Ashley Abernathey
Ashley Abernathey is a senior at North Dakota State University. She will graduate in December 2010 with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biological Science and a minor in Psychology.
Introduction to my portfolio
English 324 is an upper level writing course called Writing in the Sciences. Going into this course, there were many objectives that we had to abide by. This is an online course which made communication very important. Technology was our main method of interaction with our professor and fellow students which took place through NDSU blackboard, Facebook and e-mail. With technology on the rise, the communication skills I have acquired through this course will be very helpful in the future. As this course progressed I was able to understand a variety of scientific genres including literature reviews, research studies and research articles. These different resources helped me to relate topics to different aspects such as biological, environmental or the general public. With the help of these scientific sources I was able to correlate ideas and relay information in a coherent and meaningful manner. I expressed this data in a variety of writing styles including a proposal, article review, annotated bibliography, progress report, reading responses, and a final research project. These were all written in a clear and precise way which made the content easy to understand. I structured my papers according to who the audience would be. I correctly used APA formatting for citing and referencing my sources and included this on a separate, reference page. By following these objectives, I was able to perform at optimum level to achieve results that will help further the completion of our class’s final website.
The majority of the semester was spent developing a final project. In my case, this project was a team effort as I collaborated with two other classmates, Victoria Albers and Marti Hoekstra. We all attend North Dakota State University, but are pursuing different majors which provides for a well-rounded group. Victoria is pursuing a degree in Natural Resource management, Marti is working towards a degree in Nursing, and I’m going for a degree in Biological Science. The class is focusing on antibiotic resistance, so we decided to explore antibiotic resistance and its relationship to organic and conventional farming. In order to further this investigation we decided to do our own research, consisting of interviewing professionals, as well as look at experimental studies and literature reviews. The portfolio that follows is a collaboration of materials relating to the work that our group accomplished.
The portfolio consists of 6 different pieces including a proposal, article review, annotated bibliography, progress report, two reading responses and the final project. Writing a research proposal was first on our agenda. To do this, we outlined the approach we were going to use to execute our project. This paper is written in IMDR and provides background material as well our own research to contribute additional knowledge. An article review came next where I analyzed a research article relating to our group topic, antibiotic use in agriculture. This improved my skills on understanding scientific writing. I was able to summarize what the key points were, as well as determine what the author resolved throughout the article. An annotated bibliography was comprised of ten sources cited in APA format. Along with each source a summary was given describing the contents of the individual document. The progress report updated my fellow classmates on my group’s advancement on our project. It gave a detailed description of what we had accomplished and what we still had left to finish. The reading responses gave me a chance to ponder the individual topics and convey to others how I interpreted the reading. The final project was a collaboration of all the aspects encompassed throughout this course. This paper was organized in an IMDR fashion comparing conventional and organic farming and the effects each of these have on antibiotic resistance in humans.
Documents in my portfolio
Proposal: The proposal states what our group is researching and why it’s important. It provides a review of background information to reveal our topic on a broader scale. It also explains to the reader how we will conduct our research and presents a schedule of events that will occur throughout the semester.
Article review:An article review is a critical evaluation of a research article that pertained to our group’s topic. After reading the article, I recapped the key points and evaluated the author’s technique.
Annotated bibliography: An annotative bibliography contains ten resources that provide background information relating to our topic. Each individual source includes a short summary of the content and is cited in APA format.
Progress report: A progress report is an evaluation of our group’s advancement with our project. It goes through what we’ve already accomplished and what we have left to complete. A detailed plan of action is defined describing the tasks we have yet to finish and how we will go about fulfilling them.
Reading response 1: The reading responses one and two relate to three different chapters in the book by Stuart Levy, The Antibiotic Paradox. The first response refers to one chapter while the second response applies to two chapters. In each of these reviews I discussed the points that I found most fascinating and gave my view on the subject. Also, while reading the chapters I came up with supplemental questions for the class to discuss.
Final project: The final project provides background information on antibiotic use in conventional farms, organic farming and how antibiotic resistance relates to each of these. This is mainly presented in the introduction, giving the audience a clear understanding of what our group is trying to convey. The methods section explains the procedures that we followed to complete our research. The findings of our group, in the form of interviews, are included in the results section. A discussion section compares the information we have gathered through scientific means and our own research.