As the semester drew to a close, we were asked to write a self assessment of our work and participation throughout the semester. What did we learn, what did we improve or want to improve on in the future, how would we rate our work. We were also asked to include discuss how we did or did not achieve the course goals. My problem writing this was avoiding rambling and staying focus on task. Since it is a self assessment it was easy for me to find myself arguing for things that I did or did not do without staying objective to the task. Hopefully I covered it better than I thought. Some of the things I learned in this class were to continuously revise work when given the opportunity, take advantage of peer review and draft as much work as you can so you can continuously discuss your work with peers or professors who would be able to give you pointers. Another thing I learned during this course is that scientific literature may be credible, but simply because it is published does not mean it does not contain “Bullshit”… Let my paper explain.
The Self Assessment
English Writing for Science Majors is a class that focuses on developing reading and writing and critical thinking skills of science literature. By examining scientific articles and analyzing the presentation of information, students learn to differentiate credible scientific articles as well as evaluate the information presented to determine whether an article presents a solid foundation as well as provides evidence that supports it as opposed to “Pseudo-Profound Bullshit”. This paper will discuss my abilities and disabilities to incorporate the Class Learning Outcomes (CLOs).
Over the semester, I have been exposed to multiple scientific pieces that were hard to read and sometimes understand. Incorporating class discussion into my own paper without making the same mistakes accredited scientist make was a very difficult task since literature is different from scientific literature. Avoiding dramatization and alliteration have been very difficult, such as opening a paper with a quote to hook the audience. I have learned that scientific literature follows a template that includes an abstract, introduction, method section, conclusion and discussion especially in Research papers. I also gained knowledge of online databases such as PubMed and MEDLINE that are imperative in locating Review Papers and Scientific literature articles.
Coming from a scientific background as a Biology Major, it was easy to understand the formatting of the literature we read in class, but it was different writing my papers based on the course outcomes. For example, writing the Research grant proposal on the non-traditional presentation of vascular complications in women. My first approach to writing the Grant proposal was to establish a problem-solution relationship, and the create a plan to solve the problem using a specific hospital, number of participants and more specific details throughout. Luckily in writing this in my draft and being able to ask my Professor, I was taught that it would be better not to specify as well as write a method section seeing as I would not be conducting the experiment myself and did not have results.
Another problem I had was generalization in my papers. Scientific literature is about accuracy, instead of using words like “best” it is advised to use realistic phrases such as “better” or “more likely”. Since science is a vast field with many topics and subtopics, I also had difficulty choosing one path and staying on it throughout. An issue that I faced in both my Literary Review Paper and Research paper which were closely connected. The research process of my Lit Review started with the investigation and Review of “Elevated heart rates in women”. I was going to analyze what caused these problems in a specific age group and what doctors are doing about it. As I continued to research, I found that this topic was too broad and there were multiple types of vascular complications in women and multiple procedures that are done to resolve each problem. The difficulty continued far into my research paper and it helped to write my research paper first, before writing my review paper.
Incorporating the CLOs into my paper, I always tried to answer the question “So what, who cares” and answer the question in a way that a “3-year old” could understand. First I tried to identify my audience as fellow college students who were misinformed on the topic I was writing about, then I simplified any Jargon or concept that may have been tricky for me in my papers to prevent my audience from getting confused. This was reflected during the peer reviews held during class, after reading my papers to fellow classmates, I was usually met with minimal suggestions and ended up asking more questions than they did. Although this was unfortunate, my concern was that I oversimplified information and sometimes included information that was not necessary. Luckily, I was able to receive feedback both form this course and my science course that also require the writing and formatting of scientific literature thus I managed to both CLOs to my advantage as well as confuse them in both courses.
What I plan to do in the future is continue reading scientific literature, analyzing the information to identify “Bullshit” and practice writing my own Reviews and Research Papers seeing as it is a skill that I will require in the future. The first paper I would like to re-write outside of this course is my scientist profile since I wrote about a professor that I admire. The problem in that paper was I praised her as a professor but due lack of interest in her research I rushed through it. My plan so forth is to evaluate her work and explain why it is important, I also plan on personalizing the paper to include early life and quotes tailored to young female students entering the scientific field. This paper will serve as a template for students who take her course and decide to take ENGL 21003 to write a profile on her since it will have information about her that cannot be found anywhere else.
What I did well in all my papers was clearly explain what the paper would be about, examine evidence and use credible resources in my citations. I struggled to assert my views in the framework of my papers and overpopulated them with quotes and facts and information without explaining what it meant or why I included it. This was a problem I attempted to solve in my Research paper as well as Lit Review. Like the Interview for my Scientist Profile Paper, I learned that I did not need to include a paragraph with answers to the interview questions, the answers are supposed to be diluted into the paper itself having a flow of information as well as personalization to the Scientist. Generally, I established a stance and using facts, information, quotes and evidence, I wrote the framework of my paper to reflect what I wanted my audience to see or learn.
An example of this, is my Research paper, during class presentation I explained my paper being a grant proposal about developing a study that monitored Vascular Complications in women and then treated half the participants with Percutaneous Coronary Intervention. This was problematic since I was proposing two different studies. One to monitor and identify symptoms in women and one to treat those problems. Thus, I was advised by my professor to drop a significant amount of my research on PCIs and focus on the problem-solution relationship for simplicity. Although hesitant, I was able to write a much stronger paper since I only had to focus on one aspect!
Be as it may the class was short, if I were able to take a second course of this class, I would want to focus on more drafting and collaborating as well as revision. I left this class with a stronger ability to detect credible works of scientific literature and became aware of the BS I unintentionally incorporate into my paper. I believe my writing has also become strong over time, since my drafts and final revisions are worlds apart. A draft that may have started with one topic, bloomed into a more focused refined topic that included evidence and a steady argument that related to my audience.
