Friday, November 7, 2008

#7

In my first post, I talked about communication as something difficult to master and I hope to understand more about communicating effectively with others. With regards to communications as something difficult to master, it still holds. But with regards to communicating effectively, I definitely learned a lot. Through all the blog posting, resume creation, survey report and the presentation, I am now equipped with so many transferable skills as compared to many other modules I took. Although the learning process was rather tedious and time-consuming, on hindsight, it was worth the while.

Of all the things I learned, I am glad to say that I written communication is the most useful of all. I have always wanted to improve my writing skills but just did not know where to start. Now, after this course, I finally realized where my writing flaws are through the 7Cs of writing. For me, I tend to be incoherent and incomplete in my writing and that was rather evident in my first post. After reading it again, my thoughts are not linked properly and it did not flow like I wish it would. I realised that good writing is when the reader goes "Ohh..." after reading it. When I write, I tend to focus on the big picture and leave out details. After this course, I know that details cannot be left out and one has to be complete in his writting so that the actual meaning is carried across. The fact that I naively assumed that the reader will imply and reach the same conclusion as me is flawed, very flawed. Now, I seemed to be more sensitive to bad writing than I am before! This is good news; I finally know where to start on improving my writing and the next step is to actually practice it on all my written work.

To end this post, I wish to say a great big thank you to the whole class for all the comments in class and to my blog. Kudos to sensei Brad for providing all the insights into our work and teaching us so much through your personal experiences. Lastly, to the 2 angels in my group for being the best teammate ever!