1) Book Report on "Project Writing Skills"

Liang-ying

During the Cyberfair project, I was introduced to the book "Project Writing Skills for Secondary School Students", a book that taught me how to write brilliant project reports, diaries, book reports, etc. and from which I benefited enormously.

This book taught me the key points of various types of writing. For example, diaries could either be a narrative of the events of a day surrounding the "5W1H", or an elaborate account of the person's feelings and thoughts. To gather information for a report, we could make use of the Internet, as well as setup interviews with relevant persons during field investigations. In addition, photos taken by the researchers themselves add authenticity to the research project. A good report should consist of an eye-catching title, informative content, and illustrations or photos. Apart from mere account of what one has learned, a summary should also include one's reflections to offer a meaningful conclusion.

Thereafter, we prepared PPT slides and gave presentations to share what we have learned from the book with other group members. This book helped me develop an understanding of the key points of report writing in a systematic manner and reminded me of the important elements. It also helped to boost my confidence for the Cyberfair project!

En-chi

The most interesting thing about this book was that it taught us how to write. You could find detailed elaboration on all kinds of writing, such as diaries, compositions, and complex project reports. It was a very informative book. To me, writing diaries and compositions was not difficult, since I read a lot and I could write well as long as I had an outline in mind. However, as a primary school student, I was not familiar with project report writing.

I learned firstly that a project report usually consisted of a preface, a research report as the body and a conclusion. According to the book, project reports were actually a larger format of argumentative essays. I noticed that apart from a good mastery of the topic and collection and organization of the data via articles, photos, or if possible, interviews with relevant persons, another important feature of the project report was "referencing", namely to highlight the sources of the information contained in the report.

Furthermore, conclusion should be a summary of the entire research and explorative process. It should be in line with the topic and consistent in arguments. It would be even better if the researcher could raise some creative issues or viewpoints. If I could master the four key skills mentioned in the book, namely observation, error elimination, organization and speculation, I believe that I could write smoothly with ideas keep flowing in. I could even hope to develop independent thinking ability!

Hsuan-yun

The first assignment after participating in Cyberfair was to read the book "Project Writing Skills for Secondary School Students". This book provided me with many suggestions as to where to start when writing diaries, book reports, compositions and project reports. It also contained a training scheme for writing, making me feel more confident as to where to start, which used to be my problem.

This book also taught me about project reports. Project report was a kind of writing aimed to improve our abilities to think over a topic, ask questions, collect data, organize one's logic and finally to generate a conclusion to show one's research findings and insights. For project reports, the topic should be clear and precise, and at the same time, it was also important to use quotations and highlight the sources of information.

Whether we were writing book reports, compositions or project reports, conclusions were the most important in that they not only summarized the content of the article, but also presented the author's personal opinions, reflections and outlooks. It was also necessary for a good report to be in line with its research topic, have coherent arguments and display one's creativity. I really learned a lot from this book.

Ting-yu

This book taught us how to write and contemplate regarding diaries, book reports, compositions and project reports. For example, do not write "I am very happy" or list every detail of your life on and on in diaries. Instead, we could use the 5W1H method. When it comes to project reports, we should see whether the essay has a clear topic, a complete framework, adequate data, creative content, brilliant conclusions, etc.

In my opinion, we learn writing not to become a writer. Instead, the purpose of acquiring basic writing skills is so that we can give precise accounts, convey our feelings, have a clear logic and write in an orderly and proficient manner. Especially in the Internet Era, writing is a necessary skill for everyone. I believe that my participation in the Cyberfair project would definitely be rewarding.

Yun-jui

After a thorough reading of this book, I acquired a deeper understanding of how to write a good project report. The book also taught me the format of a project report. How to write a good project report? According to the book, you should address the topic, keep the arguments coherent, be creative, express your ideas in appropriate diction and make sure the word count is within the prescribed range.

I also learned the main four sections of a project report: preface, body, conclusion, and notes and references. It was suggested that data collection could be done via the Internet, reference books, interviews, etc. Since data collection via the Internet involved a large database, in this case the "keywords" should be as precise as possible. We could try search engines such as Google and Yahoo and simply type in the "keywords" to filter webpages with relevant news, statistical figures and so on.

Finally as a last reminder, the key points of the research topic could be raised through "Problem-based Approach". As long as you follow these procedures, surely everyone can write a good project report.

Yun-han

After reading this book, I acquired a preliminary understanding of project report writing. The key to writing a good report lay in the mastery of the topic, the coherence between the arguments, creative ideas and appropriate diction.

The fundamental thing about a project report, however, was its format. First, the cover page should contain the title and information about the author. Next, it should include preface, body, conclusion, notes and references. The book also introduced many channels through which information could be gathered. The sources of information included four categories. The first one was the well-known webpages. The second included reference books, almanacs and encyclopedias. The third was books and the fourth referred to oral interviews. All of these could be our data source.

In my opinion, project report writing is a good training. It helps to develop our data analysis and organization abilities, as well as writing and thinking skills. I should practice hard so that I could write good project reports with substance.

Fu-en

Although this book was intended for secondary school students, it was not hard to read. Instead, it was very practical and appealing with the comics. Writing had always been one of my weak points since I often found it difficult to come up with inspirations. The book taught me to develop my ideas from the topic-related keywords and choose from these ideas. When I could not find any inspirations while doing my homework, for example, I would use this skill. I also used this method to write this book report, in that I tried to connect the ideas developed from the title. I was happy that I managed to complete the report using the skills I learned from the book.

My progress for reading this book was 30 pages a day and I finished it in a week. If I did not complete the quota for the day, my mom would ask me to spend extra time the next day to keep up with the progress. Therefore, I read the 30 pages everyday diligently, and during the process I understood the importance of formulating a schedule and sticking to it. I wanted to thank my teacher for recommending the book and my mom for buying it for me. It helped me understand composition writing, project report writing and the importance of sticking to a schedule.

Chieh-ting

The teacher gave us a summer assignment, which was to read the book "Project Writing Skills for Secondary School Students". I learned from the book that as long as we mastered the basic writing skills, we could write about the Deaf Women’s Basketball Team in a precise, logical and proficient manner. This would allow our readers a clear message of what we wish to convey.

In school, we often have writing assignments. For example, we have to write cards, diaries, book reports, and compositions, in addition to the Cyberfair project which we are currently working on. All of these assignments might be misleading to the readers if we do not have good writing skills or if we use inappropriate wording. In fact, I used to be afraid of writing assignments because I often did not know where to begin.

"Project Writing Skills for Secondary School Students", therefore, was a life saver for me. It was a practical reference book. In fact, most of the writing problems mentioned in the book were not strange to me. This book taught me the solutions to these problems and my writing has since been improved. I want to thank my teacher for introducing this good book to me. I learned many writing skills from the book, which I hope to use to make our webpage content more precise and complete.