Rehabilitation: Writing is My Drug Lauren Motto December 5th, 2012 3301 Over the course of this semester I have matured both inside and outside the classroom and my writing projects in this course have helped bring me to my skill level today. Knowing absolutely nothing about pharmacy coming into the semester, I was worried that I would not be able to write for my field because I was not even sure what my field consisted of. I know that there are places where, looking back now, I could have made changes and had better papers, but overall I believe that I have gone above the Learning Goals of this course. Starting with the detail work involved with writing a paper, citations are necessary to properly give credit to work that is not your own. Within this course, I used CSE style citations and had to vary the intensity of my citations from unit to unit. For example, in my literature review most of my citations looked like this, "Similar to other abused drugs such as cocaine and amphetamines, those who use bath salts have severe toxidromes that require hospitalization for the recovery of a heavy dose (2)." Every line was formally written and had a number at the end corresponding with the appropriate article used. This was entirely different from my Simple English Wikipedia article because not only were the sources scholarly in the literature review, but also Wikipedia has strict guidelines for both formatting and use of citations. A very proud moment for me this semester was when I saw that my Wikipedia article had been edited and the only changes were spacing in the citations. I have not mastered CSE convention, but I have given credit where due and fulfilled my duty to correctly reference other works. Something nearly as important as the writing itself is the author's ability to edit their work and take the criticisms received to better their paper. This was the first class I have ever taken where I needed to write and submit a first and second draft. I usually just relied on my writing skills and quick edits to make it through papers in the past, but this class has shown me the importance of revision. During this semester there were some ideas that I agreed with, some that I did not, and further others that I unfortunately would not be able to use. In unit 4, I made my rough draft video and hoped for the best because I did not have much experience with editing. A point brought up in each of the reviews that my peers and Professor Musselman gave was that I sounded incredibly serious, as though I was lecturing my audience. That was actually my goal; I wanted to make an informative video that had a serious tone. But, since this is not what everyone else was hoping for, I tried my best to incorporate a bit of humor and less scripted preaching in my final video. I wrote in my response letter, "I saw that an overwhelming response was concerning my script so I did change that." Although I may have wanted a serious video, that was not the assignment and I changed it for the better. Along the same lines, I was able to help my peers with their reviewing process. For example, in Unit 3 I reviewed Shailja Modi's article and let her know where I saw areas that could be improved upon. "The author does not provided enough citations for the standard of Wikipedia. For example, there is not a single citation in the sections on Grey Matter and Treatment." Also, "One question I have is are there any symptoms exclusive to each disease? The author groups the two together a lot and it would be beneficial to possibly explain some of the key differences between the diseases." Although I still do not understand every term in the articles I selected for various units, I was able to find and analyze the arguments presented in each. There were many different types of writing seen in this course and they are all trying to send a different message out to their audience. Scholarly articles are written at a high educational level while online articles are for a more public audience. With that said, it is still important to look at each type of presentation. Being able to find the knowledge front from article to article is extremely important and something that I was able to understand about halfway into the semester. In my unit 1 paper I wanted to summarize the experiment and discuss the findings, not look at the larger picture and discuss the argument. When taught in lab how to write reports and results for years, it is hard to switch and look from a different perspective. Finding the critical information is something that I was able to start doing during my literature review, especially since the case studies I used were more straightforward than my first scholarly article. I think my literature review best displays this because I was able to make two large, successful charts summarizing the individual patients and their symptoms followed by a discussion of the similarities between the responses between hospitals. Scientists like visuals and the charts that I made provided an efficient base for patient information. As seen in a section from my symptoms chart,
I was able to effectively explain the individual patient's symptoms and the reader would be able to look back and find this information easily. Depending on the unit, the audience changed dramatically. This ties into understanding the different writing styles in your field: if you do not fully understand the style then you cannot accurately write for the required audience. The assignment in particular that I believe highlighted this was my Wikipedia Simple English article. Writing at a lower level about complicated chemical effects on the brain was difficult but rewarding. For instance, the introduction of my literature review stated, "designer drugs are substances containing synthetic cathinones, such as mephedrone, methylone, and methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV). These chemical compounds are similar to amphetamines and the effects are associated with hallucinations, paranoia, increased vitals, violent behavior, and can lead to permanent damage." For the Wikipedia article, I wrote, "Designer drugs are legal drugs that are made and sold to have the same effects as illegal drugs. These drugs are chemicals that change the way a person acts and feels." These two quotes say basically the same thing, but by using the Readability Index Calculator I went from a grade level of 23 to level between 8 and 10. The same goes for each of my other assignments, by keeping the audience in mind I was able to productively produce appropriate work. By the end of this course, I had submitted 5108 polished, revised words through my writing in units 1 through 4. I completed all assignments, participated in class by attending every lecture and also sharing my opinion, and helped my group to create the best work that they could. In the beginning of the semester I did not know how to objectively view other articles and create my own, I was not comfortable reading in my field at a level of difficulty that I could not comprehend. Now, I can find the argument and formulate my own opinion, see patterns, and create my own type of pharmacy related writing. In my unit 1 reflection, I wrote, "The type of work I did in Unit 1 made me think very differently about writing. Having never done a paper like this in the past, it was a bit of a challenge for me to truly understand and accomplish the assignment." Compare that quote to my reflection from unit 3, where I stated, "I was surprised how easy I found it to write for Wikipedia Simple English." There was an entire change of heart, one for the better. As this course developed so did I, and with that I know that I will be a stronger member of my field in the future.
Acknowledgements I would like to thank my peer reviewers Shailja Modi and Olatokunbo Onabanjo for their help with this portfolio. I would also like to thank Professor Musselman for her guidance throughout this course. Finally, I would like to especially thank Zan Wong for her help with the technology in this final portfolio. | ||||||||||||||||||
