This class was an exceedingly interesting experience for me because it challenged so many of my preconceptions and made me rebuild some of my understanding of the scientific process from the ground up. I had always known that scientific publications were a form of scientific communication rather than just pure data or knowledge, but I had never considered the full ramifications of that distinction. This class taught me how scientists choose to frame their research can change a scientific field for decades and even ripple out into other facets of society, such as industry. I learned about different styles of scientific writing throughout the years and how certain publications of fraudulent or highly unethical research were able to get past peer review all the way to publication in respected journals because of clever or unintentionally misleading rhetorical strategies.
Final Paper
I wrote my final paper on how Andrew Wakefield's now famous - and now retracted - study suggesting that vaccines cause autism managed to pass through the peer review process and be published in the Lancet and how it got adopted by such a wide non-scientific audience and helped start a movement that has harmed our entire population.