First-Year Seminar in Science

“So we are now going to review your review of the reviewer” 

Text: (non-CPR version)

Prof: Dr John Sherman

Dr Sherman is a no-nonsense, but laid-back prof. I have a feeling he skimmed over a lot of material that is part of the curriculum of this course, so that we could focus on writing more. If you are not happy with your grade on your rough draft, keep revising and send it back to him. He is really helpful that way. The TA, Vivienne, was also really helpful and supportive.

Difficulty

This course was pretty chill. If you have difficulty writing, you might have to put slightly more work in. But the work-load is less then most writing classes. Most of the time you are either preparing for an in class writing, editing an in class writing, or giving feedback on another students writing. Every now and then there is some sort of discussion on the scientific method and research, but they require little, if at all, preparation. The term project can be a lot of work, so getting started and getting teacher feedback ASAP is important.

Key Concepts

Scientific arguments

Scientific Method

Hard Concepts

How to construct a research paper: Term project is quite hard, especially if you pick your on thesis. There are so many pitfalls. My advice is to get as much input and feedback from TA and prof.

Conclusion

Our class was special in that we did no CPR, but in class reviewing. All in all, good course to improve on writing skills. I found the philosophy of science components of this course superficial and distracting from the main goal of improving writing. I am pretty sure that the marks on this course are higher than those in other first year English options.

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