Please help to check any error in my writing

Question

I am major in food Science and my research on lactobacillus reuteri focuses on
utilizing microencapsulation techniques to create microcapsule with lactic
acid bacteria to assist lactobacillus reuteri against adverse environment.
With experience in laboratory, I have obtained microbiology laboratory skills
include total plate count, inoculation methods and the subculturing of
organisms, isolating colonies, etc.

KrisBlueNZ · Accepted Answer

"I am A major in ..." or "I am majoring in ..."

Food Science should probably be written with initial capitals on BOTH words.

Focuses is an American spelling; the British spelling (now falling into disuse in all countries) is focusses. Just FYI.

UTILISING is what I call a "**** word"; a bit grandiose and pointless. I would just say USING.

"... to create A microcapsule ..."

"... to assist ... against adverse environment" - at least this should be "... to assist ... against AN adverse environment" but when you ASSIST, you ASSIST someone/something to DO something, so you need to say what ACTION these bacteria will assist with. For example, "assist ... TO SURVIVE IN an adverse environment". I would also make two more changes: "... HELP ... to survive IN adverse ENVIRONMENTS". It just reads better that way.

"THROUGH MY experience in THE [or A] laboratory, ..."

You've developed your skills THROUGH your experience in the laboratory. This point is arguable though.

I would avoid repeating LABORATORY.

"I have obtained .... skills includING ..."

Also, you don't really OBTAIN a skill; you DEVELOP a skill.

"plate count, inoculation methods and the subculturing of organisms, isolating colonies, etc." - 1. "plate count" is not a skill, maybe you mean "DETERMINING plate count", or ESTIMATING, CALCULATING, etc. 2. When you list things (skills, in this case) with commas between them, it's not usual to use AND within one of the skills, unless the parts before and after the AND are closely related and belong together. I'm not a food scientist so I don't know whether that's the case in your example, but I don't think it is, so I would rewrite that sentence as "I have obtained microbiology laboratory skills including determining plate count, inoculation methods, subculturing of organisms[,] and isolating colonies". I've removed ETC because the word INCLUDING at the start of the list implies that there are other skills.

The comma that I put in square brackets, before the AND in the list, is called the SERIAL COMMA or OXFORD COMMA, and whether you use it or not is a style decision, at least in a simple list like this. I've put the Oxford comma in square brackets to show that it's optional. In your case, since the items in your list are quite long, I would use the Oxford comma, because it adds a short pause, which improves readability/listenability.

The matter of writing a list using commas is actually quite complicated if you want the list to be unambiguous and easy to read (or listen to). I started writing a long explanation but it's probably best for you to look up "Oxford comma" if you want the full story.

"I am majoring in Food Science. My research on lactobacillus reuteri focuses on using microencapsulation techniques to create a microcapsule with lactic acid bacteria to help lactobacillus reuteri survive in adverse environments. Through my experience in the laboratory, I have developed microbiology skills including determining total plate count, inoculation methods, subculturing of organisms, and isolating colonies."

This still isn't quite right. The "inoculation methods" skill is in a different tense, because it doesn't use the -ING suffix, so it sounds wrong. Perhaps replace it with "inoculatING <something>".

Teh78523 · Answer

thanks a lot.

Please help to check any error in my writing

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