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Taylor Kupneski
Prof. Gary Vaughn
Intermediate Composition
April 21st, 2017
How Intermediate Composition Supported my Future as a Pediatric Geneticist
Everybody thinks they are a good writer. Most people are. However, nobody is without

faults. If you were asked to write a five-page paper, without any grammar errors, without any

points where you confuse the reader, and without extraneous information, do you think you

could do it? Id venture to say most people would say yesmyself included. Well, most people

would be wrong. Over the course of this semester, Ive learned to accept that my writing isnt

perfect, and thats okay. This course has developed me as a writer by helping me create stronger

conclusions, organize my papers more effectively, and get to the point. This development as a

writer will help me as I continue to work in research, and eventually as a clinician.

This course has helped me create stronger conclusions by giving me multiple approaches

on how to think of conclusions. Initially, I believed that conclusions should really just be a place

to restate what had been said in summarized form. That is what I had always been taught. This

course taught me that conclusions are less about summarization, but more about the significance

of the analysis done in the paper.

I always hated writing conclusions. However, taking this course would not allow me to

whimper out on them like I had always done before. Before taking this course, I avoided

conclusions like they were salmonella. What I learned through the progression of papers we

wrote though, was that at least having an outline of what I wanted to say in the conclusion before

writing the rest of my paper gave me the best results. In other words, I started writing my

conclusions first. When I knew what I wanted to say and why the analysis I was writing was

important, it was much simpler for the conclusions to flow organically. When I did this, my

conclusion felt much more inclusive. When the conclusion was written first, the entire paper
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seemed to make sense with what my point was. When I wrote it last, there were pieces of the

paper that felt like a waste of time to read because they werent connected to the end goal.
That brings me to point number two: the way this course taught me to structure a paper.

Throughout elementary school and high school, I was always a strong writer. My best pieces of

writing and the ones that were the most fluid came from free-writing that was edited, but not

restructured. This class forced me to learn how to outline my papers and thus make them far

more coherent in both the content and overall message. After the first paper, I learned that free-

writing wasnt going to cut it. I developed a process in which I thought about my conclusion first

what it was that I really wanted to say and how it was important. Then I began formulating

what evidence I had that could prove that point, and finally, I wrote a thesis. After the process

that I developed, I could then go in and add all the pretty language and transitions my previous

English teachers loved me for. This process strengthened my writing in the sense that readers do

not get lost in my papers anymore because the flow is logical to more people than just myself.
Learning to write backwards like this also strengthened my writing in the sense that it did

not allow me to venture off the beaten path. When you know where you are going with a paper, it

is a lot easier to stay on track and focus solely on content that will get you to your end point.

Additionally, because the papers were heavy in analysis and there was so much to say, I learned

that saying the longer version of everything was not necessary to get to a page requirementit

was just annoying. I learned that if the analysis is strong, it is not necessary to say due to the

fact that instead of because. I learned how to get to the point faster, and more clearly.
Most people think Science and English are polar opposites. I disagree. I always have.

There is a logic to writing, just as there is creativity in science that most people do not see. They

are crucial parts of each other, not opposites. My development as a writer has affected my ability

to work as a scientist indefinitely.

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When working in research, a lot of time is spent at the lab bench running experiments.

However, even more time is spent writing grant proposals and journal articles to share the

research with the world. All the knowledge in the world about how different radiation types,

dosages, and combination therapies with various drugs can affect different cancer cell lines

differently depending on the mutation in the cancer cell line will not help anybody if it is not

sharedand more specifically, if it is not shared effectively. Writing science is hard. The subject

itself is complicated, and the jargon is overwhelming even you know what it all means.

Therefore, keeping the writing clear and concise is exceptionally important when sharing the

results of research. The clarity I developed as a writer over the time spent in this course has

helped me in my confidence that I will be able to write about my research in a way that others

can understand and derive meaning.

On top of that, learning to write a conclusion has helped me develop my ability to create

meaningful research projects. When looking at my data, it is easy to see the obvious results.

More cells are dying, less cells are dying, etc. But learning how to write a proper conclusion has

taught me how to look at the significance of data more stringently. Why are more cells dying? Is

it that the radiation dosage does more damage, or do the cells have a higher DNA repair

percentage than other cell lines using the one method that the chemical inhibitors are blocking as

opposed to other methods? Learning how to write stronger conclusions has taught me how to ask

harder questions.
Finally, learning clear and concise writing will not only help me as a researcher, but as a

clinician. Writing information in patient charts is essential, but I could never spend twenty

minutes writing down everything I need. And honestly, nobody else is going to want to read that

much when they go to look at it eitherthey will want it as simple as possible. Learning to get to
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the point in my writing was an extremely important development for me as a writer in terms of

my future as a clinician.
I was a good writer coming into this course. Most people are. But I had room to improve.

I still do. While my grammar has improved drastically, its still not perfect. I still love my run-on

sentences (aka comma splices). I probably always will because that is the way I speak most of

the time. But while I would have been wrong before this course to say I could write a five-page

paper without losing my reader and without extraneous information, I would say now that is a

task I could genuinely do. This feat and these improvements in my writing will be invaluable in

my future endeavors, despite the fact that my world will mainly revolve around molecules made

up of only 4 letters (A,T,C,G), sugar, and some phosphate groups. I mean, how many words can

you make with only four letters anyway? I guess it just depends what language were talking

about.