When entering this class, I did not expect to learn much from the class. I was under the impression that it would be just like any other writing class I had previously taken while in college, with the only difference that the topics of our writing will mainly be related to the field of science. However, that perspective of mine quickly changed. Among the many things that were learned in the class was the proper way to write literature reviews, successfully creating a social media campaign which would actually create interest in the intended audience, and also the writing of blog posts.

When writing the literature review, there were many things that were new to me which I had not learned before. First and foremost, the APA style of formatting was something which was foreign to me as all the writing classes I had taken previously required assignments to be formatted in the MLA style. I had learned that the majority of the documents written in the STEM field were usually written in the APA style. Also, I learned how to actually write a literature review. When I first heard about writing the literature review, I was under the impression that we must state our opinions on certain research papers. However, in class I learned that when writing a literature review you are only writing an objective review of the content of the paper itself, not giving your own opinion. This means that you are not contributing to the topic with your own point of view, rather, you are writing about whether the experiment tested the hypothesis in a correct and efficient way or if there were mistakes in the actual experimentation and observation. In order to write the literature review, a great deal of research into different topics and research papers was required. The professor showed us how to find credible information as well as efficient ways to search for research papers online. The most important part of doing the literature review, however, was getting used to working as a team. My team members and I collaborated on the work together and communicated our ideas and points of view on a frequent basis. We also met outside of class in person to discuss our progress with each other.

Concerning the awareness campaign, a specific portion which I would like to speak about is the infographic. Before this class, I had no idea what an Infographic was, but I now have a clear understanding of what an infographic is, how to make one, and also what story an infographic is supposed to tell. While making the Infographic, at first, I had too much information and it did not look aesthetically pleasing to a reader. I was advised to use as little as words as possible and to only state major facts which would grab the attention of the audience. Following this advice improved my group’s infographic greatly.

The last piece of work I would like to cover in this reflection is the Blog Posts, which was also part of the Awareness Campaign. Although I had written numerous blog posts in the past, this class helped me confirm what I was doing was the correct method. The blog posts were expected to be concise, and should not cover a wide range of topics. Rather, they should focus on one subtopic within the topic of the awareness campaign and discuss that subtopics importance and relevance.

It was a great pleasure to be in Writing for the Sciences and the skills and information I learned are very valuable and practical.

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