Research Article Thoughts

Writing a scientific article the second time around was definitely easier, but not exactly easy. Because we weren’t in the classroom to do the experiments ourselves, I felt separated from the data and purpose of our experiment. I tried to use office hours to ask questions, but in the beginning of the module, I felt like I didn’t even have enough base knowledge to craft a coherent question. 

One thing I really appreciated with this research article is that very little background information was given on the biological systems, so we could craft our own story of how the data fit in with the general public and published scientific literature. Instead, during lectures and labs, we learned about how to work with the vast amounts of data that we were collecting from RNAseq and qPCR. I also appreciated the help organizing the paper, because that was something I was most worried and confused about before I thoroughly read the instructions for this assignment. 

Even though I wrote most of the discussion for the first data summary assignment, the discussion for this paper took me the longest to fully comprehend and write. After consulting with a BE communication fellow, I started to realize that the point of the discussion is not just to talk about your own research, but to explain how it fits in with the broader context of the field and show why your results are important. 


Looking back at how much I and the rest of the class have learned this semester so far, I never would have guess we could write an entire research article by ourselves. I feel so much more prepared going into this last module, this summer, and junior year.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Message from the Peak of Everest

Hello world. As I stand here about twenty feet from the summit, a sense of accomplishment washes over me. It's an undertaking few have conquered. Still, at the same time I feel a sense of dread. I made it here, but what about the trip on the way down? Supplies are lower than expected, the crew is tired, and the nights have been getting longer and longer. There's a small chance we might not even have enough oxygen for the next two days, I haven't had the chance to do the math. Why are we even up here? What hubris drove us to try to conquer this majesty of nature? What were we looking for? Looking out across the broken and jagged Himalayas, I feel contemplative. It's about 6:34 am, and the darkness is starting to lift. Wind is strong, but no snowfall. We dug ourselves a little crevasse to shield ourselves from the wind, and we're on the east side of the mountain. 2 more minutes till sunrise. It was a difficult trip up. It was lonely and sad and cold and
Read more

Zooming in on Journal Club

This journal club has easily been the most unique one I’ve done. Some things still stayed the same, like having to identify key components to form cogent story. It was an interesting challenge to excavate the main data of my paper and pare unnecessary details and figures. I could feel the pressure of the 10-minute time limit as I tried to strike a proper balance of details to enhance the figures’ main story without overwhelming my audience. An unexpected challenge, however, was to get around the sheer awkwardness I felt when catching a glimpse of myself presenting in the corner of my screen. I always have had a nonzero amount of presentation anxiety, but I didn’t expect the same feelings to resurface when talking to a computer screen instead of a live audience. I also found that became more attuned to specific words and phrases than I would in a live presentation. Consequently, I found myself restarting my recordings over small details that I normally wouldn’t pay attention to.
Read more

Reflections on 20.109

Today was the last lecture of 20.109, and as I signed off the Zoom call, I felt a little flutter of sadness. 20.109 presented a unique dynamic that I'd never had in a class before. I'd never had to spend 5 hours a day in class for a single course, or had to present my own novel ideas and be subjected to the interrogations of my classmates or instructors, or write my own research article draft. I learned a bunch of new skills in 20.109, but the following were the ones that will stick with me the most. 1. Schematics - I learned to LOVE making schematics. So much so, in fact, that I am strongly considering buying a BioRender subscription, which is something I usually avoid at all costs. There's something so satisfying about generating your own schematics for presentations and controlling every aspect of the story the image tells. I love coordinating the colors and paring the experimental details down to what is absolutely necessary to tell the story. 2. Effective prese
Read more