BE 20.109(S19) Class blog

The hardest part of 20.109 is definitely sitting down to write down what we discover in the lab. If you asked me after of the first day of class however, I would've given you a completely different answer. At first, I was intimidated by the fact that I was probably the only person in that classroom who had never been inside a bio lab. I was even scared of asking what a pipette was. Fortunately, I got THE most amazing and patient lab partner ever! She has helped me through the learning curve of working in a bio lab. As I've grown more confident in my abilities in the lab, I've realized that the hardest part of this class happens outside of the lab. Sitting down to write anything is already a big enough challenge. Figuring out a way to write down our findings in a cohesive and concise manner is pretty difficult. Nonetheless, I love the amount of support we get. The teaching team is there to help in EVERY step of the way so there's really no excuse to not do great!

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 physica...

What surprised me most from this module is that there is a very specific protocol to writing scientific research that it seems all researchers learn. I had read published papers before but never realized that all of them follow the same general format in terms of how the abstract, figures, results, discussion, etc. are all written. I also learned how unintuitive this style of writing and design is to me. Trying to create figures and captions, and writing the different sections of the data summary was very challenging, as I had to change my way of thinking to fit the accepted protocol of scientific writing. The first figure caption took me probably 3 days and 4 iterations to create, and I still don't think anything remotely similar to it would ever get published in a paper. Trying to write a concise abstract that still has enough detail (but not too much detail!), and write results sections tailored to a specific style was the hardest part in completing the data summary for me. I ha...

me at 10:01 pm monday night: I used to think writing essays for HASS classes was a struggle, but wow, I definitely underestimated how much time and effort goes into scientific writing. Additionally, all my high school writing teachers and my college application counselor highly stressed using active voice, so trying to write in passive voice was a bit of an interesting experience. One thing I wish I did during this process was to fix my homework right after getting it back with feedback to save time later. Procrastination is always bad, the end. While I really like making figures and editing things, I think writing captions and starting the writing process itself are super hard. The methods section was the easiest because we had a procedure to build off of, while the data section was difficult because we had to analyze the data we generated and explain the significance of it. However, over time, I think I got better at writing(??). My plan for module 2 is to take more...

For me, the hardest part in Module 1 was definitely the figures. I had no prior experience making figures or captions, so it was really difficult for me to know what exactly was important and what wasn’t. I definitely see the progress I have made in the conciseness of my captions and titles. Office hours are great and really helped clear up a lot of confusion I had on the assignments! I also really enjoyed Mod 1 because a lot of the experiments that we did lined up really well with what I was learning in other classes, which really helped reinforce my understand of the material in all the classes. I think writing the Methods section was my favorite part because it was very straightforward, and the easiest place to start tackling the data summary. It was also very helpful to have my research question and abstract really hammered out because it helped me stay focused on what exactly my project was centered around and making sure that the information is was writing down was...

Justin Liu       Module 1 and 20.109 as a whole introduced an entirely new way of writing to me. Sure, I had read scientific journal articles and papers before, but writing in a similar style is an entirely different ballgame. I had spent my entire life being taught be humanities classes and writing instructors to convey my ideas in an active voice. I was often criticized for making my sentences too wordy, and just as I thought I had broken into a good habit as I entered college, here I was, struggling on homework to make my methods sections or captions sound "academic." Homework assignment after homework assignment, my time spent formulating sentences decreased slowly but surely.       Thankfully, by the time I got to working on the Data Summary, I somewhat had the general idea about sentence structure down. However, that assignment itself was a struggle and a half. One of the biggest things I struggled with for the Data Summary was trying to convey a ...

Before I took this class, upperclassmen had warned me about how many hours I would have to put into it. Having now completed Mod 1, I see where they're coming from. However, what they failed to mention was how rewarding it is to gain technical writing skills. Mod 1 took me out of my comfort zone. Every assignment, especially the first figure, left me wondering what on earth was required of me. However, I really enjoyed that the assignments were given to us piece-by-piece. Constantly receiving feedback that I could then use towards the next assignment was satisfying, and my technical writing ability has grown over the past few weeks. I appreciate that there was a constant emphasis to zoom out and appreciate the bigger picture. At the beginning of the semester, my writing skills were purely confined to literary, analytical writing as well as some historical writing. These skills do not apply themselves to technical writing; I found it difficult to restrict myself to passive voice a...

I am actually really impressed with how much improvement I have seen with my science writing over these past couple weeks! At first, I was very unconfident in my writing abilities -- I did not know what constituted a “good caption” or what was too little or too much information to go along with a figure. I found myself putting in a lot of time in on the homework assignments and being hesitant to submit. However, by the end of submitting the data summary, I consciously noticed that writing captions and results were significantly easier than it had been in the past! Every assignment that had constructive feedback (which was all of them, lol) helped me grow and communicate more precisely. I also enjoyed having a project that allowed me to comprehend/piece all of our data together. I cannot remember another assignment where application of what was done in class (not just the main facts) was a main focus. I found my mind being pushed to see the bigger picture of the project and ...