Unit One’s definition assignment was unique as we were required to provide a parenthetical, sentence, and expanded definition for a topic in our area of study for a non-technical audience. Afterwards, we got the opportunity to review a colleague’s definition and constructively critique it and provide relevant feedback. This was an enlightening experience as I got to learn so much from examining someone else’s writing and also revising my definition to cater to a non-technical audience.
When I initially wrote the definition for PCR I focused on starting off my introduction by first mentioning a relevant crime scene investigation scenario people often know through popular television shows like CSI or Law and Order to grasp their attention. However, I think that after I started defining PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) in my expanded definition I focused too much on the steps, which is what someone with a scientific background would be interested in but not someone with a non-technical background. Julianne’s peer review was incredibly helpful in helping me recognize areas I needed to expand and focus on to keep the audience’s attention and answering the common question “so what?”. There was quite a bit of technical jargon like DNA, polymerase, nucleotides that I assumed the audience would know so I didn’t expand on. However, those terms are paramount to understanding PCR and Julianne’s comments made me realize that I should provide a quick review of those terms prior to starting my expanded definition.
As I was revising my peer review, I added an expansion section regarding PCR’s history and significance to provide a basis for comparison regarding PCR and other laboratory techniques commonly used in labs. As I was reviewing Julianne’s definition, one of the questions always at the back of my mind as a non-technical reader is “Why is this so important?” and “How does this compare with other similar entities?” so adding a history section provides a neat transition from background to significance. Rather than focusing on the technical steps of the procedure, emphasizing the importance and possible applications to familiar topics keeps the audience focused. Through Julianne’s peer review I was also able to cut down on unnecessary technical jargon that did not add value to an audience’s understanding of PCR. For example, I changed my initial wordy definition of “Taq Polymerase: A highly thermostable DNA polymerase, or enzyme, derived from bacterium Thermus aquaticus that creates a new strand of DNA by sequentially adding nucleotides” to “Taq Polymerase: A type of DNA polymerase that can withstand high temperatures”. I realized that I subconsciously add a lot of jargon and write long sentences that become quite tedious for audience members to grasp so I have to focus on writing more concisely. Finally, in my last section after reviewing it I expanded on the applications of PCR like Julianne recommended but also added another visual to explain genetic fingerprinting. Julianne’s comment made me realize how important visuals assisted with understanding unfamiliar terms in a way writing can’t.
When I was examining and reviewing Julianne’s definition, I was able to learn a lot by appreciating her individual writing style that really connected to an audience easily. I also realized how important peer review is because it allows someone to look over your writing with a fresh eye and detect areas of improvement. As Julianne is also a blogger I was able to learn from her organization style where everything is constructed in subsections that flow effortlessly into each following topic. In addition, it’s nice how she titles the subsections or expansions with questions that she seems to have foreshadowed the reader having. In the future I would definitely use those techniques to keep the audience’s attention. Overall, I learned a lot from peer reviewing and having someone constructively critique my writing from a new fresh perspective.