I think it was in BIOL 251, Intro into Ecology and Evolution, that I was first exposed to general audience papers in the context of putting scientific facts into an easy to read format. While this was still my freshmen year, I still remember how different reading these articles felt compared to the peer review ones I had started to become familiar with. They were filled with jokes and references, “I think”s and opinions, but they still got their point across. We read one called “Birds are Vanishing from North America”, and it honestly left me really sad, which is something we lose with peer reviewed articles. While scientific papers are full of data and importance, they can be less impactful in terms of pulling at emotions and making others want change, especially for the general public. For our assignment, we had to outline the article and talk about what we had learned, and for the most part I focused on the ease of the article to understand and the facts that were readily available for me to read.

In my sophomore year, I took BIOL 288, or sophomore seminar. In this class we actually learned how to write a proper general audience paper, and what we should include to ensure that as many people as possible could follow along. I remember me being stuck on how to start my paper because at this point I had only been writing scientific papers, where there are strict guidelines in terms of no opinion, “I/We”, direct quotes, stories, ect. However, once I got started, I found it was much more enjoyable to write than a typical paper. I liked being able to use jokes and quotes, and to allow my personality to come through. I also liked that I was able to write on something that interests me. My article was centered on how clothing left on the body affects the decomposition process. While not everyones forte, I love learning about anything there is to know about the decomposition process. It it was really fun getting to research about a topic I enjoy, and writing it in way that so many others can understand. I think that is really important for science, for the general public to know whats happening, otherwise there would never be any change.

Going off of that, I really have learned the importance of presenting my work in a way that many can understand, especially when I may be presenting to those who are not in my major. Several cases where I’ve done this is with the showcases that we have at Longwood. I’ve done a presentation pretty much every semester, and they’re almost always from a biology or science class. Over the years I’ve realized that I get much better feedback and interaction when I present my work as if I’m teaching it to someone who has no previous understanding of my work, even if they’re in my major. I use metaphors and simpler language, even if my poster says something more complex, and I find that so many more people understand what I’m saying. One instance that really stands out to me was when I presented my internship presentation on metagenomic fingerprinting of rainwater harvesting systems to an older couple. An example of how I would present metagenomics was comparing it to a finger print that had been left at a crime scene, while the offender was gone, their fingerprint remained (or in the case of metagenomics, the DNA remained). While they were new to metagenomics, I was able to explain it in a way to them where they understood the importance of my work and actually thanked me for bringing this issue to their attention. It was a really cool moment and it made me want to make others feel that way.