Comments for Technical Writing

Comment on #Tutorial: Determining Your Course Grade by salem B Almarar

salem B Almarar — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 03:07:32 +0000

It is the first time I have written something like this. At first, I was really confused since I think I am not that good at evaluating myself. The labor logs helped a lot! it helped me keep track of my work ( and lack of in some instances).

Comment on #Infographic: Overused Words by Maia Dupes

Maia Dupes — Sat, 13 Jan 2018 00:49:19 +0000

This infographic reminded me of a book I read called “Nabokov’s Favorite Word is Mauve”. It combines writing with statistics to analyze different writing styles and patterns. One of the patterns is addresses is frequency of word use. While all the above mentioned words might be overused by people in general, I think we should keep in mind that we each probably exhibit over-use with different words. We should look at our own writing to determine what words we are most likely to gravitate towards. One of the statistics I found interesting from the book was that women are more likely to use the word “actually” than men. And while women are use more pronouns in their writing, men are more likely to exhibit a gender bias – using the pronoun “he” more than “she”.

Comment on #Tutorial: Using Lists to Organize Information by Paul Stiles

Paul Stiles — Fri, 12 Jan 2018 22:38:30 +0000

Example 2 is almost identical to how I take notes for all of my classes. This organization style is possibly the most important skill I learned in high school and has only increased in value though this class. I also used this formatting style for my short proposal and my progress report to help organize the relevant information.

Comment on #Infographic: Overused Words by Paul Stiles

Paul Stiles — Fri, 12 Jan 2018 22:17:24 +0000

I have the biggest difficulty with the word “like” and and filler words such as “that” and “really”. My solution to the “like” problem is by replacing it with the word “such as”, because it works in almost every situation. With “that” and “really”, I try to remove them from my papers unless I need the extra emphasis.

Comment on #Write: Proofreading Facebook vs. Proofreading Essays by Paul Stiles

Paul Stiles — Fri, 12 Jan 2018 22:06:26 +0000

I rarely use Facebook, but i definitely understand this comparison when ever I tweet or post something on Instagram. I view the reason behind proof reading over Facebook posts more than an essay is due to the length. Reading over 2 sentence require little to no effort while reading a 5 pages essay gets boring fast.

Comment on #Fact: How SPOT Evaluations Are Used by Paul Stiles

Paul Stiles — Fri, 12 Jan 2018 21:46:58 +0000

I generally do SPOT surveys even if they are a bit tedious. The data they get from the surveys, especially when it involves the math department, can be extremely useful to the teacher and the department.

Comment on #Fact: How SPOT Evaluations Are Used by KC Cowan

KC Cowan — Fri, 12 Jan 2018 20:53:45 +0000

I personally have done SPOT evaluations during 2 of my 7 semesters so far in college. I usually find them very tedious, mainly because the system can act up and doing a survey for 5 classes can get tiring. However, now that I have reached some upper level classes, I wish more people before me had done SPOT surveys. There are some classes I’ve had where the content is disorganized or the professor is simply not the best. Because students don’t take the time to give their opinions, problems with classes are not resolved. If we do not speak our. minds, then problems will continue on for those who come after us.

Comment on #Tutorial: Determining Your Course Grade by KC Cowan

KC Cowan — Fri, 12 Jan 2018 20:48:58 +0000

The thought of writing the Performance Review is very daunting to me, and it’s nice that we have a comprehensive list of everything that applies to our grade. Between this and the Final Exam assignment specification, I have all of the information I need.

I think that keeping track of our work with the Labor Logs provided the most preparation for this assignment. They provide concrete evidence of time spent and the amount of work done over the past three weeks. I also think screenshots of any additional posts or messages that a student has made will really help them in his or her self-assessment.

If anyone is confused about structuring their paper, I think starting by addressing your progress in each expected labor category (Feedback, Writing, etc.) may be a good place to start. It is direct and encompasses at least the expected content.

Comment on #Watch: Performance Review Resources by Paul Stiles

Paul Stiles — Fri, 12 Jan 2018 18:12:44 +0000

One of the most important aspect of a performance review or job interview is to be confident. Although you might have the skills to do the job to no one will know it unless you tell them. Confidence is the ability to sell yourself to the interviewer. If your lucky the interviewer will throw “softball” questions but if you really want the job you’re going to have to do most of the work.

Comment on #Write: Visualize Your Progress by Paul Stiles

Paul Stiles — Fri, 12 Jan 2018 18:00:31 +0000

Although I did not use any visual aids in my progress report, the one I think is most beneficial would be the the “Chord chart” presented in the “How to Think Visually” infographic. One thing I tried to do in my genre report is to link together many of my interest into the report. Doing this would give it some extra utility when I plan on submitting a scientific article to a publisher in the future. Chord charts are great at presenting the information and tethering ideas and forming connections. Using a chord chart could visually show how I organized my thoughts.