Reflection Journal for Professional Research and Communication

Question: Discuss about theReflection Journal for Professional Research and Communication. Answer: Introduction With a continuous advance in research and technology, it has become imperative that a person like me who want to achieve growth both in personal and professional life need to study further while holding a job that remains the basis of my income and earnings. For that purpose, I joined the course, ITECH 5500 Professional Research and Communication at Federation University, Australia. This course offers wide-range information related to IT research through a series of ten workshops that were conducted on weekly basis. The main focus of this course is to enable a student to display a critical awareness of previous research that has been done in some kind of IT context with an example of a chosen topic area. This assessment is completed through a basic understanding related to research techniques and theory. This understanding also requires a clear communication of different ideas in a professional manner. Through this process, the student understands the purpose, result and the application of research in a real-life situation. Before starting the course, I was both excited and apprehensive about the content of the course and unsure about my ability to fulfill the required criteria for completing the course in a successful manner. About the first workshop When I participated in the first workshop, I did not know what to expect and as a result, I was excited as well as apprehensive about the coming class. The first workshop was devoted to issues related to the assessment of the problem-solving skill sets. As part of the workshop, the instructor directed students to visit two specified web pages of Mindtool website to test their own problem-solving and self-confidence skill sets(Morley-Warner, 2000). Further, the instructor also offered extensive educational material as resources on this topic. Suffice to say that, I took the test after reading complete article. I scored good grades in both tests and uploaded the analysis after completing the assignment within the deadline. I was aware that various tools such as SWOT analysis and PESTLE analysis are used in business as a routine matter, but this was the first time when I realized that it can also be used for understanding specific issues related to an individual. About the second workshop The main focus of the second workshop was related to explore and understand various concepts and theories related to research philosophies and paradigms. The educational resources included watching video and reading lecture material that was provided. As part of the study, we learned to how to choose the topic of research and prepare the relevant problem statement and research questions. I believe that this is most important part of academic writing as it provides direction of impending research(Morley-Warner, 2000). About the third workshop The third workshop offered extensive information about the important role played by literature review in any research paper. According to the instructor, the section of literature review not only information about the previous studies that has been conducted other researcher related to the problem statement, but also about the arguments and evidence that would be used in my research paper. The assignment I needed to complete was to search and find a wide-range of journal articles that I would use in my stated research project(Morley-Warner, 2000). About the fourth workshop The fifth workshop in this course was devoted to explore and understand different theories and practices on non-verbal Communication and its effects. As part of the educational material, we also needed to understand the types of both qualitative and quantitative research methodology for quality data-collection. We also discussed various questions such as when, how, why and where of choosing the methods. After discussing these topics, I felt that the problem statement I had submitted earlier required more refining and I modified it further with the new knowledge I gained during this week (Morley-Warner, 2000). About fifth, sixth, and seventh workshop Citations remain an essential part of the academic writing without which any academic paper is incomplete. It is a fact that every format of academic writing uses relevant material from previous research studies to argue the case or validate the research argument with strong evidence and it is polite to acknowledge the work of other researchers and scientists. The use of citations and bibliography also resolves the problem related to plagiarism(Morley-Warner, 2000). According to the topics I studied during these weeks, there are many styles of in-text citations and bibliography that are used to acknowledge the original sources in different academic disciplines. Some of the most common references style includes APA, MLA, Harvard, and Chicago among the others(Morley-Warner, 2000). Each citation style covers every aspect of an assignment such as title page, the format of the assignment such as the introduction, body paragraphs and conclusion. In addition, it also includes the format of references or bibliography. Although I had done some kind of academic writing, I did not have much idea how to use in-text citations and bibliography and I believe that this was the most important thing that I learned during these weeks(Morley-Warner, 2000). About the eighth workshop After understanding the concepts related to various parts of an academic project, it is imperative that this week is devoted to understand how to organize the material for writing the required academic paper. For example, here, I learned how to use bibliographic software present in the word document as well as how to organize synthesize the literature review material in an academic project(Morley-Warner, 2000). About the ninth workshop The next step in this week was to present an oral presentation and for that purpose, the main focus of the study was to understand various techniques used by Barack Obama, the former American President. In addition to that, I also learned how to create an outline and oral presentation for my impending research project(Morley-Warner, 2000). About the tenth and final workshop The last and final workshop offered extensive information about how to check and re-check the final paper for any error related to style, grammar and some small but significant things that enhance the quality of the paper such as cohesiveness of the paper and smooth transition between different sections(Morley-Warner, 2000). Conclusion Academic writing remains an integral part of the university courses and contemporary research. Before joining this course, although I had some knowledge about how to write a good academic paper, this course enabled me to study this course in an in-depth manner. Reference Morley-Warner, T. (2000), Academic writing is: A guide to writing in a university context, Centre for Research and Education in the Arts, Sydney.