Students should come with more bright scientific ideas and research writings In a move to enhance research ideas and scientific writings among students, the Wilmut Club of P.G. and Research Department of Biotechnology, J.J. College of Arts and Science, Pudukkottai organized a special lecture on ” the art of scientific writing” by Dr. P. Mariappan, Assistant Professor, Department of Zoology, Raja Serfoji Govt. College, Thanjavur on Friday.
The lecture programme was aimed at imparting the skills of scientific writing to the students as the basis for research forms at the collegiate level. He said that while writing is a critical part of the scientific process, it is often taught secondarily to scientific concepts and becomes an afterthought to students. He further underlined that scientific writing, while an indispensable step of the scientific process, is often overlooked in undergraduate and postgraduate courses in favor of maximizing class time devoted to scientific concepts.
However, the ability to effectively communicate research findings is crucial for success in the biological sciences. He stressed that students should be encouraged to publish early and often, and also that professional scientists are generally evaluated by the number of articles published and the number of citations those articles receive. It is therefore important that college students receive a solid foundation in scientific writing early in their academic careers.
Dr. Mariappan gave a succinct step-by-step guide to scientific writing and said that it can be directly disseminated to the students which can break down the scientific writing process into easily digestible pieces, providing concrete examples that students can refer to when preparing a scientific manuscript or a dissertation. The spotlight of Dr. Mariappan’s talk was that by laying emphasis and increasing the exposure on effective scientific writing process in the classroom, students can be trained and better prepared for research levels and productive careers in the biological sciences.
Many students and staff from the department and other departments of the college attended the lecture session which was followed by questionnaires by the enthusiastic participants. Earlier, the lecture session was opened with the welcome address by Dr. G. Manigandan, Head of the department who emphasized that the programme holds significance as the need of the hour is to have a proper knowledge among the students on effective scientific writing.
Dr. V. Jayaramanathan, Assistant Professor greeted Dr. Mariappan by honoring him with a shawl which was followed by the distribution of ‘best student’ awards to the meritorious students of the department, by him.
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