9/19 Prompt: Professional Interview

     Todays blog post is about an interview I had with a perfessional in the field of zoology.  Professor Jan Stevenson was gracious enough to participate in the interview for me.  Professor Stevenson, although part of the zoology department, is involved more in environmental scientist.  He is actually conducting research on environmental conservation and how human activity alters algae and aquatic  ecosystems.  even though my research blog is geared toward the field of zoology, my actual major is environmental biology/zoology.  I really want to find a way to involve some sort of environmental conservation work in my future, so Professor Stevenson was a really good person to get to talk to to get a different perspective on the things I want to do.  Below are the questions I asked him and his main answer points (I was writing his answers while he was talking so these are not his direct quotes, but paraphrasing of his answers):

What kind of work have you done in the past? 

• In the past, and now, I do research designed to help environmental problems.  I look at relationships between human activity and how we alter ecological systems.  I ask questions like, How do we want to manage ecological systems so we can manage our well being?  I also work with the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) showing them haw to solve problems and look at ecology in different ways.    

What is your job like from day to day?

• I work ten to twelve to even sixteen hours a day.  My job is largely compiled of writing, reading, and revising other work.  I also teach, about one class a year, hear at the university.

What is your favorite part of your job?

• Writing helps us to think critically about information while trying to communicate.  During this process, you get new ideas and understandings.  This is the most rewarding and "fun" part of my job.  I get to understand what I didn't know before and gain new and cleaver ideas.  

What is the most challenging part? 

• Trying to communicate effectively.  You have to see the big picture and major themes and make them clear; explaining them in a way people understand.  

What kind of training did you have to go through and what was it like?

• I went through ten years of school: 4 years of under grad, 2 years for my masters, and 4 more years for my Ph. D.  I strongly recommend this path to my students to help them really figure out what they want to do.  I also had a lot of practical experience working with professors and graduate students.  This really changed how I did school and made me much more serious.  I feel that you really need to have both.

What have you written in the past/currently working on?

• I have typically written data rich papers addressing specific hypothesis and journal articles.  I am currently reviewing and finishing a research paper on ecological assessments of algae, along with reviewing grad and Ph. D. students papers.   

What type of writing have you done and what was your favorite?

• I write a lot of emails, scientific pieces, papers on analyzing data, journals, and I do a lot of reviewing.  I consider reviewing a form of writing.  It helps you learn, along with how to write and communicate.  Reviewing pieces are hard, but I enjoy that the most because it is the most rewarding.  You learn so much during the process of synthesizing information.  

What process do you use when writing?

• I start by laying out the key points I want to make.  Then I do a stream of consciousness list of ideas I want to include with supporting key points and relating them.  Then I revisit the key points to make sure they are the same and are still included in my overall goal of what I'm writing.  I then organize my ideas into an outline in excel.  Next I find a block of time where I can do another stream of consciousness session where I do my draft quickly, without worrying about details or accuracy.  I then completely rewrite this (well not all the time but often) making sure it is written with clarity, accuracy, and completeness.  I then have someone who is not from my field, usually my wife, read and review it.  I like to do this because I like to make sure my writing is easily understandable for everyone.  I believe it is important to "write very simply" so that you can look at words and expect someone from another country to be able to understand it.  I also have someone from the same field review it.     

What are the challenges to communicating in your field?

• There is so much information to keep up with.  Electronic availability helps with this.  There is also a systemic problem.  The scientific review process is a difficult one because you must rely of others to rigorously review scientific works and review the scientific methods and results of the people and pieces they are reviewing.  If not very reliable people are doing this reviewing then you have inadequate pieces being published.  It is time consuming to review but you should always review pieces like you would want yours reviewed.       

     It was very interesting to learn that a lot of the job of an environmental scientist is writing and reviewing.  Professor Stevenson's writing process actually had fairly similar components to ours in class.  He commented that reviewing is a form of writing and how he has to do it so often.  We are concentrating on the process of reviewing and editing in class at the moment.  How you must make sure your ideas are correct and what you want to get out to the audience, and making sure it is clear and understandable to all.  Professor Stevenson had a lot of good points about about writing and communication and he defiantly gave me a good idea of the types of writing I would have to do if I enter into this field.  Even though he is more environmentally based rather than zoology, both fields connect in many ways, and since I hope to combine the two in a career in the future, I will probably be doing some writing like this.

Works Cited

Stevenson, Jan. Personal interview. 18 September 2013.