trying to put this webpage together and considering the feedback that I received, there is room for improvement. The WikiHow article, in which we had to write out a set of instructions on how to do something, was a task that I truly enjoyed doing. This project allowed us to learn the process of writing instructions in the most clearest way possible so that our reader could understand it. I feel that this project met all the objectives of the course because we were able to research in order to gather the information needed, add images, and use the space needed to incorporate these items. We were not able to design it so much because we were so limited, but the other projects in class allowed us to do so. Finally, the short assignments allowed us to write summaries on reading and, also, allowed us to reflect on the assignments that we were composing at the time. Summarizing the reading material permitted us to think more specific and learn to gather only the necessary information for an assignment. This would come in handy as we began the research phase of one of the other projects. My writing process had to adapt to each of these writing situations in a way in which I made my statements more clear and simple. I am used to writing in detail and more elaborate, but for some of these assignments I had to be direct in what I wanted to convey to my audience. The concepts that allowed me to think about the quality and effectiveness of my work were genre, persuasion and revision. First of all, I had to know what kind of work I was composing and the key elements required to complete the project. Persuasion would allow me to convince my audience that I knew what kind of work I was writing. Revision allowed me to make my pieces concise and still meet the components needed for a satisfactory grade. I strongly feel that one learns from their mistakes and that if I could go back in time to completing the webpage I would in order to make it more organized and use my white space better. I think that the professional webpage is the one project that really needs more improvement and now that I know how to fix it, I feel that it can look better and more professional as well.

 

Collaborative Performance

 

The projects assigned to complete in a collaborative manner were of great help in developing skills needed in the workforce. These projects completely fulfilled the learning objects because each one fulfilled a number of things. The project plan required us as a group to come up with an idea or issue that needed attention and a solution. We had to bring in all the information needed from various sources in order to determine if it was a problem that required our attention. In this process, we had to research in order to gather the necessary information for the following steps of the plan. We were able to design a plan and execute it in an organized manner. The Instruction set was developed individually, but was later improved by conducting a usability test with multiple individuals, including a classmate. the testers for this usability test helped us in improving our instructional set in various ways. We improved the design, the style, the mechanics, and the grammar of the page in order to make it more understandable for our audience. Also, this test allowed us to conduct research and gather results as to how effective the instructional guide was. In class, one of my colleagues gave me feed back to improve my guide. She mentioned to me that I had to move some sections around so that the reader could be able to find the necessary information. The technical report was the project that required the most group collaboration because it required different minds to work on the idea that was designed during the project plan phase. for this project, we used the media and technology to conduct primary and secondary research of our project idea. We learned the skills needed to read and analyze the research that was gathered and evaluate how useful they were for the report. The writing for the report had to be adapted to a more professional style and also, designed and organized in a way in which the reader would be attracted to read it. In order to further the team's success on these projects, I had to adapt my style of thinking to theirs so that we could all be on the same page. For this project I was working with all engineering students, therefore, I felt like I had to think a little more like an engineer. This required me to do a little of extra research on the matter that we were focusing on in this project in order to know what I was required to write while putting it together. The concepts that helped me think in creating and making my work more effective were audience, revision, and collaboration. I had to know to what audience I would be presenting the work to in order to have a more professional and direct piece of work. Revision helped us as a group to move things around were needed so that the project could flow smoothly. Finally, collaboration allowed us to put different thoughts together for the project. This diversity of ideas allows us to see how each one thinks and incorporate a little of everything that could make our projects stand out from others. Of course, like any other process we encountered some challenges. During the process of gathering our research, we were not able to come to a solid and supported solution due to two factors. The questions to our survey had mixed results, which gave us some unreliable information because it was not concrete. Also, not having complete details from Larry Fodor as to how our committee and its structure works in Wayne State, did not help us with our group project in terms of seeing if the problem also came from there. In other words, we wanted to see if the problem had to be attacked from that perspective. Despite these challenges we were able to complete our project and gain valuable knowledge.  

 

Conclusion

 

The work that I have completed, both individually and collaboratively, has met most of the learning objectives for ENG 3050. The one learning objective that, in my opinion, I did not fully meet was that of design in respects to my professional webpage, all my other design work, I think, I completed successfully. I need to work on more on designing webpages and using white space more carefully. I think that the most important strategy that I learned this semester was on how to evaluate the sources that we had gathered during our research phase for the group project report. this skill is very useful because one will be able to know how to look, gather and use the sources at hand. Some of these may not be the best ones, but they are important to you to include in a paper to support your point. This research strategy will help me when it comes to writing my Honors Thesis my senior year. This writing project is twenty pages long and I have to put my research skills to work. Another lesson that I learned was that in order to have a group of people to work together one must have a plan and roles identified in order to meet the objectives of the task. This strategy will allow me to work more efficiently in the future when I start my career because now a days, one has to learn how to work with groups in order to get a project moving. Sometimes it takes more than one mind to see the various ways of accomplishing a task and even combining these in order to be more creative and efficient. Overall, this course has met all the requirements mentioned in the syllabus and has taught me great lessons that I will carry on to my future career.

 

Comments (1)

Ryan Thai said

at 12:24 pm on Apr 27, 2015

Edit in red. Looks pretty good.

Need the following: Explain as to the exact technical nature of the problem you are experiencing in your individual performance. Also, state any challenges you saw or encountered in our project and what can be done next time. Let me know if you have any question.

Ryan Thai

Ryan Thai

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