As I type this, I glance outside my window to appreciate the recent snowfall. Not too long ago I wished to have a window in my shared graduate student office space. Somehow, with the 2020 pandemic I got my wish; never did I think it would be from having to work from home. It is as if a genie granted my wish with the typical misconstrued spin. It is an understatement to say this year has had a significant impact on scientists. In the midst of the quickly evolving environment around us, we must continue in our efforts to spread our knowledge, as a doctoral candidate in Chemistry and a graduate student intern for CSU Writes, I have found regular writing accountability check-ins with CSU colleagues to be more crucial than ever now that I have a window but must talk with my writing friends through a computer screen.

Science communication is the cornerstone of our job. It is a component of every scientists’ job, and the difficulty of aptly spreading our knowledge is often overlooked. I am grateful to study and research at Colorado State University, where we appreciate this difficulty, and strive to provide our researchers and academic writers with support and tools to succeed in each facet of scientific research and scholarly work, especially writing.

As scientists, we accept that our job is to investigate unknowns about the reality in which we operate, and ultimately expand knowledge. The scientific method guides us in the journey until we can be sure that our hypothesis is supported. The journey, however, does not end there. What good is science if we do not advance the knowledge upon which we expanded?

Part II in this series will be published November 2021.