Nowadays, many universities have developed undergraduate scientific programs that promote

student participation in scientific research and improve their scientific skills by providing economic

assistance at the same time. Along these programs is the Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement

(RISE) in the University of Puerto Rico at Cayey (UPRC). I joined the RISE Program during the summer of

2013 and took the Summer Bridge course and then made the cut to continue participating in the

program to take the Seminar Scientific Literature and Bibliography course. By taking this fall semester

course, I have developed into a more complete scientist by taking and reflecting on many scientific

seminars, workshops and presentations, hence learning many new scientific writing techniques and

improving my writing as a scientist.

The classes taken this semester took place at the “Miguel Melendez Muñoz” (MMM) in room 201.

During class, our two professors usually gave presentations and workshops on how to prepare scientific

writings such as annotated bibliographies, seminar reflections and review papers, from which I learned

many new things and acquired new writing techniques. We also went to some seminars about

investigations done by researchers, where I learned a little about the different topics presented such as

Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the Turing Machine, C. elegans and the nervous system and adrenocortical

cells and LIPIN1. In addition to the seminars we also got a chance to talk about our future academic

goals, our doubts about the presentations and discuss some tips on what we should do to complete our

goal with some of the researchers who presented the seminars.

Besides the classes, seminars and workshops, we were assigned to apply what we learned in class and

write some scientific literature such as the ones stated before. When writing my first seminar reflection I

was confused and did not know what or how to prepare it and the fact that I had to do it in 150 words or

less did not help me. Nonetheless, I started improving my writing progressively and by the time I had to

write my fourth reflection I knew what to do step by step and how to do it. Another scientific literature

assigned were the annotated bibliographies, which I found even more difficult since first I had to choose

a theme, then find primary articles about that specific theme and finally I could start writing the

bibliographies. I never learned how to write the reference is CSE format correctly but I did refine my

reading, comprehension and writing skills.

The main purpose of this course is learning how to write a review paper, which are critical and

analytical evaluations of information that has already been published. Before searching for articles, I was

aware that I had to choose a topic of my interest, thus enjoy preparing the paper and not get bored. By

finding and reading the primary articles I acquired a fair amount of knowledge about the topic,

consequently being able to complete my review paper with the help of my two professors. Learning how

to write a review paper helped me improve my research and writing skills, identify the difference

between primary and secondary sources and learning about a topic aside of my studies.

Similar scientific programs are helping undergraduate students improve their research skills the same

way RISE is helping me. These programs help enhance the students’ scientific mind and give them a

chance to learn additional material aside from their school work. They also provide students with

research opportunities and help them approach the world of research with better preparation. Finally

they benefit these students by distinguishing them from other students and give them recognition.