The following documents are various papers that I have written, across a variety of disciplines within the biological sciences. The first includes a human demographics lab report from Introduction to Ecology and Evolution. The next document is a literature review on the common misconception that eggs cause heart disease from Comprehensive Anatomy and Physiology II. The final is a synthetic biology lab report on the modification of E. coli from Genetics.

Longwood University’s biology program is prided in the requirement for students to take at least one upper-level course in the three major pillars of biology: Ecology and evolution, Organismal, and Cell and molecular. Although I have not yet completed the Ecology and evolution pillar, I feel confident in my abilities to write effectively in multiple contexts within the discipline. My courses have taught me how to properly write about knowledge already known in the field by referring to other peer-reviewed research articles, communicate through writing my own novel research question, write about the methods that I have taken to complete a research question, and write about what broader implications that my research has to the scientific community.

Of the different styles of communicating biological knowledge, I struggled the most with effectively writing a review article. Although I quickly succeeded in developing a research question from previous research conducted, it took me more time to effectively summarize the material found from previous research and draw my own conclusions from the data.

Moving forward in my biological career, I would like to learn more about writing an effective review article and possibly have the chance to work on a major review article. I admire the use of review articles since they can summarize the key elements and research conducted on a certain topic. The review articles that I have written are very small compared to those done by major scientific journals.