As I have stated many times before in numerous reflections, writing is not something that comes naturally to me. There are many struggles that I find hard to overcome, for example limiting the sources that I use when writing and how much I write in general. However, over the course of this semester, my writing abilities have improved and this can be explicitly seen through the progression of my work overtime in this class. My progress is due to the eight learning objectives that were reinforced throughout the entire length of the course. During my time in this class, I was able to create different pieces that were each catered to different audiences. As well as enhance my strategies for reading comprehension and analyses with the use of my skills as well as the skills of others. Furthermore, I was able to develop my source use practices and utilize them in many of my assignments. This progression in my writing can be visualized in the work that I accomplished over the semester as well as my understanding of what writing is and what it does. 

Though the overall goal of most of the writing has been to organize and synthesize scientific information, each of the assignments has been different in their own way. This difference lies in the intended audience for each assignment. I had to learn how to negotiate my own writing goals and audience expectations depending on certain conventions of media, medium, and rhetorical situation (L.O.3). For example, my General Audience assignment was written about the potential effect of parasites on depression, this is a very difficult topic for anyone who doesn’t know much about parasites or depression. I had to understand that my diction, as well as the syntax, should be configurated for a general audience.  Understanding that my audience should play a major role in how I write is something that I had to learn over time. However, what I write and how it is categorized is just as important. Understanding the different genres in writing allowed me to effectively write across multiple scientific contexts (L.O. 5). I was able to write an expository text in the form of the Scholarly Article assignment that explained the connectivity in the brain, while also being able to write a descriptive text in the form of the New York Times assignment which described the writing style of an author. Taking into account the audience and their interpretations of my writing not only required my own mind but including that audience, or likeminded people,  in my progression.

Though my personal writing progression is the focus of this essay, the support of others was needed in order for this progression to take place. Acknowledging the linguistic differences of others as resources and drawing on those resources in order to help me develop rhetorical sensitivity (L.O 1), has allowed me to write in a way that adapts to the situation. These linguistic differences can be seen in the peer reviews for the New York Times, Literature Review, and General Audience assignments. Using the feedback that I received in those reviews I was able to construct the final drafts for a lot of my work. The use of this feedback allowed me to fully understand the social aspects of the writing process (L.O.4).  Alongside receiving feedback from my peers, there were multiple other steps that I took part in before compiling a final draft.  These steps consisted of learning how to enhance my strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing, and self-assessment (L.O 2) which allowed me to write, recognize errors, and fix these errors. This can be seen in the first drafts of the New York Times, General Audience, and Literature Review assignments. Specifically, the General Audience and New York Times first draft where the edits are clearly visible. The final drafts show these edits taken into consideration. During the process of editing, I not only realized the importance of planning before you write, which can be seen in the General Audience Plan as well as the Annotations but also the significance of reflecting after. As can be seen in the General Audience reflection, the Poster evaluation, and the New York Times assignment reflections, these forms of self-assessment and assessment of others not only helped me understand the writing process that I took part in but also how to improve it. Assessing what I had written after I had written it allowed me to ensure that it made sense, both in terms of the language structure and the science behind it.

A major part of all scientific writing is being able to support claims that you make in the writing. In order for me to make my scientific writing more effective I had to strengthen my source use practices (L.O. 8). This required me to practice using multiple different resources including library resources and the internet (L.O. 7). These skills became necessary in the writing of the Annotated Bibliography Articles and the Lab Report. These two learning objectives are something that I struggled with. I have trouble recognizing the number of sources that I need in my writing. I either use too few sources or too many. In the Lab Report assignment, I found it especially difficult to utilize only 2 sources in the introduction. I plan to overcome this shortcoming by taking part in more science writing. Overall, I have learned skills that will help me in both my science writing and non-science writing

When scientists complete their research and have more to share with the world, they write in what is known as science writing. Science writing is meant for all possible audiences, not just fellow scientists. Their finds are written in everyday language so that everyday people can understand and share. It’s important to avoid scientific phrases that might confuse the readers, as well as explaining the science in a way that doesn’t isolate the reader and what they believe. Science writing should be less serious than scientific writing, which is meant for scientists and written lightly and sometimes even with slang. The overall goal is to educate people on what is being written, without losing their interest or boring them. Writing for the sciences is something that I can say I have participated in all semester and is something that is important for communication between people who are part of the scientific community and those who are not. 

As can be seen throughout this assessment piece, my writing skills have drastically changed over the course of this semester. I have furthered my knowledge on how to draft and plan my writing, how to edit my writing as well as the writing of others, how to use the resources I have in order to make my writing more effective, and how to use audience expectations, conventions and genre analysis in order to develop engaging writing. Writing is something that I still struggle with, this essay itself is something that took me a while to plan out and outline. However, with the knowledge that I have gained, and the knowledge that I plan to seek out, it is something that I am improving in.