Three years ago I attempted to write an independent research paper for the first time. I was lucky enough to have phenomenal resources at my disposal from a biological standpoint, but my knowledge of effective biological communication was incredibly minimal. My first step was, of course, to write the title and the abstract and work my way onto the methods, results, and discussion. I had no plan and went after the paper as if I was a hungry child on his birthday with a cake all to himself. Which bite should I take first...
Jumping ahead three years, I met Sean and the rest of the remarkable 20.109 staff who have aided me exponentially improve how I approach the process of communicating biological research. Module 2 was a really enjoyable one for me. I'll be honest in that I didn't always know what I was doing at first (i.e. Why were we taking reverse complements of certain sequences? Why did we add ampicillin to this culture?), but there was never a moment when I felt I didn't have a valuable resource at my disposal.
This was all the more true when it came time to organizing my data and work on paper. At first, I was entirely overwhelmed in much the same way I was my senior year of high school. The abstract seemed tantalizing. I mean it summaries everything I did, why wouldn't I write that first?? The title! Of course get that on paper. That's the easiest part! Turns out my brain was full of fallacies that took me until this Module in 109 to reverse and grasp completely. Every communications lesson gave me a clearer understanding of what an effective research paper should look like, and what I should be thinking about as I write.
By the end of the paper-writing process, I remember thinking back to my time senior year so much so that I actually pulled open the paper I wrote back then. After reminiscing for a minute, it amazed me how far I had come with the help of the instructors and professors in this class. This Mod contained a lot of different experiments, difficult molecular bio and cell bio concepts, and potential for misunderstanding 'why' and 'how' things were done. After the initial moment of bewilderment at how to collate all of this information in a clear format, I was excited to take on the challenge. I was excited to prove to myself that I had really gotten something out of the hours of the discussion we spent on effective communication. Mostly, I was excited to see the transition I had made from a high school science student to a more experienced one. The transition process won't really ever stop, but at least I know I'm making progress.
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