Advancement as a writer

My development as a writer has really accelerated in this semester. With writing three very long papers, I was able to see myself as a writer develop throughout the length of these papers. I think the most important point as to why I have developed as a writer from these papers was that I was able to write about topics that I found very interesting as opposed to old books that I found extremely boring. This is something that allowed me to actually enjoy what I was doing while writing and to enjoy the research I did for my paper. Another technique used in the class that really helped me develop my writing was the individual discussion sessions about the different research topics. These helped me get a feel for how good of a topic mine was and how much research I could really do. I also thought that a lot of the videos shown in class were helpful to giving us a good feel as to what the research paper is about. A good example of this were the videos on the goo vs. prickles. Overall I am very happy that I took this class as it has helped me advance as a writer immensely.

Peer Review science feature

Brendan’s paper:

               -I thought the lead was really good. It was very interesting and brought me into the paper very well.

               -Could have developed the intro lead a little bit more to make it a more effective hook.

               -I found all of the examples that you found very interesting. Especially the large part about the 3D printing.

               -I think you could add a bit more of a comprehensive conclusion to wrap up the paper and your thoughts on 3D printing.

               -Transitions are good

Kelly’s paper:

               -I think you had a great first sentence that sparked a ton of interest to keep reading but after the first sentence you went right into the heart of the paper. I think you could do a little more with the lead.

               -I think the first paragraph can be broken up to be smaller paragraphs that are more specific to one sub-topic,

               -You did a good job of simply explaining the cost benefits of making and selling meth.

Spencer’s paper:

               -Good lead

               -good data to support points

               -Needs a better conclusion to either wrap up the paper or expand on the future

Science lead

The pharmaceutical industry has become one of the largest industries in the world with the introduction of new drugs every year to treat any symptoms that one human being might have. If any one person went into someone’s house, they would most likely find an array of pills to treat countless amounts of undesirable symptoms. This has become somewhat of a problem across the United States. Putting aside the illegal use and distribution of prescription pills, even legally prescribed pills can be a massive problem because these medications don’t affect any two people in the exact same way. This makes it very difficult for doctors to correctly prescribe the medication that someone might need. There is however a new field of technology that can be the fix for this problem. The new technology of digestible computerized pills will allow doctors to monitor the exact effects of pills on the person taking the medication. With the information gained from these pills, there is no telling what kinds of advances we could make in medicine.

Overview of science feature topic

For my science feature paper, I will be writing about the new field of digestible technology. With the FDA just recently approving the first ever digital pill, this topic of research will be blowing up to epic proportions in the coming years. The possibilities for this field of research would give doctors a faster and simpler way of monitoring patient’s health through the use of brand new technology.

1.      Introduction.

-Intro of the new field

2.    Discussion

- History and current use of digestible medicine (medical pills, supplements…)

3. Current Research that is going on now and new technology that has come out

4. Future of this field of research and technology

5. Conclusion

Conference week assignment 3

For the comparison assignment, I read student 2’s and student 7’s essays. The first thing that brought me into these two essays and essay is the titles. Student 2 had a very good title called “The fountain of youth”. This got me very interested in what this essay might be about. While this title was very grabbing, the other title I didn’t think was quite as good in terms of bringing the reader in. The title of student 7’s essay was simply “Abu Ghraib”. This told me what the essay was going to be about but didn’t necessarily leave me with a desire to want to continue reading. As for the essays themselves, I thought both were very well written features in which I feel that I’ve learned something. Both had strong introductions that got me pulled into the essay. I could see that a large amount of research and time was put into making these authors experts on the topic. Something that I took away from these essays was the technique of being able to be informative and scientific while still making the essay very enjoyable to the reader.

Conference week assignment 2

For the second assignment I read, “So who can we kill?” by Michael Crowley. This science feature was about the government’s use and misuse of unmanned drone technology. There really wasn't very much science in this feature at all other than a few comments about the drones themselves. Most of the essay talked about the government itself and Obama’s actions regarding the drones. The author used some story like techniques to describe the problems with the unmanned drones and even more specifically, the irresponsibility of the government in using them. This article also took a turn to an issue that can be considered even larger and that is the seemingly unchecked secrecy that the government is allowed to use with they’re power. In my opinion, this was a great essay in explaining the controversial issue of the use of drones and the secrecy that the government overuses with them. There wasn't very much science or prickles in this essay at. This is ok however because this topic doesn't necessarily need a lot of prickles to be effective. For that reason though, I wouldn’t really think of this essay as much of a science feature paper but rather a controversial essay about a government issue.

Conference week assign 1

For part one of the assignments, I read the article, “If only they could talk” by Hannah Bloch. This article initially drew me by its interesting title. It got me first thinking of what could this author possibly be talking about and what she could want to be hearing from these things that supposedly can’t talk. As I got into the article some more and realized that it was the Easter Island heads that she was talking about, I became even more interested in the article. I’ve always been very interested in this mystery. I really enjoyed reading about all of the speculation and history of why and how the Easter Island heads got there. Unfortunately this article tended to lose my interest a little when diving into such details as the ideas of earth conservation. I do think this is an extremely important topic to keep in mind, however, it was not what I was originally interested in reading about in this article. I did like the following of the single archaeologist to give the essay structure. Overall I thought this was a well written science feature.