Running head: Reflection 1

Reflection on Assignment One and Peer Workshop

Lavernia Boyd

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Reflection 2

Reflection on Assignment One and Peer Workshop

As I reflect back on assignment one, I must admit I enjoyed the peer workshop. I initially felt a little guarded because I am sensitive about my writing. However, I received positive and constructive feedback. One of my strengths was the way I went about make things clear to my reader. I wanted them to have a visual of what I was observing. I accomplish this by adding the two pictures of the conference room as well as providing a detailed description of the 9th floor. Also, in my observations I provided great details of each actors clothing and activities. My greatest weakness and Achilles heel is my grammar. I had to read the paper several times to change sentences around and make sure things made sense. In addition, I removed words that I felt was not necessary to convey the point or was making the sentence much too wordy.

In terms of feedback I got so many useful suggestions from Brittany and Charles it was a pleasure to work with them both. There were simple suggestions that made things better to understand. For instance, I needed to move the observation one title to the actual start of the observations and change the title of the paper to assignment one. In my first observation it was casual Friday and I did not note that I just put the date. By putting that detail as a note explained the relaxed style of dress on that day. I also needed to note the abbreviation CE stood for City employee. Even though I put it in the actor description it was needed at the start of the observations. They brought out some points of giving more details in descriptions. It needs to be understandable to someone who does not work at the Government Center or ever worked in a business setting. An example of this was my description of Wanda Braswell, Assistant to the CEO. I wrote that she was a standard in the workplace but did not clearly state why she was a standard. I revised that description to include that based on who she works for people look to her as an example and if she is doing or wearing something than it must be acceptable. Now anyone reading that would know what I meant by her being a standard. One major suggestion was in my summary portion I talked about the discourse communities I expected to find and that paragraph was very bad. When I read it again it was not coming across what I really was trying to say. After taking sometime I really got it to where I thought it was clearly broken out in to the various discourse communities.

There was also feedback that I left out just because I felt it really did not change my observation. I was advised by the group to give details of what I do for the City of Charlotte, because of my interaction with Ethan in observation one at the 1:50PM timeframe. I felt that it really did not lend to the observation. I was just noting what actually happened. Why it happened was not necessary and in my opinion and explanation of what I do was like adding a why he was asking me that.

Finally, I think one of the ways I went above and beyond was adding an introduction video. It is only a one minute video but I think it provides a visual of the expectation of business casual. Two other simpler ways I think I did more was interviewing two people for the project. It needed to have the voice of a female and a male from the workplace. It stressed that there really is a definition for business casual since both a male and female had similar responses. Lastly, the photos of the observation area defines the whole office feel and can assist the reader as they are following the observations.