Setting Goals
Setting personal goals for learning helps you take control of the process. Goals are most useful if they are:
- Specific—setting out exactly what you hope to achieve
- Measurable—describing something that can be observed
- Realistic—describing something that you can accomplish during the weeks you spend on the second module.
Setting a goal does not need to be complicated, though. To set your goals, think about the writing you do at work and what would improve it the most. Think about your tutor’s feedback, and especially anything your tutor has mentioned several times.
Here are some examples of goals based on the aspects of writing discussed in Module 1:
- I hope to make my writing more precise. I will eliminate the use of words like “some” and “most,” and use statistics where appropriate;
- I will use the active voice unless there is a good reason not to;
- I will stop using the phrases “make a decision” and “conduct an analysis” and use the verbs “decide” and “analyse” instead;
- I will watch for other examples of noun-based writing and substitute verb-based writing.