tl;dr putting in just the right of background information and jargon is hard and honestly just requires a lot of practice. However, constant feedback let me practice quickly, and knowing the final project in advance allowed me to spread out the work.

The hardest part of scientific writing for me is determining what is and isn’t necessary information given my audience, and sometimes even that isn’t clear. While I have read numerous papers, sometimes because of poor writing but more often because of my lack of knowledge, they often seemed so full of jargon that I couldn't even begin to determine where to start deciphering the data, analysis, and conclusions. To this end, having professors who specialize in the field was very useful for providing context and explaining basic jargon. Through the homework assignments, I gradually began to have a better sense of what a typical reader would need me to explain. 

On a different note, I had been used to taking lab notes on a physical notebook, and so having an e-lab notebook required me to remember to keep updating it soon after class so that I didn’t forget any important details about that day’s experiments. However, when done well, I found the conclusion part of the notebook entries helpful in reflecting on how the experiments fit into the bigger picture. This in addition to the constant feedback from homework assignments allowed me to begin working on and updating my developing data summary from the second or third homework assignment, and this helped alleviate some of the heavy workload that came with finalizing the data summary.

- Bri Ko (the meme is not strong with this one, sorry fam...)

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