Students of ENGL 21003,

This semester in ENGL 21003 has altered my outlook on writing. This course may educate scientific majors on the written composition skills necessary to make their future work accessible to the general audience. Its utility in communicating complex scientific topics and persuading others. It is academically demanding and rapidly raises the understanding of many scientific writing styles. It is critical to eliminate the idea that the sciences and English interact less as topics to correctly comprehend how to write in diverse genres. This course taught me the importance of connecting with others and the complexities of scientific communication when seeking to communicate information to a specific audience. Since I have always liked writing for artistic and therapeutic purposes, I have never thought about the need for comprehensibility or accessibility in my writing, even in scientific publications. However, this class has shown me how high-quality scientific writing can educate and create trust between scientific groups and the general public. Furthermore, writing without an audience or end goal in mind results in a lack of control over what your writing will do after it is received.

In what ways have my perceptions on what writing is and does evolved this semester?

During this course, I was shown a different way of writing than I am typically used to. I have always enjoyed writing, whether for therapy or creative purposes, but this course has allowed me to view writing differently. Having a scientific writing quality can help educate and create a higher understanding between scientists and the public community. I have never thought about the need for comprehensibility or accessibility in my writing, even in scientific publications. I can also write to an intended audience, considering everyone has different viewpoints and opinions. Ultimately, the goal we are writing about is one that everyone is trying to justify.

How do the audience and purpose impact the content of text?

Whenever writing, I never thought of writing to anyone outside of classmates or teachers. With this course, I realized that no matter what the writing is about, there is always a bigger audience, an outside audience. In this case, the audience was those who were part of the science community and those impacted by the problems we read about or wrote about. Knowing your audience creates the purpose of the text; having purpose could make a huge impact on the text. It is essential to know not only who you are writing for but why as well.

Was there a challenge in writing across genres and addressing specific audiences?

It was my first time generating a piece of writing in that genre for each class assignment. It took much work to examine genre features and try to duplicate them quickly with excellent quality, but this enhanced my analytical abilities throughout the semester. Specific categories, such as informative reviews, took more work to write clearly and briefly for non-scientifically informed readers.

Discuss how, as a class, we explored and analyzed, through reading and writing, a variety of genres and rhetorical situations. How did we do this?

Before recreating examples of a genre of scientific writing, we would analyze them carefully as a class, starting with readings and comments, followed by a genre analysis that identifies essential elements of that genre and how they appear in these samples.

Review your letter of introduction from the first week of class and see if your responses from questions 7 & 9 have changed since taking the course. Explain.

Question 7: What are two characteristics of an “articulate” speaker? Do you consider a person having these qualities intelligent?

In my response, I wrote two characteristics of an articulate speaker to be comprehensible and clearly understood. My response to this question stayed the same. Being able to express yourself and your ideas makes your writing more effective. Someone who can clearly state their understanding of the topic and be able to keep others engaged is a person who is comprehensible. Making it known that no matter what the topic/issue is, they will always be easily understood by the public. Their speech affects the outcome and reaction from the public. Having a strong vocabulary and good communication skills creates someone who, to me, would be identified as an articulate speaker.

Question 9: Explain why Standard American English makes science writing more accessible to the general public.

For this question, I wrote that it is more accessible because it is written so the public can understand what is happening throughout the science community. I still agree with this; to keep the public interested in the science community, the language it is written in has to be easy for them to understand. While it is easy to research unknown information, it is best if the information is accessible to the public because not everyone has the same access to things. Having it become available to everyone will keep the public interested in the topic until they have created a change in the community.

Overall, the outcomes of the courses were different than expected. I learned many valuable aspects of writing, especially regarding science. After this course, I can use my creative writing skills and science writing skills to write more efficiently for future writing purposes. I never realized the impact of all the details that go into writing any science related, but they all play a major part in having a successful impact on the community and environment. Knowing your audience and purpose are the main factors, but each factor that we learned in this course all affect each other, to create a more understanding piece of writing.