The scientist profile was the second major assignment for this class. the assignment allowed us to write about a figure relevant to a field of science and their contributions and importance to that field. In order to begin the scientist profile, I had to find a scientist, one that truly interested me.

My greatest research challenge would be finding a scientist I wanted to talk about rather than a scientist just to get the assignment done. In class before the first draft was due we discussed the method of using the CCNY library resources. I approached researching my scientist by using academic OneFile and searching for scientists from different fields of research. I did not find much of what I researched as a motive to write a paper on. This was until I reread the assignment sheet and read that we could document a medical professional advocating for change in their communities. After searching the keyword “humanitarian” in the search bar, I stumbled upon a doctor invested in the Syrian crisis, I knew I had found my scientist.

Originally, I had created a set of questions to interview my scientists, however, while researching his work I realized I possibly would not get a response from my scientist. Therefore, I had to revert to creating questions that included reference to previous interviews and my own interview, therefore if I did not receive a response it would not interfere with my paper because I could then reference the other interviews without changing the outline of my paper. I would keep the same approach of framing my interview questions using the interviews already available to me in the future because it was the safest way going about choosing a person that is preoccupied in their field of study and may not be able to respond to my inquiry.

My experience with the introductory letter informed the approach to this assignment because I figured the greatest flaw of my writing was understanding the audience. With the scientist profile, it was crucial to complete the assignment with a specific audience in mind. My editing process changed between my introductory letter and this assignment, instead of simply rereading my work and making grammatical corrections. I reread the scientist profile many times and adjusted wording, context, and source integration in order to make my audience understand why the scientist I profiled was important.

I feel I was successful at addressing the assignment prompt, I used my outline to navigate this paper. From incorporating interviews and publications from my scientist in a way that would allow me to profile them answering the overall question as to why my scientist is interesting. I feel this way because I modeled my paper using the guideline profiles we received in class. Choosing a scientist that interested me along with the outline I organized made the assignment easier than I thought it would be, from my assignment I felt my audience would understand the importance of my figure.

In completing this assignment, I feel many course learning outcomes were addressed. I addressed the course learning outcome of enhancing strategies from reading, drafting, revising, editing, and self-assessment because the process of submitting the first draft, follow-up draft to the final draft helped me to weed out bad habits in my writing. Another learning outcome addressed was developing and engaging in the collaborative and social aspects of the writing process, this outcome was addressed because for this paper we began workshopping our work with our peers in small groups. The final two learning outcomes, practice using various library resources, during my research process finding credible articles included using adequate library resources, using these resources also addressed strengthening my source use practices by working on integrating and citing sources throughout my paper.

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