Report on my Interviewees, Blog Post 6.8

I learned a great deal about writing in the field of geosciences by conducting my interviews. 

For one, scientific writing is very technical and requires concise explanation. 

Secondly, there are many forms of writing; such as dissertations, papers, journal articles, and posters/presentations. 

Finally, I learned that the process for writing in science can be incredibly lengthy and requires excellent time management.

• What are the most significant or interesting genres that you learned about from your interviewees? Please identify at least THREE specific genres from your discipline/field of study that your interview subjects discussed writing within. 

The three genres I want to analyze are scientific papers, scientific articles, and posters. 

These genres are significant because they are the main formats of data sharing for scientific writing. All convey important information about a project, field work, or research. However, they all convey their information in different ways.

• How do these genres differ from one another? Think about things like genre convention, content, purpose, audience, message, and context as you describe these differences.

Scientific papers are usually incredibly lengthy. It is not uncommon for them to go beyond 100 pages in length, depending on the subject. They attempt to analyze just about every conceivable detail about the subject matter. If, for example, a paper is written on a volcanic eruption, the paper will go in depth on what kind of eruption it was, how much lava is being produced, how much gas is being released, how the volcano evolved over the course of days, weeks, months, etc. This genre utilizes a great deal of technical terms.

Articles are like scientific papers but are usually shortened down to perhaps 20 pages or less. Because a journal has limited printing space, trying to utilize the allotted space given by the publisher is crucial. Many times, rewrites have to be done in order for the article to both explain the subject matter in depth AND fit in the allotted space. Much like scientific papers, articles feature technical jargon. Though, they may attempt to cut down on it a tad.

Posters are usually the shortest variety of scientific publication. All important information, abstracts, references, and data is crammed into a poster about the size of large coffee table. Like articles, poster authors must utilize limited space. Posters generally do an adequate job of explaining subject matter but do not go as in depth as articles or papers do. Since posters are generally hung in common areas around science buildings on campus, the technical terms might be cut down to only a few per major section.

• Based on the information you gathered in your interviews, what is challenging and/or difficult about writing within these genres (from a professional's point of view)?

Both of my interviewees stated that the hardest parts about writing in the scientific community are making papers technical, concise, and accurate and keeping up on the current research related to the paper being written. 

• Based on the information you gathered in your interviews, what is exciting and/or rewarding about writing within these genres (from a professional's point of view)?

Dr. Gehrels stated that one of the most exciting outcomes of one of his papers was that a new way of looking at the geology of an area, in this case, the Grand Canyon, was discovered. Kate Metcalf told me in our interview that doing her own dissertation was exciting and rewarding because it was she doing most of the work.

Overall, the interviews gave me a sense that creating meaningful and sometimes even revolutionary work was the rewarding experience from all of the writing.

• Where in mass media - popular, academic, and/or social - can examples of this genre be found? If genre examples cannot be found within mass media easily, where can genre examples be found/located?

Examples of scientific papers and articles are quoted in mass media often. For geosciences, any major paper on climate change or climate variations is going to get a lot of attention. 

Academic media, such as scholarly journals, posts these articles often. Popular media often tries to stay on top of the climate change controversy and quotes papers as well. 

Philippe 2009. Turning the tide on climate change, by Robert Kandel. October 15th, 2009 via Flickr. Attribution License.