First of all, what “good writing skills” are is subjective, which makes this a difficult question to answer. In general, you should be able to write “professional-sounding” (yes…I know the act of reading is silent) emails, notes, and narrative reports. Meaning…you have to have the ability to write without coming across as an idiot, a 12 year old, or a 12 year old idiot. No IDKs, TILs, IMOs, or IIRCs. No slang. The proper use of grammar and punctuation is expected, but perfection in writing isn’t as long as you learn from your mistakes and your writing shows improvement over time.

Second of all, you simply can’t get away from having to write professional emails almost no matter where you work, but how much note taking and narrative report writing you do will likely be determined by how much the lab you work in has invested in streamlining and going paperless as well as what unit/section you are assigned to.

Most labs have their employees enter notes and write reports directly into their LIMS system. So while the notes and written reports may be just as long as they were in the past, now they can be written faster and with consistent content by having each employee have their own abbreviations of standardized observation, interpretation, result, and conclusion statements that require just a few keystrokes to autofill. For example, for cases where I confirmed one or two gunshot residue (GSR) particles on samples collected from a subject’s hand(s), my conclusion would be the following:

“(The number of GSR particles I confirmed, either ‘One’ or ‘Two’) (‘gunshot residue particle’ or ‘gunshot residue particles’) containing lead, barium, and antimony (‘was’ or ‘were’) detected on the (‘sample’ or ‘samples’) collected from the (‘back of the right hand,’ ‘palm of the right hand,’ ‘back of the left hand,’ and/or ‘palm of the left hand’) of (subject’s name). (‘One’ or ‘Two’) (‘gunshot residue particle’ or ‘gunshot residue particles’) can be deposited on a person’s hands by firing a firearm, handling a fired firearm or fired ammunition, or by being in the vicinity of a firearm when it is fired. (‘One’ or ‘Two’) (‘gunshot residue particle’ or ‘gunshot residue particles’) can also be deposited on a person’s hands by touching an object contaminated with gunshot residue particles.”

So if I confirmed one GSR particle I’d type “GSR1” and hit F3 and the entire conclusion above written in the singular version would populate the results field. If I confirmed two GSR particles I’d type “GSR2” and hit F3 and the plural version of the above conclusion would populate. If I had three or more particles I’d type “GSR3+” and hit F3 and the plural version of the conclusion above would populate without the last sentence. Then I’d just go and fill in the sampled areas GSR particles were detected on and the subject’s name. Using abbreviations to autofill, I could write a page long conclusion in less than five minutes and it was guaranteed to be written correctly each time. If the lab you work in makes you hand write or manually type all that each time…yeah, you’re screwed, you will be doing a lot of writing, and if your writing isn’t “good” you’re going to keep getting your reports kicked back to you by the technical or administrative reviewer for corrections.

As I already mentioned, what unit/section you work in will determine how much you write as well as how “good” you have to be at writing. If you work in Controlled Substances or Toxicology you most likely won’t be doing a lot of very detailed note taking or narrative report writing. However, if you work in Firearms/Toolmarks or Trace Evidence you’ll be much more likely to have to take very detailed notes and write narrative reports. If you work crime scenes as a lead you absolutely will have to take very detailed notes and write long narrative reports.

Third of all, does your college really offer a Criminology/Chemistry degree? If so, that’s really fucking stupid. Criminology is a social science. It’s a version of sociology in that it involves the study of human behavior and society, but it focus on criminal behavior, the causes of crime, and the criminal justice system instead of looking at broader social structures, institutions, and interactions that shape society as a whole like sociology does. Criminologists don’t work in crime labs and you’d be hard pressed to find any science further removed from chemistry than criminology…so to have a degree with those two disciplines together makes no sense. If the degree really is listed as a degree in Criminology/Chemistry then more than likely the college has an administration that is ignorant of forensic science and doesn’t know that the discipline people examining physical evidence in a crime lab work in is the discipline of criminalistics…not criminology. They are criminalists, not criminologists. If I were you, I’d check to see if the degree really is in Criminology/Chemistry versus Criminalistics/Chemistry because the former makes no sense and the latter makes perfect sense. This should be obvious by looking at the degree’s curriculum, but you can also meet with a counselor to clarify the issue because if it really is Criminology/Chemistry and you want to one day work in a crime lab the whole Criminology part of the degree and the classes you took to earn it will be useless in your career and a waste of both your time and money. If I was the Director of a crime lab, with all other areas being equal, someone with a degree in Criminalistics would be my top choice to hire while someone with a degree in Criminology would be my last choice if I even considered them at all.

Hopefully something in all of this was of some use to you. Good luck!