When writing essays for school or stories for yourself or friends, there is always going to be some difference in each writing depending on your skills and knowledge on how to write an essay. Throughout my time in school, I always struggled with writing, not knowing how to write a proper essay but in this semester in college I learned new strategies on how to improve on my writing in this semester and because of that, I am able to write more fluently and able to actually be able to write something that is somewhat interesting and has some tone. When I was in highschool I would always be told that my writings are boring and could only read them in a monotone voice.

Throughout my life I’ve been shy, even till now I’m an introvert and it is difficult for me to try to speak up to people or start a conversation. There are many things going through peoples heads when trying to speak out to others, thinking that they might judge you or make fun of you because of what you said but I have learned that the majority of people don’t care and some actually listen and try to help you out in certain situations. Sometimes I try to bring up some ideas about something that might interest someone but at the same time I could get shut down and make jokes out of what you say or just rub off and ignore what I say and because of this class I have improved in opening up and thinking ahead.

In the beginning of this semester I was told to write about one meaningful moment about myself and honestly, I have a lot of things that happened in my life and I couldn’t decide on one actual meaningful moment in my life, so I decided to pick something that took me time to overcome and fell in love with, which was snowboarding. My main audience for that essay was for people that are also trying to start to snowboard and are too scared or are already snowboarding and might’ve had the same experience as me. I also tried to have current snowboarders to try to get their friends to try it but not teach them because it could end horribly wrong, for example, when I tried to teach my two friends how to snowboard and one of them broke their wrists because he broke off from the group and slipped on ice. “I got my friends to start snowboarding and on the second day of them learning how to snowboard, one of them fell on their hand trying to catch himself on a fall and broke his wrist, so from that day on I would not even trust myself in teaching others.” (Meaningful moment) Then again they are now going down black diamonds with me like it is nothing after a couple lessons with a certified instructor.

In this class I have learned many different types of strategies to write a better essay and was introduced to a new type of way to improve your writing which is to have someone review it and to have them comment on what part they like, what part is good and where there should be some improvement. At first I would always stall for like 2 hours and have no idea how to start my writing or what to include; not knowing how to plan out how you will write the essay. When I was told about the strategies, it helped out a lot with the style that the writing should be in, having a specific idea of who the audience should be and what the proper tone should be to match the topic that I am writing about and the same style, for example if it would be an inspiring writing, I would try to make the writing sound fun and enjoyable to try to pull the reader in.

With all these new types of essays to write in each phase for this semester, it makes me go one step closer to getting better and better at writing and telling stories for people. When I wrote about the rhetorical piece, I tried to pull people in who might be interested in science and learning about biology the same way I am. What really got me into biology was the genetic mutations that scientists are able to perform on animals and people and just natural cell mutations that might cause someone to have some allergies and how scientists would soon be able to get rid of that by mutating it. Using in-text citations helps a lot when trying to write a research paper because you have all the facts right in front of you and do not need to really go out on the internet and search up extra things, unless you are trying to add something that might not be mentioned in the text.

In the most recent research paper for phase 3, I had to write about if mental illness is an epidemic in America and I said yes since I know from my own experience and research from across the country. This phase was unnecessarily difficult because I was required to have at least 4 sources while I was probably able to write the majority of the report with my own knowledge and experience. This helped me be able to research something and actually take my time to read the articles and learn about the topic I am supposed to write about. Many points in the report were from myself and my own personal experience with family members and friends who have been struggling with some sort of mental illness such as depression or anxiety. I have also learned how to properly cite the articles that you used. Before, I would just quote and give a page number but with online articles I learned I have to give the authors name and the name of the article at the end.

Throughout this semester and with all 4 phases finished, I think I have learned a lot and have improved in my writings. I am now able to properly write my own story and have new tools to use to make it sound better. Many people keep learning new things throughout time and from that they get better and better every time they write a new type of paper or just read and look at details in different writings. There are still a lot of things for me to learn and to improve on and I will try to keep getting better every time.

          Rhetorical Features in “Writing about Biology”

          Writers throughout the entire world have their own meaning in each book that they write. They include different types of rhetorical features to try to make a point in their story and for readers to enjoy their time while reading. They would have their own purpose in writing the story. Some might be to educate and to persuade readers, and others might just want to read to get their minds off reality and take a break. “Writing about Biology” written by Randy Moore. Moore uses multiple rhetorical features in his writing such as Logos and Pathos.

                     Moore’s article mostly points out Logos, talking about basic scientific knowledge to people. He writes about two scientists, Wattson and Crick, and how they were experimenting on genetics and what will happen when they try to combine them and have them mutated. They explain the steps on writing their very important report and what should be included while writing it. Moore elaborates on that by explaining how the scientists had to really focus on their writing, “Watson and Crick were extremely concise; their paper is only about 900 words long. Avery et al. were verbose; their paper is about 7,500 words long. Many great scientists have used concise writing to increase the impact of their work.” (pg 2). They need to be conscious of what they are writing because if they mess up they wouldn’t be able to get a proper report and people would not truly understand the meaning of the report. When making their experiments on genetic mutations, they needed to be certain that they were doing everything correctly and to prove that their hypothesis will stand with them and have supporting details why they are correct. “Watson and Crick were glibly confident of their conclusions; according to Crick (Crick 1974), their presentation “leaves little doubt” that Watson and Crick “thought they had a good idea.” Avery et al. seemed hesitant to make conclusions, and Avery himself had “nagging doubts” about whether they were right (McCarty 1985).”   (pg 2). They were not fully sure what to have as their conclusion or if their experiment would be successful but at the end they were able to finish it the way they were supposed to.

          The main purpose for writing this article was for scientists to know how to write their articles properly since Watsons and Cricks won a Nobel Award. Moore writes the steps so they would not make a mistake and have written a proper report on some big experiment that they might conduct. The article also appeals to future scientific students who might be into DNA and genetics mutation and would also be showing what should be included in reports as a future reference. “Watson and Crick proclaimed their work as important in their paper’s second sentence (“This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest.”). Conversely, Avery et al. made no claims about the

importance of their work; instead, they described their work as being merely a “more detailed analysis” of an already well-known process.” (pg 3) You need to put a lot of effort for you to succeed and with effort, you must put in a lot of time into your work.

          The article has also included Pathos, the author explains to us readers how when writing a report or any summary, you must put in emotion into it for people to get hooked onto the reading and actually be interested in it, and read more. Moore explains how you must persuade readers from the beginning to have them catch their ears with a certain sentence that might interest them or to include something that might be a mystery to others. “Watson and Crick lured their readers with first-person statements that emphasized their activities (e.g., “We wish to put forward…” “We wish to suggest…”) and, by implication, their rejection of the supposition that data can speak for themselves.” (pg 3) The Nobel winning scientists include sentences that assert their knowledge and that they are truly confident in their experiments and that they are successful. Moore has also explained how with different types of rhetorical features, it will truly change the impact of your writing and will have people interested and try to follow in your steps.

Many times, researchers will mess up their report and from that people might stop reading or just keep going and not be interested. It is crucial to have certain parts in your text that will hook readers on. “ “a very fair hearing,” while that of Watson and Crick had a revolutionizing impact on science?” (pg 2) You need to choose the correct type of rhetorical feature because if you might be writing about about helping people and then write nothing about actually helping people, people might get annoyed and thing that they might have just wasted their time reading an article that was supposed to tell you about how to help people, but not mentioning it once in it.

          When writing a report and including rhetorical analysis about your topic you must always include a certain level of description because you, as the writer might know exactly what you are writing about but then for the people who you are writing to or just reading might have zero clue what you are writing about and not understand the topic whatsoever. “Watson and Crick presented only a sketch of their model, with a “minimum of hedging” and “in simple terms, unmarred by any trace of algebra” (Crick 1974). Avery et al. described in painstaking detail how they arrived at their conclusions.” (pg 2) It is best to always write with simple wording for everyone to be able to understand what you are trying to explain in your writing.

With different types of rhetorical writings, such as a proper purpose, Logos, Pathos and Ethos, you will be able to have many people pulled into your reading. For example, in “Writing About Biology”, Randy Moore was able to have many scientists and future students get hooked onto the reading and to learn new things for the future. It has people learn about new genetic mutations by being able to connect two RNA’s together. For me, that fascinates me and with this new knowledge, scientists will be able to create new breeds or new plants. This is what got me into science and I am wanting to become a doctor because I read one single article and it pulled me in and interested me to try that myself.