Writing Sample for Research Asst. Help Please!

[lmarina1]

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[Stories]

1) Does anyone have any experience with a similar situation about coming up with a relevant writing sample from scratch?
2)One of the primary sources I was going to mention has the PI of the project listed as one of the last few authors. Do you think utilizing this source is a good idea (I'm doing something relevant) or bad (might misunderstand some nuance in the paper and look stupid).
3) Do I need to go searching in other databases?
4) Any tips in general for writing a literature review for public health research? Anyone currently in the field, if you were making an intro level hire, what would you look for in a writing sample? Do you know of any good examples i can base it off of? I've obviously googled, just would like the perspective of anyone whose done this before/reads them.

First and foremost, since you've never done a critical review of scientific literature, make sure you understand the stylistic differences between a scientific review and a literary review. They are quite different from one another.

1.) Make sure you have a clear direction and organization in your paper. Know what each paragraph's focus is and hone each one properly

2.) It's critical you cite relevant sources your PI has been involved with as it completes the knowledge in the field. If your PI has been involved with work that is irrelevant to the current paper topic, then ignore it, of course. The key thing is, you can (and should) be exhaustive in your paper. It's not uncommon to have 10+ citations on a single sentence (although for something like this, which has been thoroughly established in the literature, a review or meta-analysis is okay to be cited).

3.) PubMed is generally exhaustive for biomedical literature. If it's an off-shoot of biomedical, consider expanding into other engines.

4.) Most important thing is that you demonstrate an ability to understand the literature and are able to synthesize and write it in your own words.

 

[espre]

I've been asked for a writing sample for a clinical research assistant job that's more or less focused on medical informatics. Anyway, all my write-ups and literature reviews in undergrad were on arcane topics in linguistics which I don't even understand anymore; way too much jargon to entertain using.

Hi. Although your old linguistics papers may not be related to the job you're applying for, you might consider submitting one anyway, if there is one that is particularly excellent. Even if your prospective employers don't fully understand what you were writing about, this might give them a view into the depth and level of understanding with which you approach a subject, as well as your competence as a writer. Depending upon the topics involved, linguistics can have a lot in common with informatics, in terms of the analysis of data structures, and parsing of information.

 

[lmarina1]

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