by Annaliesse Reyes, College of Public Health

Throughout the Fall 2023 semester, I have been a graduate lab assistant for an introductory biology lab course for non-STEM majors. There were a lot of firsts for me in this semester: first semester in my graduate school program, first semester as a graduate assistant, first experience with teaching at all, and my first job experience where I had a leadership role. Within this role, one of the most challenging ones has been in the writing disciples. “Writing” and “science” are not two categories that spark creativity and nuance when put together. How do you teach (mostly) freshman students how to write scientifically, when all they’ve learned how to write was what was taught in their English and Literature courses from high school? I recall early on into the semester how much I was surprised by the way my students wanted to write about their scientific findings. However, upon much reflection—and lots of regrading—I now understand that knowing how to write scientifically is not as easy as it seems.

Most people view scientific writing as opposite from creative writing: boring, technical, concise, and efficient. There was a lab activity a few weeks into the semester that taught students how to identify scientific writing vs. creative writing, but there was no specific curriculum on teaching them that skill. Ever since then, I had taken extra time and effort into guiding my students on what scientific writing should and shouldn’t look like. I have learned that consistency is key for this type of learning for my students. It has been more effective when I point out that they’re personifying bacterial processes or using metaphors to describe health crises, for example. Interestingly, it has also been most helpful when I am conservative in how much feedback I provide. I have had the opportunity to exercise that skill myself of writing concisely and getting my ideas across to my students in a way that does not confuse them or overwhelm them.

I truly believe that my students and I have been learning together and teaching each other in ways that I had not anticipated before the beginning of the semester. I have already discovered a few WIPP principles that will help me in my future career. As an aspiring health administrator, it is important to be able to work together with groups of people who may not come from the same educational background or work with the same level of ethics that I may have. This is a natural part of working in the public healthcare sector. One WIPP principle that has helped me as a graduate lab assistant, and I believe will continue to be applicable to my career is how to properly peer review. This has been a skill that I have learned myself as an undergraduate and have had the opportunity to take what I’ve learned and demonstrate those skills to my students. Peer review is extremely important in the field of science regarding publications. Knowing what a good peer review looks like and how to use peer review feedback will be beneficial if I ever dealt with research projects during a program planning process. Also, understanding the primary steps when constructing a research paper will benefit that process as well. Primary research has become a newfound interest of mine regarding emerging and continuing trends in public health and safety, and knowing how to interpret data and making it easier for general readers to understand is a skill that is useful for all disciplines.

Overall, this experience so far has initiated a lot more learning about myself and my writing behaviors than I ever expected it to. I have begun to understand the writing process outside of my own academic experiences and have been working hands-on with my students in understanding not only their thought processes, but their writing styles, and using those differences to help build them into well-rounded writers for their future endeavors.