LEL 4: Basic Written Communication Skills

1. Interest level
I found this course to be very interesting because if taught to write in a very down to earth way. Thus, this course really showed how to improve our way to communicate. Being concise and neutral is the best way to prove your point.

2. Difficulty
In general, this course was fairly easy to understand. The presentation helped a lot because I did not have to always go back a few pages to confirm what I learned. As a matter of fact, the information flowed constantly and clearly; moreover, the use of tables was very useful for teaching to a visual person like me. For the exercises, they were challenging enough and resumed the theory efficiently.

3. What I Learned
- I learned some subtle changes in expressions could make a statement more formal. For example, it is more appropriate to use ''as if'' than ''like'', in a more serious context.
-Writing in a concisely speaks straight to the reader. In fact, even if some words give a poetic feeling to a text, it is always better to stick to the facts when trying to convince someone in an essay.
-Some ways of writing can be slightly sexist even though we use them frequently. This can actually give a certain stance to the text. For example, calling a character a waitress infers that this job is usually done by women. By using terms such as server instead of waitress, it gives a neutral tone to the text.

4. My Score
I did not get a score for this course.

5. Course Rating: 8/10
I found the course not only to be interesting and easy to follow, but also very useful. During real-life situations, clarity and logic are the two best elements to use to convince people. However, the main negative aspect is that the general idea of the course focused too much on shortening texts, while the use of jargon and abstract sentences are useful in many situations as well.