Matsumoto 1

Lisa Matsumoto
Honors 220 B
December 16, 2015
Reflection

Throughout my years of education, teachers and mentors have guided and aided me in

ways that would lead to growth and wisdom. When it came to writing, elementary school drilled

a formula in my head of what had to be five paragraphs with a solid introduction and conclusion.

After high school came along, that formula was obliterated, which brought along many hours of

confusion and many papers until I could establish the correct formula. After a quarter in this

class, Ive realized that the world of writing is much more vast and diverse than I could have

ever imagined. Scientific writing is complex, detailed, and at times, esoteric, but this class has

trained me with the skills to tackle these intimidating characteristics.

Dr. John Money conducted one of the first case studies we discussed as a class. After an

unfortunate circumcision, a boys genitals were completely disfigured. As a solution, Dr. Money

advised a gender reassignment surgery, which its psychological and physical consequences led to

the hot debate and research of sex differentiation.

Following this case study, we looked at a scientific study in which the sexual

differentiation in guinea pigs was observed by altering the hormonal environment of the fetus

while in the womb. This was our first exposure to scientific literature, and it was challenging.

This article did, however, teach me the importance of thoroughness. In order for the results to be

valid, the authors had to control for every possible variable (such as removing gonads to avoid

other hormonal influences), which can be quite difficult. It also was surprising to find scientific
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evidence that prenatal exposure to certain hormones can affect the brain and how a child

develops physically and behaviorally.

After going through several articles, Ive learned how to thoroughly analyze data from

several papers and how to connect them to implications in society. After several discussions with

the class as a whole as well, weve learned how to devise testable experiments by eliminating

multiple variables. Despite these efforts, however, some variables are unavoidable, which can

lead to limitations and to a degree, uncertainty of the results credibility.

Throughout the quarter, Ive learned that some news articles overlook these limitations,

and often times exaggerate the possible applications these studies provide. The media tends to

over-sensationalize these findings in general, and some news writers take it to the point where

their articles report false results. For example, one study simply found a correlation between the

brain and homosexual rams, but some journalists reported this study as an attempt to cure

homosexuality. Unfortunately, many readers often buy into these exaggerated articles, and I

admit that I used to be one of them. This class has opened my eyes and has taught me to read

these articles with a grain of salt.

When it came to writing an article myself, however, this was a completely new learning

process as well. My biggest challenges were being concise and conveying data correctly and

coherently to readers. When presenting information to a general audience, Ive learned that not

all details are necessary, and some may even confuse readers. Ive also made the mistake of

jumping to conclusions and making connections that seemed a little far stretched. For example,

in my second article, the study I chose focused on mating and aggression in mice. Although this

study was conducted with mice, I immediately applied the results to humans, which is a huge

leap and something that hasnt even been found with humans yet. Instead, the application from
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this study that is logical is that theres a possibility for future research to see if these findings are

applicable to humans. Receiving feedback from my peers, however, was tremendously helpful in

making me realize these mistakes and teaching me how to learn from them.

This quarter in general has surprised me with the amount Ive learned. As a student, Ive

learned so much about neuronal processes and their involvement with sexual behaviors, but Ive

grown as a writer as well. My goals initially were to learn about sexual dimorphisms among men

and women and how they form, but this class has overshot my expectations. This course has

equipped me with not only knowledge about neuronal processes, but also with the skills to

analyze scientific articles and to write accurate, informative articles reflecting results of different

studies. Just as scientific research will continue to grow and flourish, ones education can never

truly end. Im excited to apply this new set of skills whether its in the form of reading something

in the news or analyzing papers for future classes.