I came into this research article with methods, a figure, and an outlined introduction already complete (thank you, 20.109 homework. I never thought I'd be so thankful for homework, but here I am, retracting all feelings of animosity towards my prior assignments). My attitude at first was very much as follows: "figures, results, and discussion? Pfff, it'll be smooth sailing from here." Okay, I wasn't that flippant, but I felt at least 50 notches more relaxed on the "panic-because-everything-you've-done-feels-awful" scale than I did towards the end of the writing process.
What I didn't anticipate was the overwhelming numbers of decisions I had to make while presenting the research story. Decisions included what information belonged in each section (I agonized over the divisions between results and discussion especially), which figures I wanted to present and how to present them, how much information to include in my captions, the order and way in which I explained my results and interpreted them, and so on. The paper felt less like a continuous sprint and more like an agonizing crawl from detail to detail.
One of my biggest regrets is that I didn't go to any of the many office hours offered throughout the week. I should have grabbed my laptop and worked on the paper in the presence of instructors who could alleviate my fears by answering my questions, but each time, I was convinced my paper wasn't close enough to the final draft. I opted to go it alone, which in retrospect, caused me more anxiety. Lesson very much learned for our next major assignments...
In the end, though, I appreciated the assignment. Science is not useful without clear communication of results and its implications, and writing this research article gave me a taste of what all those people in the lab do when they want to publish findings. It was interesting to really dive into the material and find potential solutions to experimental mysteries--it made me feel like a real scientist.
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