Part 4.1 and 4.2: Academic Writing and Data Handling - and Reflections.
Area for Improvement:
You need to balance the views as towards the end of the report it shows more impact than any benefits. These must be weighed out and critically evaluated.'
Reflection:
As part of our Induction we were asked to write an essay about any relevant topic we chose. This was a practice essay of 1000 words with Harvard Referencing. As my Skills Audit action plan reflects, I was a little bit concerned that after being out of education for so many years my essay writing skills would be poor, not being used to researching topics in depth and writing essays in an acceptable format. I had never done Harvard referencing before so this was a new area to me. I chose a topic I was interested in so actually found the research quite satisfying, although I did have a tendency to spend a lot of time on this, which may not always be practical in the future when I have more deadlines to complete. It has taught me to write a specific plan, prior to researching, with the most important points I need to look up, without getting involved in topic areas that are not needed.
As essays need to have a set structure (Shields, 2003) I worked through each stage of the essay in turn which helped me to focus on that part i.e. Introduction/ Conclusion. Whilst completing all the Harvard Referencing I continually checked back on previous paperwork and online to ensure I was completing this correctly. I was very happy with the feedback and grade overall. As per the feedback, one of the areas I need to improve is the critical evaluation at the end, I let my own views of the subject take over from a fair conclusion, which I can work on for my next essay.
Overall, a very good essay.'
Reflection:
For this essay we were given the choice of any species native to Britain and write about the Autecology (ecological study of a particular species) of that animal. The tutor gave us a list of the main points he wanted us to cover and it was to be 4000 words in total.
The practice I had from doing my Induction essay was useful in giving me the confidence to research thoroughly whilst trying to stay on the main points required. Another area mentioned in my skills audit where I needed some more work, was the ability to express my ideas clearly in written work, and having a clear structure to the work. Overall I feel this was achieved in this essay with a clear distinction between the introduction, each different aspect of Autecology and a conclusion at the end. (Shields, 2003).
Looking at the feedback received, next time I will try to narrow down the information to include all relevant points within the word limit. I also need to look at other sources for my references, maybe more academic/ scientific papers and books rather than too many web-sites. Overall I was very happy with this result.
You cannot access any feedback from the exam due to the way it was administered.
However, I can let you know that you answered 39 of the 50 multichoice Qs correctly (apologies but I cannot easily let you know which were incorrect).
Your essay Q answered well – Oak woodland with an abundance of organisms mentioned with good description of ecological interactions. Appropriate definitions used.
Hope useful
Kevin
Dr Kevin R. Butt
Reader in Ecology
Natural Sciences
Reflection
This Exam was taken online using a video programme which was a strange experience. I felt a bit stressed knowing that I was under scrutiny but it seemed to go well. The multi-choice questions were easy to understand and utilised my skills for problem solving which scored quite highly on my skills audit. The essay was the area I was most worried about as I have learnt that I am very good at researching a topic but obviously in an exam this is not possible and you have to write from memory. I had prepared for this by making sure I had learnt the core concepts well and tried to keep it well structured and concise. (Cottrell, 2012). As per my skills audit, I felt I needed more work on planning for exams and revision so I had made sure to go back over the lectures and work prior to the exam and felt reasonably confident that I knew what was needed. During the exam I used the areas of the 'managing my learning' from the skills audit to plan the essay before writing anything, noting down the organisms, how they interacted with each other, and the key ecological definitions. This quick plan was vital for answering the question and making sure the information was relevant and written down in time. (Gretham, 2018). I also made sure I had planned enough time for both sections to ensure they were covered in the time allotted.
I was very pleased with this result, and feel I learnt a lot from this module, which will be very useful in future studies in Conservation and Ecology.
Results displayed and described well, with good detailed titles on graphs.
Discussion does some good comparison of the results with those of previous studies. But it would have been good to see you report the results more previous studies, 3 references is not many.
Areas for Development
- Please ensure you use Harvard referencing style consistently
- Further research and use of a few more references would be good.
- usually have aim of this study in a scientific introduction.
Reflection
This assignment was to write a Scientific Report in the correct form, with an Introduction, Method, Results and Discussion section. We were looking at nutrient deficiencies in tomato plants, each student was given one specific nutrient to report on. Unfortunately, we couldn't undertake any of the practical work ourselves due to Covid restrictions, but we were kept informed of all procedures and results by the tutor.
Please see the following results section showing the data analysis:
Results
Fig. 1: Mean height of tomato plants with magnesium nutrient removed, versus those with a full supply of all nutrients, measured over 56 days.
This graph shows that the Magnesium deficient plants grew at similar rates to the Control plants, even overtaking them between day 10 and 30, but as more time passed, they began to lose height compared to the Control plants.
Fig 2: Mean number of leaves on Tomato plants with Magnesium nutrient removed, versus plants with a full supply of nutrients, measured over 56 days.
This graph shows that the Magnesium deficient plants had fewer leaves at day 56 than the Control plants.
Fig 3: Mean Chlorophyll Content of leaves from Magnesium Deficient tomato plants versus plants with a full supply of nutrients, measured after 56 days.
This Bar Chart shoes that the Magnesium deficient plants had approximately a third less Chlorophyll content than the control plants.
Fig 4: Mean Leaf Area of tomato plants with Magnesium nutrient removed versus plants with a full supply of nutrients, measured after 56 days.
This chart shows that the Magnesium deficient plants had less than half of the leaf area than the control plants.
Fig 5: Mean Dry Weight of tomato plants with Magnesium nutrient removed, versus plants with full supply of nutrients, measured after 56 days.
This chart shows that the roots and shoots from the Magnesium deficient plants had a final dry weight which was less than the ones from the Control plants.
This was a completely new way of writing to me, never having done a scientific report previously. Writing Scientific Reports are very different to writing essays and have a set layout (Goldbort, 2006). The assignment involved using data tables and producing graphs on Excel. (as shown above).This was one of the areas in my skills audit which needed some more practice as many of the systems are slightly different to when I was last using them in a work setting. I took some time to go through the guides we were given and also looked online for help when needed. This followed the steps I had felt I needed to take on the skills audit and proved very useful in practice. I felt the graphs and tables for the results I completed were clear and easy to understand.
From the feedback I realise I need to research more sources of information in my work, and to improve my referencing. This will become more natural as I write more essays and reports. I also need to ensure that all information is clearly covered. As I wrote in my skills audit action plan, I need to sift through information and pick out the most relevant parts.
Overall, I was very happy with this result and it will be very useful to understand the way scientific reports should be written for any studies and research I do in the future.
5. Height Data Worksheet (Data Analysis).
See previous post for worksheet and reflection.
References
Cottrell, S. (2012). The Exam Skills Handbook - Achieving Peak Performance. London, McMillan Education, UK.
Goldbort,R, (2006). Writing for Science. London, Yale University Press.
Gretham, B, (2018). How to Write Better Essays. London, McMillan Education UK.
Shields, M. (2003). Essay Writing: A Student's Guide. Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage Publications.
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