Blog Post #3

Justin Liu

Finishing this research article was a huge personal victory for me. As a whole, it was by far the longest paper I've ever written, and the content was so different from other things I've written about too. The resources I found most helpful were the homework assignments.

The homework assignments primarily served as a way for me to stay on track. It got me writing, and it got me writing early. There's something about being able to be writing my main research article and then just going back to previous homework assignments and pasting in my work that made me feel so productive, watching that page counter jump by 1 or 2 pages.

The M2D9 homework specifically also got me thinking about the whole "story" my paper would try to tell. In order to make good data and form a results/discussion section based on it, a hypothesis (at least a rough idea) was necessary. This homework not only served its purpose of making me feel good about myself when pasting in the contents, but also served as the brainstorming phase, which was possibly the most difficult part of this paper. How would I make a coherent story out of this deluge of data?

I ended up finishing my research article rough draft before the M2D9 homework was even handed back (of course, I went back and fixed things the comments pointed out), but the thinking that it forced me to do was critical and allowed me to take advantage of the four-day weekend. After having a hypothesis in mind, the rest of the results and discussion came easy with the experience I had from M1. All in all, the homework assignments may have been a bit annoying to complete in the moment but in the end I'm very grateful for them and the thoughtful comments that came along with it.

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