9 May 2012

Jorge Serrano
English Department: Scientific Writing
California State, University of Fullerton
926734
Dear Dr. Bruce,

This letter is to show my progression in becoming an effective scientific writer
by providing evidence in my understanding and mastery of the student learning
objectives (SLOs). Showcasing these talents are the following documents: the original
proposal, peer review of the proposal, revise proposal and my peer review of a cover
letter. I chose my original proposal as my major revision as it was the lowest scoring
paper that I had written. My poor assessment of the grading rubric, lack of preparation
and coupled with pour time management practices led to a rushed and disorganized
paper. Although this paper is a bad representation as a scientific writer, this assignment
has provided me with an opportunity to avenge my creditability. With a better
understanding of the SLOs, I was able to find my mistakes, fix them and ultimately
learn from them.

One of the biggest mistakes that I made on my proposal paper was the absence
of citations and a poorly generated bibliography page. The impact of this mistake is
especially detrimental in my given field of molecular biology. Without the proper
acknowledging external information, any work that I produce could be labeled as
plagiarized and could quickly be discredited by the science community. Knowing these
implications, I fore filled the second SLO, by properly re-citing claims referenced by
Graham et al, 1992 on the screening process of Helicobacter pylori. Also by following the
APA citation rubric, I was able to fix the indentation and improper underline use.

The inspiration from Grahams et al,. 1992 acknowledgement page helped
envision whom my targeted audience was. According to this section it showed that
Graham not only worked with medical doctors (like himself), but also individuals with
PhDs (Doyle J.Evans emphasis in Microbiology/Biotechnology). This information
greatly changed the labeling of my topic headings (SLO 4) to reflect the tone (SLO 5) of
both professions. For this reason I made my topic headings reflect the differences
between methodology (SLO, 3) done by medical doctors (endoscopy) and the molecular
biologist (ELISA). This gave my proposal the impression of encompassing different
aspects of science to accomplish a unified goal.

The sense of unification shown in my proposal paper, somewhat resembles the
unique dynamics of our class, as it allows people from different science concentrations
to collaborate for the first time. This interaction was especially useful when performing
peer reviews (SLO 6). It allowed a fresh insight on how to improve one another papers
as each person brought a different aspect of scientific knowledge to the table. Also this
was a great way to start informal dialogs (SLO1) through email and text on ways to
improve our papers.



As you can see, throughout the progression of this class I have come to realize
just how significant the student learning objectives are. They serve as a set of guidelines
to help focus ideas and channel them into an organized, clear and concise written paper.
These skills will greatly impact my future in the molecular biology field. This know-how
will allow me to properly funnel my future scientific findings into well thought out and
methodical works such as lab reports, presentations and progress reports.