TO: Robert Arnold

FROM: Marcus Andra

DATE: 10/28/2015
SUBJECT: Midterm Reflection Memo

The writing for employment and writing instruction modules have both been a vital source of
writing experience. Starting from day one, when our class was asked to find a job posting, I
didnt know what kind of writing assignments would originate from it. Using our job posting, we
began learning the interworks of writing a resume and letter of application. After using a gap
analysis to find our faults, I hit my first dilemma once it finally came time to writing the resume
and letter of application. While focusing on the resume, I didnt have a problem writing it, as we
had a reasonable set of directions to follow, but when it came for edits and revisions, I didnt
know what kind of editing needed to be done. Sure I could have reworded some sentences for
improved articulation, or even used more sophisticated wording, but would doing these things
really be productive? Unexpectedly, the one thing that I felt has never helped me in the past was
conducted, peer review.
Peer review had solved my problem. It may have just been due to the fact that the peer review
had detailed bullet points to follow; nevertheless, details such as additional contact information,
educational background, and even contact information formatting was all brought to my attention
in a matter of minutes. Even for the letter of application, issues such as excessive praising in the
last paragraph, an unintended switch of tense, and insufficient spacing towards the end, was
brought to my attention all due to peer review. The incorporation of making changes based on
peer review from that point on has always been taken into consideration, especially when

looking at the most recent assignment writing instructions. While looking at the draft portion of
the writing instructions assignment and comparing it to the final copy, it is made painfully
obvious how much information would not have been included if the peer review information
from the usability report was not taken into consideration. For instance, none of the pictures in
the first draft had any arrows, nor did it specify where to exactly look at in the picture. When
looking at step 3 for the modify portion of the draft, whole paragraphs of instructional
information was originally omitted due to baseless assumptions. If I didnt incorporate the new
peer review and editing skill set learned during the first module, portions already previously
mentioned, as well as the troubleshooting chart and hot key shortcuts would not have been
added, crippling the success of the paper.
Following the completion of the writing for employment module as previously mentioned, peer
review and general editing no longer became a major problem in my work; nevertheless, that
didnt mean my writing didnt encounter anymore problems. When my group and I were writing
the instructions for our topic, modifying and creating tables, a different type of problem came to
our attention. Through peer review and editing, we found out that we had a lack of audience
awareness in our writing. In other words, while looking at the first draft of the writing instruction
document, we made assumptions that the audience understood information outside our
directions. In the rough draft, at the end of the modify section, we give a simple statement that
finishes the directions for the draft. If the user however follows the directions, they are met with
more steps that involve additional clicking. All the necessary changes were made in the final
copy, but this experience was an important lesson on knowing your audience.
All the assignments that I have written until now has greatly improved my quality of writing. I
look forward to increase my skills has the semester goes on.