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Collegiate Opinions on Prenatal Genetic Engineering and its Uses University of Iowa Abstract Many scientists have written, countered, and fought over the ethics behind genetic engineering, and what its implications would be. Over the last few years genetic engineering has taken leaps and bounds forward with the creation and study of the CRISPR technique, and will only continue to become more detrimental to the fields of medicine and biology in the years to come. With so much in store for the future of genetics, what do college students, future scientists and researchers, believe about this up and coming technology? Are college students as secular and scientifically progressive as we make them out to be? A short survey was formed in order to get the opinions of college students on genetic engineering, specifically prenatal. 39 participants were ultimately recorded, all of which took the survey anonymously online. The data showed that students’ opinions were extremel
My overall impression of this paper is mixed. The paper itself uses strong rhetoric but is a bit confusing to the reader. There are issues in the flow of the paper. The paper doesn't seem to have a strong main point other than the fact that one will have to write a large amount when in the field of chemistry. But, the paper has a good control of vocabulary and language.
ReplyDeleteI had a hard time understanding the paper due to a lack of flow. There were several times that the paper would move on to a new paragraph but the reason for the new paragraph was unclear. Page 3 paragraph 1 is confusing as the I am unsure if this is an email to admissions employees and the author is still discussing the rhetoric used in emails or if this has moved on to a new type of non-academic writing. This continues into the second paragraph on that page in which the author discusses the structure of the document. But this paragraph's topic sentence refers to structure but the body of the paragraph discusses word choice and point of view. The third paragraph on that page moves to talk about a lab report but it is a confusing transition. The beginning of that paragraph begins by talking about how the audience will change the rhetoric but then begins talking about a lab report. The rhetoric could be different simply because it is a lab report and not an email, not necessarily because of a change in audience.
In the second half of the paper when discussing academic writings in chemistry, the author used subheadings "Primary and Secondary Research" and "ACS". I liked the use of these headings as it helped to better structure the paper and assisted the reader in following the author's thoughts. I would suggest using headings such as these in the first half of the paper as well. The first half of the paper appears to be structured by source while the second half is structured by topic. I believe it would be a good idea for the author to pick one structure type and be consistent throughout the paper.
I also believe that the topic of the paper is a bit confused. The paper begins well with stating that writing is vital in the field of chemistry and explaining that to be a chemist, one must master writing for a number of audiences. This theme is followed through the first half of the paper, through the non-academic portion. But in the academic portion of the paper this does not follow. In the primary and secondary research portion, there is no mention of the audience. The author does state that since the variation of audience is no longer an issue, the driving factor for any academic paper is purpose. I simply do not believe this is true. The use of research and ACS style is strictly for the audience. The conclusion paragraph states that the single purpose of writing in the field of chemistry is to convey information in the most concise and understandable way possible. This doesn't quite tie back to the main point stated at the beginning of the paper.
Also, the references should be on their own page.
I think that your paper has lots of very good information, but could use some help on the language and grammar portion of it. The flow and organization are confusing at times, but the main thesis and the conclusion are well done.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, the biggest thing I want to address is the purpose of the paper. We're supposed to be writing a paper describing the role of writing in our respective fields using academic and non academic sources. I feel as though you didn't focus enough on the academic and non academic sources part of the assignment. Lots of the sample papers explained the differences between academic and non academic sources with structure, language, and reference using author, audience, topic, and purpose. You tended to use all 7 categories to describe all of the writings in general. That isn't to say that what you did is wrong, it was just more difficult to understand and compare and contrast the purpose of academic and non academic sources within chemistry.
Going along with that, you barely talked about references in the non academic writing section and pretty much only talked about references in the academic section. I would suggest focusing on all three in both categories of writing so that the reader can better understand the importance of each writing style and compare them more easily.
Also, your language use in your own paper could have been elevated-there were a fair number of grammatical errors and issues throughout. I tried to fix most of them near the beginning, but I didn't usually repeat my markings if the error was there more than once. Just look over them and try to combine shorter sentences where you can to link your ideas together.
You have a great thesis and it's very well worded, but you never link back to it throughout your paper, just in your conclusion. After each quote and paraphrase you have, you may find it beneficial to look back at your thesis and reemphasize the importance of what you just said to why writing in chemistry is important.
Finally, your headings at the end. I like them. I just don't like them. As I wrote on your page, I feel that the way they are set up now, they use detract from the notion of academic writing. However, I do like how unique they are. It's really up to you how you was to deal with them, but I would recommend deleting them and simply writing your paper without them. It may seem weird at first, but I think that will help the flow of your paper.
I know that my comments are pretty much the opposite of Shelby's, which I just read now to see if I missed anything, but good luck in the editing process!