So that's why people spend so long editing before sending their papers to journals

All I can think about right now is if writing a shorthand version of a paper with a partner was this difficult, how in the world am I going to write a full paper by myself? Oh well, I'll cross that bridge when I get there. All in all, writing this data summary increased my ability to understand other papers immensely. I used to look at a figure and read the title and read the caption and still not understand what in the world it was showing, but after making and interpreting my own figures I feel confident in my ability to evaluate the authenticity and accuracy of others. I wonder if I can apply that to other parts of my life? I don't understand how soccer players can have so much coordination with their feet, but maybe if I made my own soccer ball it will all fall into place.

One of the hardest parts about this data summary was putting what was flying around in my head into concise and precise words on a slide. It is so difficult to figure out what should be put down and what should just stay in my head. I found that a lot of the stuff I wanted to put in the summary just didn't fit anywhere, or was just extra information that wasn't necessary for the reader to see. It was very helpful to have a second pair of eyes for this assignment because he could help filter some of the nonsense I was trying to put into it.

Another part I had difficulty with was the background section. There was just so much information that I think is important in each of the different subsections, but deciding what was extra and what was absolutely necessary was almost impossible.

One part I enjoyed about this assignment was how as you are writing bullets and making figures and interpreting data, you keep coming to new conclusions and adjusting your beliefs of what the final product is going to look like. It is very much a dynamic and moving process; even in the last couple of days of editing our summary, we were changing how we decided to interpret our data and what our final outcome would be.

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