Science-another first

We were given free reign on what to blog about this week, I chose the text readings to focus on. I was very happy to dig into Zinsser. I’m loving this little book! It’s concise, I don’t get bored reading it, and in a few pages, I have a much better idea of how to tackle an assignment. I was not disappointed this week with chapter 15. I’m glad I read it before I started my essay. It gave me a better foundation on which to start. I could relate from the get go. “No! Not science!” I thought for sure I would rely on what at first seemed like a no-brainer for me, go for the comfort zone, and write about nature. But after reading all the supplemental materials, and Zinsser, I realized science is not such a scary word after all.

“Writing is thinking on paper.” I like that. If I can think clearly about a scientific subject, I can write about it. I need to say goodbye to the fear that because I sucked at biology and never even made it to chemistry, I am not worthy of writing about what is considered a “science topic.” Zinsser says it ain’t so. I found it interesting to read about the other side of writing a science essay. If you’re the scientist, you probably think writing is a scary word! One point of advice I found most helpful was on page 152. “Use your own experience to connect the reader to some mechanism that also touches his life.” I will try that in essay two. I think what he’s saying is start the essay with the human element, grab the reader’s attention with a lead that he can relate too. The reader will connect with that rather than be bogged down right away with some scientific jargon.

Another piece of advice from Zinsser comes on page 148; assume “the reader knows nothing.” “You can’t assume that your readers know what you assume everybody knows, or that they still remembered what was once explained to them.” I appreciate this advice, because I wasn’t quite sure who to assume my audience is. In this case, I am writing an essay not for a specific periodical, but for a class. So I will assume the reader knows nothing. The tricky party will be not to bore them, and not to lose a reader who knows a bit about my subject.

Although the Graham text didn’t give me as much help this week, I was able to pull a few things out of the chapter. I think the most valuable was “mere facts can seem tiresome.” Figurative language “is important to a scientific essay rather than just regurgitating facts. Simple advice, but something I need to remember as I tackle a science topic. Focusing on people rather that statistics and making it into a story will make my reader want to “listen.”

Hopefully, all this comes together in my essay.

Something else I wanted to add, the whole idea of blogging is becoming much easier. I actually look forward to it : ) It is a much nicer way to discuss the text than traditional Q and A.