Anthony Ton

ENGL 21003

Writing for Sciences has been an interesting and rewarding class. The work was new to me and different from what I have experienced in a traditional English classroom. I had to apply my knowledge and understanding and augment that to include scientific aspects. The assignments were designed to teach me to achieve the course learning outcomes. The assignments that allowed me to achieve these course learning outcomes are the annotated bibliography, the informative review, the product review essay, the scientific rhetorical analysis, and peer review. Each of these assignments was tailored to improve my abilities as a writer. 

The annotated bibliography was one of the most important assignments; it taught me the course learning outcome of using various library resources, online databases, and the Internet to locate sources. This is an extremely important course learning outcome as I might need to reference online library resources, databases, and the Internet to find a source I might utilize for a paper. This assignment required me to collect sources that could be used for my collaborative group project and informative review essay. This assignment allowed me to search for accurate articles as well as summarize the article in a sentence or two, making my writing more succinct. This assignment was difficult because it was different from what I would normally do in regards to my sources: copy the links of my sources and introduce them as I needed them in my writing. However, organizing all of my sources and including the main idea of the sources allowed me to effectively sort through all of my sources and find the one source that I needed. Furthermore, the annotated bibliography was acted similarly to an outline as it organized all my ideas and thoughts of what I needed to write before I even started writing. With the annotated bibliography, I found my thoughts were more connected and flowed more smoothly and my writing was more organized and well-structured. 

The informative review allowed me to achieve the course learning outcome of strengthening my source use practices. Before this class, most of my writing was argumentative or opinion-based. With this essay, I was able to practice switching between objective writing and opinionated writing. Prior to this assignment, I might have organized my sources as I wrote: I might have included an article or a study that I found as I was writing. However, I had to think about how I could organize my writing so that I could tactfully use the sources. The incorporation of the sources is important especially because I had to explain the status of research of the respiratory system in my informative review. If I were to simply include a collection of sources, that would be no different than an annotated bibliography. The sources had to be grouped in a way so that they could be introduced in a fluent manner throughout my explanation and progression of the status of research. The informative review also taught me how to paraphrase the results of the papers within the essay so that it is fluent. 

The product review essay allowed me to accomplish the course learning outcome of enhancing strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing, and self-assessment. This essay was the first large assignment assigned for the semester so it was important that I start good habits for more assignments. This assignment encouraged me to reread my work and self-assess what parts of the essay needed to be corrected and which parts were effective at portraying my message. This assignment did not have any peer review opportunities so I had to practice reading through my own work and reflect on myself. This skill would be useful for other papers that we would have throughout the semester. This assignment helped me to hone my own editing skills so that I would submit my best draft for peer review. I have improved my ability to edit and revise my essay after writing. 

The scientific rhetorical analysis essay helped me achieve the course learning outcome of formulating and articulating a stance through and in my writing. This is because I had to make a claim or argument in regards to how the researchers or scientists who wrote the paper. To achieve this course learning outcome, I needed to voice my understanding of the paper and explain to the audience if the authors achieved their goal through their rhetorical strategies or even how they might have organized the paper. By practicing on a real scientific paper, I also learned how to read the paper and mark the paper so that I can use the paper as a sort of outline for whenever I start to write. This type of writing a more familiar to me and although, I think I have mastered rhetorical analysis, I still need more practice to perfect rhetorical analysis in scientific articles.

Peer review has enabled me to accomplish the course learning outcome of developing and engaging in the collaborative and social aspects of the writing process. During the peer review process, I am able to work with my classmates to improve their writing and get advice from them. We might share an idea that we both could benefit from and incorporate their ideas in my writing to make it more well-rounded because they might have a better way of phrasing or they might identify that a way that I have phrased something may be better a different way. I might read something from a peer’s work and would like to include it in my own because they might have worded it better or they included in-text citations. I was also able to read other classmates’ work and help share my viewpoint on their writing so I can improve on their work while they improve on mine. This is a skill that I think that I have mastered and will continue to use peer review throughout my academic career. 

Writing for Sciences has been a very engaging and rewarding class that has taught me new skills that I could apply to my writing. The assignments may have been difficult but allowed me to hone in on my skills and allowed me to achieve and learn the course learning outcomes. This class has allowed me to grow and improve as a writer overall.