The Self-Assessment Essay

Through the course, writing for the sciences, with professor Debra Williams, I feel that I have made sufficient progress when it comes to my skill and development as a writer. The 4 different major papers I had to write for the class were an informative review, a position paper, a research proposal which was followed by a critical research paper. One of the most important things I learned from this course was how to go beyond the writing in an article or research paper. I first believed that this course would only consist of writing about what I learned from different scientific sources or experiments, however, I was mistaken. I learned to deeper analyze articles, and read them on a more critical level. In order to write scientifically, I had to read scientifically, which I feel was the most important skill I can take from the class.

For each of the four papers, I learned how to explore and analyze, in writing and reading, a variety of genres and rhetorical situations. Informative review papers update readers about the state of knowledge on a focused topic or research issue without taking a position. For this paper, I read about various articles that discussed cloning, and had to inform the audience, the general public, about cloning and attempt to alleviate any ethical concerns regarding cloning. For the position paper, I was given the topic of informing the general public on the necessity of an alternative energy source, and a major difference with this paper was that I had to take a position, and try to convince my audience to side with my position. The research proposal and the critical research had a similarity, that stood out from all the papers written for this course. Instead of being given a sort of prompt, I was required to create or find on my own, a research question, in which I chose, “What are the effects of veganism/vegetarianism on human health?” For the proposal, I came up with a hypothesis, and my methods section consisted of scholarly sources used to justify my hypothesis. Since I didn’t fully conduct research or an experiment, my outcomes section talked about what I hoped to achieve from this research. For the actual critical research paper, I addressed my topic and its significance, and introduced the need for more research. I used 4 sources, in which 2 of them were research paper. I used the methods used in one of the papers to fill out my methods section. Based off of different sources and readings, I applied what I learned about different lifestyles into my results section.

There was a lot of planning, reading, organizing, and brainstorming that went into writing in each science genre. For the all the papers, I read and annotated articles that would relate to the topic. Whether the paper was informative, a position, or research, I would read articles that are in support of my main points, and I would also read articles that go against my main points in order to address the opposing sides, and provide some sort of counter. The third course outcome was to negotiate your own writing goals and audience expectations regarding conventions of genre, medium, and rhetorical situation. With each paper, I would generate my papers a little differently depending on the target audience. If my audience would just be the general public, I would try to avoid using words that would be difficult to comprehend, or I would try to add as much definitions as possible to help create a better sense of understanding. We would have our firsts drafts due in class so we can collaboratively edit the papers with our peers, and provide one another with feedback. This was helpful because I would find mistakes with the help of my classmates that I did not initially catch. This part of class helped achieve the course outcome of engaging in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes.

Another course outcome was understanding and use print and digital technologies to address a range of audiences. The purpose of using visual imagery in science writing is to create a sort of attention getter. Often times, people can get lost and bored when reading scientific papers; Visuals can be a helpful tool by keeping the reader intrigued about the topic. I selected the visual imagery I chose for my essays because they gave some kind of an idea as to what my paper may be about. For example, in my position paper, I used an image of solar panels on my cover page, which implied that I will be pushing for investment in solar panels.

Another course outcome I hoped to achieve was to . Locate research sources (including academic journal articles, magazine and newspaper articles) in the library’s databases or archives and on the Internet and evaluate them for credibility, accuracy, timeliness, and bias. Most of my sources for my papers were provided by my professor. For other sources, such as in the research paper, I used the CUNY/CCNY “Opposing Views” database. This helped as it provided me sources that went against my argument, so I can create counter arguments/rebuttals. One of the other course outcomes was to compose texts that integrate your stance with appropriate sources using strategies such as summary, critical analysis,interpretation, synthesis, and argumentation. For the informative review, I would use parts of certain sources to make concessions. For example, “Opposers of the system of therapeutic cloning disagree with the treatment of embryos, and claim that it creates a gateway to reproductive cloning, which is ‘The use of cloning to grow a living person who shares the DNA of the progenitor.’ (Savulescu, 2005, p.18).” This was used in my paragraph that addressed the opposing side to cloning, in which I later tried to alleviate the concern.

The final course outcome was to Strengthen your source use practices (including evaluating, integrating, quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, synthesizing, analyzing, and citing sources). To decipher difficult sources, the main technique I used was annotating. Everytime I found something that would be potentially useful for my papers, I would either underline or highlight, and write a short paraphrased version of the sentence on the side. In addition, reading the abstract for research papers would help me grasp a better understanding. For example, the Morales article was one of the more difficult texts to decipher, however, reading the abstract gave me a brief main idea of the paper.
Overall, I do feel like I made improvements as a writer by taking this course. The course guidelines were implicitly achieved throughout the assignments, and it made the quality of my writing better. I feel like previously, I wasn’t able to address different audiences with my writing however I learned that when you write, your audience is the most important thing to consider because it will determine in what style your writing will be. To add on, I learned how to critically analyze and assess different articles/research papers through this course. Although there were numerous course objectives, the achievement of most if not all is what made me a better writer.