Discover my progress in this class by reading the following story. I know you like stories. The works I refer to can be found on the Writing Assignments page.

 

I honestly had very little idea what to expect coming into the class. I assumed it to be like every other writing class I had taken but boy did professor Grove prove me wrong. Upon hearing the story about MIT’s bad writing I knew I had better buckle up for the ride. I did not think it would require so much of me nonetheless, I was willing to do whatever it took. Writing for the Sciences is one class I know has improved my art. Every essay, every reading assignment and every activity helped. Using the course learning outcomes as a yardstick, I feel I have made the necessary progress although not as much at the same level for each of them. This discussion is an assessment of my progress based on the given course learning outcomes.

Firstly, from this class I can acknowledge my and others’ linguistic differences and to draw from them to develop rhetorical sensibilities. I remember the first article we read was on the use of jargon, Pseudo profound BS by Pennycook. I was amazed at how someone could take such an unacademic word and transform it into a jargon. Right there I learnt that my personal perception of a subject did not matter as much as how I presented it. By reading more articles, I discovered that most authors held fairly or radically different positions from mine, but I learnt not to completely ignore them. I learnt to build a framework for discussion around the topic using their publications as references to either support my argument, as a spring board for my discussion or to establish counter arguments as necessary.

Secondly, I learnt new strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing and self-assessment. Prior to this class when reading an article, I spent most of my time on annotations and trying to gather information as the main ideas, supporting details etc. A couple of days into the class and I began to observe the rhetoric of pieces, their mode of presentations and their validity. This new skill was the engine behind my literature review assignment, being able to correctly assess the work of others. For instance, a material having scientific evidence is not necessarily valid. Several circumstances could factor into the outcomes such as the wrong interpretation of data, sample size, sample bias among many others. Primarily, I learnt not to accept anything without careful consideration. I also learnt to be independent of others in revising my essays. Prior to this class I heavily depended on others’ feedback to do my revisions whether they be professors or tutors. By reading the book and listening to in the class lectures I declared my independence. For example, in my scientific profile I received the professors comment about having multiple ideas in one paragraph and switching subjects within the same paragraph. In my research paper, the last of my essays, I was very mindful of this, even without anyone’s help. Not to say that I completely achieved this skill, but I believe that I made substantial progress. And through increased writing opportunities I will become even better at it. My research paper for instance was purely an application of this knowledge I received.

In addition to this, I cannot overemphasize how beneficial the peer reviews were to me. Through the activities I had the opportunity of viewing my own work through the eyes of others. And I got to learn of others’ interests and struggles. Where I thought I was the only one finding difficulty, I had hope in knowing how others overcame theirs. Their challenges also awarded me the privilege of sharing my wisdom. I was also challenged by the commitment I saw in most of my mates especially by a girl who had a final draft ready before the first draft was due.

It wasn’t all in a bowl of roses though, I was forced to end unhealthy habits as confirmation biases during my readings. In formulating my stance through and in my writings, I would watch out only for information that reinforced my stand and ignored others that negated my argument. Particularly in my annotated bibliography professor Grove pointed this out and encouraged me to involve certain articles even if they went against my position and that this would help build an even stronger argument. I demonstrated my understanding of this concept in my research paper where I included information about surgical robots even though it did not necessarily back my stance. Still more room for improvement in this department because I know taking a stance require digging for information that support my line of argument. And so in as much as I comprehend the concept, I believe that I have not completely grasped the practicality of it because it was one of the late lessons I got from this class.

lastly, PubMed PubMed, the Bible of this course. I discovered PubMed in this class and I spent more time on PubMed such that “PubMed” is almost synonymous to company to me. All my essays from my scientific profile paper to the research paper contain articles from pub med. The in-class tutorials were also extremely helpful as a guide. Moreover, using PubMed required that I cited. I had always heard about the importance of citations, but professor taught me that they were extremely important. Especially when I got a zero for citation inconsistencies. And because I never wanted a zero again, I took the pain to study a new citation guideline according to the American Medical Association. Now I am fairly an expect in the art. I will not take citations lightly ever again.

In a conversation with a friend I attested to the many writings and the amount of work to be done in professor Grove’s classes. But one thing was certain, we always came out better writers.