Should not be your favourite class but its mandatory and you'll survive it. Hard to fail if you hand stuff in. Some classes are moderately interesting and others are quite painful. There is time to work on assignments in class which is nice.

Lots of reading scientific papers, a couple essays, and a few presentations. Most classes include some sort of discussion either in small groups or as a class so sit beside other keeners if that is your sort of thing. The essays are marked relatively harshly but the other little assignments are easy to get a 90+ on. I really enjoyed the final journal club assignment but that was by virtue of a lovely group.

Professor Ruscher was a pretty generous marker and seemed to genuinely care about the course and students. Lots of opportunities for questions and feedbacks (marked and not). Pick your professor carefully as the course experience/grade is very dependent on the prof.

Your grade isn't going to be particularly high but basically no one else will have a high grade either. Show up, try to participate (made it more enjoyable for me), do the work but don't stress it too much.

This course is not meant to be enjoyable (unless you like reading and writing), but unavoidable for science students. It is an English class focused on scientific writing, and because it more subjective than most science classes, it is easy enough to get at least 70-85% but (depending on your prof) virtually impossible to get higher than 90% (no one did in my section).

This course is a communication class for science students, covering reading scientific papers, writing papers, and the nature of science. The workload was remarkably uneven throughout the semester; some weeks I had nothing to do at all, while some weeks I had entire papers to write. There is also a lot of busywork, as I feel some worksheets are tedious and only take time away from working on the final product, which becomes more rushed as a result. Some parts of this course are, in my opinion, overemphasized, such as how to make a good claim, as this is something we mostly learned in high school. However, some things, such as how to read a scientific paper, were not taught in high school and underemphasized. My entire group felt so lost trying to read graduate-level papers on topics we k...read more

John Pringle is a kind professor but a tough grader. He's open for office hours but marks some assignments rather harshly, meaning he could have almost no feedback to give you and still give 75%. This is, however, par for an English teacher so this does not make him a bad prof.

Choose a term paper topic you would know the most about, as your ability to comprehend texts depends more on your background knowledge about the subject than your general reading skills.

How well you do in this course is VERY prof dependant. I know people who had put similar amounts of effort into this course and got drastically different grades based on how strictly their profs marked things. Please check prof historical averages on UBCFinder before registering for a section.

Lots of reading article readings and mini assignments on how scientific research is done. If you are interested in doing research at one point, you will like this class. There were 3 essays which account for most of your grade. 10-15% of your grade is based on participation (going to class on time and doing certain activities).

Very kind and approachable. Generous marker. Would recommend.

Again, choose your prof wisely.

Would've gave a 0 if it was possible. We are expected to be able to understand graduate level articles and summarize it even though you don't fully understand it. Actually improving scientific knowledge (i.e. physics or biology) would be more helpful imo

You basically write essays following a structure that you would've done in high school already (introduction, body paragraphs etc). Claim, reason, evidence, counterargument & rebuttal.

The prof was a nice person and responds to messages and questions; however, the marking feels very subjective and it feels like the marking is done in a way to purposefully get the same average to be around 80. Good for people that have low grades in other courses I guess but sucks if you are actually good at science and brings down your average.

Talking to the prof helps but only by a marginal amount

Absolutely useless course, a waste of everybody's time. Anyone who rated the usefulness of this course above 3 should not have graduated highschool. Forced us to do a bunch of useless activities just for the sake of having assignments.

Scientific papers include the following: A claim, reasons, some evidence, and counterarguement with its rebuttal. Great, you just finished learning 95% of the content covered in sci 113 !!!!!

Pretty chill prof but is allergic to giving good grades for some reason. Bro was making sure everyone got around 80.

Not much you can do about it, everybody is forced to take this course.

great class. It was interesting enough but some of the course material felt useless. The end of the term is pretty busy but manageable. Which they'd given us more time to work on it in class instead of doing boring activities.

Learning to write a paper and research was super useful, I've applied it to most of my courses

She was amazing, really caring and gave good advice.

I thought the course was helpful, especially if you're heading towards science research. You learn skills of essay writing, the scientific process, different fields in science, and overall review and strengthen your argumentative abilities in writing your arguments and counterclaims. Some similar topics I learned in this class have been applicable to other science courses such as BIOL 180. It's also an easier alternative to other classes required for communication credits such as WRDS A/B. Would recommend it to other science students, it's also a smaller class so you get the benefit of asking the TA and professor for help or great feedback!

Easier verison of WRDS150. Less useful though. 10% of material is useful. Everything taught could've been finished in 1 week. Smashing my fingers with a hammer would've been a better use of my time.

Chill Prof

Mostly a boring class, repeated essay writing skills from highschool. Though from some of the papers I peer-reviewed, students really need to take it. Whole focus of the course is to write a simple research paper, and it gets the job done. Perfect for anyone interested in going into research, or who expects to read a lot of research papers. Also goes into how trustworthy the peer-review process is, and how to critically evaluate it. Harsh grading, solid alternative to ENGL 110 if you dont want to read.

"you'll be disappointed with your grades, but grades don't matter" -the TA