The things I think are most important for writing in science

 

This week we had to submit our first assignment, the Position Paper. It was hard work, but in my opinion the toughest challenge still lies ahead of us: The team report.

 

Writing the position paper was daunting at times. Trying to be clear and concise and in the same time being consistent to the information from my researches, as well as being fair to both sides of the argument; proved to be difficult. However, it was a massive learning curve for me and opened my eyes to a whole different world in writing.

I am very passionate about my point of view when taking a side in an argument and trying to prove it right, and therefore sometimes is hard to give the opposition the credit it deserves. So, I tried to use the 7 steps from the “Thinking and Arguing objectively” video that was posted on week 1, which by the way, was very informative and really good advice. The tips helped me to take a different approach when defending an idea in an argument.

Verifying the credibility of researched information was another new thing for me, so was using different search engines, such as Google Scholar. Another essential learning from the lessons was to learn how to read a scientific paper and how to make the most of its contents.

So far, I identified that efficient researching, selective reading, using verifiable data and detaching yourself from the subject are imperative to prepare yourself for writing about a scientific subject. That is the base. Then, you must organise your ideas and present them in a clear order, making it easy for the reader to understand it. You also need to demonstrate your understanding of the subject fairly but succinctly, and last but not least: check, double check, and triple check your work before publishing it!

All learnings that I will take with me throughout my journey completing my BSc and beyond that. For me, I believe that organisation, clarity, brevity, and proof reading are the most important elements in writing in science. I hope I will be able to use these elements efficiently to help my team write an outstanding report for assignment 2.

 

Happy writing everyone!