Prior to this semester, I assumed writing in college would be boring and filled with me writing about things I had no interest in ways that did not entice me. I was so sure I would write papers that were both demanding and lackluster. Through this class I found only one of those to be true. In the writing for the sciences class I took this semester, I was challenged to a level of reliability and independence, and teamwork I had never experienced before. As I reflect on my journey in writing for science classes, I recognize both strengths and areas for improvement in my approach to scientific writing. And have seen this through the various assignments I have done in the class.
My first assignment in this class was to write a resume and cover letter. Before this class, I had no idea what a cover letter was. I had never written one before and had no idea how to make one. So, when I handed in the first draft for peer reviewing. It was clear it needed a lot of work. Although it was completed It had a lot of misspellings and other errors that made it inadequate, such as the format. And it lacked substance in the first and sixth course learning objectives. But after editing it became more concise, but still lacked formatting. Which meant it was struggling on the second course learning objectives.
My second assignment was the rhetorical analyses where I rhetorically analyzed the PCJ perm brand. Before this I did not have any experience in analyzing any outside of articles and books. However, through the assignment with the “Breaking Down and Image” by Jenna Pack Sheffield, I was able to grasp an understanding of the multiple elements that someone can use to persuade someone in an essay. Which greatly assisted me in my own personal analyses on the PCJ perm brand. Making it easier for me to express my stance on the topic in a way that captured the depth of the issue. Allowing me to accomplish course learning objective six because I was able to formulate and express a stance about the PCJ perm ad throughout the essay My stance being that PCJ perm was a texturist brand that was both harmful to the mental and physical wellbeing of the women and girls it branded itself to.
My third assignment was the literature review, a collaborative assignment I did with two of my peers. This was the first time I had to work with anyone to this extent. And I was extremely nervous about doing so. But soon after a while of working together everything just fell into place. My group and I chose to write about the abortion ban in the United States of America. Due to the changing nature of our topic. I spent a lot of time going through websites and databases trying to find the most relevant information possible in that period of time. Allowing me to accomplish course learning objective eight. As a big part our assignment was how we used our evidence, as it played a crucial role in how successful we were going to be in it.
My fourth assignment was a collaborative research project. This assignment is connected to the literature review. As what we chose for our topic on the literature review would be our topic for the children’s book or website. We quickly realized that our topic was not suitable for a children’s book and so we chose to make it a website instead. I had never worked with the same group of people for this long. But after the literature review, I had gotten used to it and was more confident in doing my part in the group as well. In this assignment we accomplished course learning objective three as we had to come to a consensus of how we wanted the website to go and look. We also completed objective two as we did a lot of editing and revising throughout the process of making the website.
My fifth assignment was the presentation of the website. My group and I had to work together to create a slide presentation that talks about the website we made. Each of us had a specific section to talk about and make for the presentation. Aswell as the section of the website we were going to talk about in the presentation on our website walk through. In that assignment we were able to complete course learning objective four as for this assignment we had to work together to have an organized presentation. As well as objective eight, as we paraphrase many of our statistics to be more concise for the sake of time.
