My Interviewees as Professional Writers

This post will be about my interviewees as professional writers.

Main, Terri. "Writers" 03/14/2014 via wordmaster. Public Domain Dedication License

Dr. Michael Riggs has over 50 published papers most having to do with the immune systems of animals.  Dr. Andre-Denis Wright has published over 75 peer-review papers, 17 book chapter,  and 90 conference papers.

What professional genres has each interviewee written in? Explain how these genres differ from each other, according to conventions, formatting, techniques, content, and anything else that seems relevant to describe.

Dr. Riggs has been published in Infection and Immunity as well as The Journal of Parasitology. Dr. Wright has been published in American Society for Microbiology and Vaccine.  Both of their writing is in the same genre of a standard research paper. The all have an abstract, introduction, materials, results, and conclusion section. They all have the same conventions of being entirely fact based with graphs and charts used to present data.

What is the context surrounding the two different pieces published by each of your interviewees? (See the bulleted questions on Student's Guide page 180 for specific questions about context). Cite specific details from the pieces in your answers. 

Dr. Riggs

The first article was published on May 22, 1987 in the Infection and Immunity journal which can be accessed online.  It is intended for fellow researchers or people interested in his study however the level of language suggests it was made for people with a higher education.

The second article was published on February 7, 1989 in the Journal of Parasitology which can also be accessed online. Like the first article, it was most likely intended for people with a higher education who were interested in his research.

Dr. Wright

The firs article was published on March 13, 2004 in the  American Society for Microbiology journal which can be accessed in print and online. It was intended for people interested in animals but also had a degree of education to understand the language he is talking in.

The second article was published on  September 28, 2004 in the journal Vaccine which can also be accessed both in print and online. Like all the other ones, it was intended of people with a higher education background who are interested in the research he was doing.


What is the overall message of each piece? How did you decide this? Cite specific details from the pieces in your answers. 

Dr. Riggs

The message of  each piece can be found in the title. With the first being "Infectivity and neutralization of Cryptosporidium parvum sporozoites" and the second being "Hyperimmune moving colostrum neutralizes Cryptosporidium sporozoites and protects mice against oocyst challenge." They are just informing the audience on what they found during the research.

Dr. Wright

Just like for Dr. Riggs, the message of each piece can be found in the title. The first is "Molecular Diversity of Rumen Methanogens from Sheep in Western Australia" and the second is "Reducing methane emissions in sheep by immunization against rumen methanogens." Both talk about the effect things have on how many methanogens are present in a sheep's rumen. 

What purpose is each piece trying to achieve? Cite specific details from the pieces in your answers.

Dr Riggs

The purpose of both of the pieces was to inform people on the research he did. I know this because he is merely stating the facts of what he found in his research.This is the purpose of every research paper and will most likely be the purpose of Dr. Wrights publication.

Dr. Wright

No shocker here, the purpose of Dr. Wright's research was to inform his audience on the research he did and what he found. It is a research paper and this tends to be the purpose of most research papers. 

My Interviewees on Social Media

This blog will be about my interviewees on social media and was the easiest blog for me to do because they had no social media that I could find.

Bivins, Todd. "Social Media" 02/24/2014 via insightmakerting. Public Domain Dedication License

Surprisingly, I could not find my interviewees on any form of social media including LinkedIn. I found Dr. Wright mentioned in tweets and facebook posts but I could not find his profile. For Dr. Riggs, there were so many Michael Riggs that I soon gave up scrolling through the searched people on Facebook. 

Seeing as how I could find nothing on them, I would describe their social media presence as nonexistent. I also learned nothing about them from social media because the few tweets and posts that mentioned Dr. Wright contained information I already knew about him from doing previous blogs.

Continuing on this lack of social media presence, they inherently have no social media persona aside from the fact that they are researchers at the University of Arizona. 

My Field of Study

This blog will be about my field of study which is Pre-med. 

University of Northern Florida. "Pre-Med" 2016 via UNF. Public Domain Dedication License

What do students in your program or department learn how to do?

In this department, students learn how to prepare for medical school and take classes that are required to enter medical school. 

What do people who get degrees in this field usually go on to do for work?

People usually end up taking on a more specific degree which doesn't have to be science based. They typically go on to medical school and become doctors. 

What drew you to this field?

I have always wanted to be a doctor since a young age. I was always fascinated by science and loved playing with my microscope kit. I do not know what drew me to this field since it is something I have wanted to do for a long time. 

Name three of the leaders/most exciting people involved in this field right now in 2016. Why are they interesting or exciting to you? 

Dr. Vivek Murthy - Surgeon General. He is exiting because he is in charge of educating the American public about health issues and living a healthy lifestyle.

Dr. William C. Campell - Won Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2015.

Dr. Paul Modrich - Won Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2015.

What are the names of three leading academic/scholarly journals in your field? Where are they published? Give us the names and locations of at least 3.

Nature Review Molecular Cell Biology - published in United Kingdom

Molecular Cell - published in United States

National Academy of Sciences - published in United States

Report on My Interviews

This blog post will be about the interviews I conducted for my project.

Grossman, Scott. "Interview Questions"09/22/2015 via dynamicassociates.  Public Domain Dedication License

The most significant genre I learned from my reports is peer edited publications. Three specific genres from my field of study are classroom Powerpoint presentations, peer edited publications, and book chapters.


These genres differ on the audience as well as what is being presented. Powerpoints are mainly used for teaching students as well as presenting at conventions. It is emphasized that there are not a lot of words per slide because it bores the audience since they can just read what you are going to say. Peer edited publications are what  build the credibility of a researcher as well as keep people in his field updated on any new developments. These are usually filled with information on research that the scientist has completed. Lastly book chapters are used when someone is an expert in a certain field and is needed to write on their expertise in a book.


The most difficult thing about these genres is getting all the information to your audience in a clear and concise manner. Scientific writing is not supposed to be fluffy. It is supposed to be straight to the point using as little words as possible.  There are often difficult and complex topics to discuss for scientific writing so helping the audience understand what you are talking about is important for all of these genres.


Examples of these reports can be found in scientific journals or websites.

From Academia to Social Media

This blog will be one of the authors who was published in the journal I studied.

Seethaler, Michael. "Why I Hate Social Media" 11/2/2015 via theodyssey. Public Domain Dedication License

Who I found?

Carla Coltharp was found on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Describe her social media presence? 

I am not able to know a lot Carla's social media presence because all of her accounts are private. This means that unless I follow/add her, I will not be view any of her posts; however I was able to follow her on twitter. However, I was able to find a link to all of her writings and publications.

How does her social media persona differ from the one in the journal?

Carla's twitter presence is very similar to the one in the scientific journal. A lot of the people she follows are scientific accounts and a lot of her tweets are about what she did in the lab. Although it is less formal because she is speaking in common vernacular, you can still tell that she is a lab researcher.

Her Facebook is private so her presence on that I do not really know. However her profile pictures do contrast her to what was presented in the journal. Most of the pictures are her with friends and  you would not be able to tell that she is in a research lab or in a research journal.

Academic Discourse and Genre

This blog will be about the genres found in the journal I selected.

Sotelo, Mary. "Academic Sources" 09/10/2010 via wikispaces. Public Domain Dedication License 

There seem to be three main genres published in this journal: Research Paper, Podcast, Opinion. 

Research Paper: This is entirely factual based genre and is used to inform their peer on what they found in some research they conducted. It meets the expectation of the audience because it presents data and also analyzes the data presented.

Podcast: Similar to the research paper, the podcast genre is used to inform peers on the research they recently conducted. It meets the audience expectation by presenting data in an easy to follow audio format .

Opinion: This genre is used to suggest for more research or for people to look at something different on a specific topic. There are facts to back why they think the way they do and to persuade others to think similarly. It meets the audience expectations because it encourages them into a new way of viewing a certain topic. 

Rhetorical Analysis of Academic Journal

This blog post will about the journal "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."




This journal has a numerous amount of authors as it seems to be a collection of scientific papers written by people in a variety of fields. There are 16 fields covered in this journal which each field having about 5-10 new paper published. This makes it hard to know the amount of authors in the journal as a whole. However, specifically in the article "Defining the rate-limiting processes of bacterial cytokinesis"  the authors are Carla Coltharp and Jie Xiao. Carla is a Ph.D. student at Johns Hopkins University and she works under Jie Xiao who received her graduate from Rice University.

In the journal they are portrayed as intelligent well versed people. Their work is peer-reviewed and also reviewed by the editors of the journal which increases their credibility.

The intended audience for this journal is professionals is the fields covered by the journal. I can tell because of the title of the journal itself because it comes from the National Academy of Sciences which is something professionals look at to keep in touch with what is going on in their field.

The secondary audience could be people who are not professionals in their fields and are just interested in a particular paper that was published in this journal.

The online journal was published on February 23, 2016 so it is relatively new. Typical rules of the genre is specific, scientific writing. The journal covers a multitude of fields so there are a lot of current events that could have affected the writing of some of the authors.

The overall message of this journal issue is updating people on recent findings in the sciences.  I decided this not only by the title of the journal but because of the papers published. Published in the journals are papers like "Microbiome of genetically engineered trees" and "Cheating and quorum sensing" so it appears the journal's message is relaying any new findings to its audience.

The purpose of this journal is the exact same thing as its message, educating people on recent findings in the sciences.

My Interview Subjects

Magelee, Heather. "Vietnam War" n.d. via moodleshare. Public Domain Dedication License

This post will be about who I am interviewing for my project.

I am looking to interview Dr. Michael Riggs and Dr. Andre-Denis Wright. Both work for the University of Arizona and are in the  molecular microbiology department.

Dr. Michael Riggs

Dr.  Andre-Denis Wright

Dr. Riggs received his bachelors degree from Texas A&M University and his doctorate from Washington State University. While Dr. Wright received his doctorate from the University of Guelph in Canada.

Although the exact amount of time is unknown, Dr. Wright has a long history in his profession. First, he was a research group leader at the Australian Government's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, then he was the department chair for the Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Vermont, and now he is the Director of the School of Animal and Comparative Biomedical Sciences at the University of Arizona.

Unlike, Dr. Wright, aside from his University of Arizona page, not much can be found on the Dr. Riggs background.

The interviews are planned going to be via google docs as we both have very busy schedules and I do not plan on using any audio for my project.

Questions for Dr. Riggs

As a professor, what are your most common writing genres?

Have these genres changed as you became a more experience professor?

How has student feedback played a role in choosing which genre you use in class?

What are the most common genres you come across outside of the classroom in your profession?

How has peer editing shaped your writing process?

Has it been challenging having your papers peer reviewed and do you think you gained something from it?

Is there a big difference in writing in a professional setting and a classroom setting? If so, what is the difference and how do you manage it?


Questions for Dr. Wright

Being in different professional environments all around the world, has your writing changed in relation to where you are? If so, how has it changed?

Your profile says you have a wide variety of writing genres, how do you approach writing in each genre and how different is it based on the genre you chose?

What is your favorite genre to write in and why?

How hard is it to publish all of the writings you have done?

Since you serve on the editorial board for 5 journals, how do you approach peer-editing?

How have the many different audiences you have written for impacted the way you write?

What is your writing process like?

Local Revision: Pronoun Usage

This blog post will be about my usage of pronouns in project 1.

"Revision" 09/25/2009 via wikispaces. Public Domain Dedication License

1) I think I did a good job with my pronoun usage. I said a lot of "you" because I was trying to connect with the audience and get them more engaged in my podcast. I tried to avoid talking about me as much as possible because this podcast is for me to inform people not for me to share my views on the controversy.  Examining my pronoun usage tells me if I need to try harder to connect with my audience or if I need to spend less time talking about myself.

2) My introduction and conclusion is me speaking directly to the audience. For my conclusion, I ask the audience for feedback. I think this is effective because it shows the audience that I care about their opinion and want to hear back from them. Doing a podcast, I know I am trying to get people to listen for hopefully the entire thing and that means keeping them engaged and not having it seem like it is just me rambling.

My Pronouns

This blog will list the pronouns in my podcast.

"Pronouns" 11/21/2011 via wikispaces. Public Domain Dedication License

Pronouns: 

I

you

you

you

I

I

I

my

they

they

my

you

I

he (Hiro)

he (Hiro)

they

he (Pablo)

he (Pablo)

we

I

I

you

you

you

you

I

you

I

my

you

I

I

Local Revision: Tense Usage

"Verb Tense" 09/02/12 via getenglishlessons. Public Domain Dedication License

This post will be about the usage of verb tenses in my podcast.

Present

Simmer

Come

Thinking

Extract

Fitting

Going

Ties

Talking 

Stop

Comment 

Listening

Secrete

Mixing

Like

Modify

Inject

Do

Develop

Locate

Understand

Agree

Locate

Past

Does

Mixed 

Published

Caught

Discovered

Misunderstood

Released

Created

Extracted

Figured

Presented

Commented 

Future:

None

1) Present tense is most prevalent. 

2) Present tense gives the audience the idea that the controversy is still going on because you are still speaking about it in the present tense. 

3) Yes,  the shift make sense. I only shit to past when I refer to a source. This is because the quote was said something in the past thus the verb is in past tense. Once I am done referring to the source I go right back into present tense. I think the way I used my verb tense flowed smoothly because of this, 

4) I used primarily present tense. 

Local Revision: Wordiness

Frause, Kelsey. "Wordiness" 01/23/2014 via zum. Public Domain Dedication License

This post will be about the wordiness of my project.

Original Text:

Instead I will be talking about something that has been happening over the past few years on whether or not human stem cells should be getting mixed with animal cells. What caught my attention on this subject was a Discovery News article published in January of this year. It talking about how scientist have figured out a way to grow human organs inside animals. Basically, the scientists, genetically modify the genes of animal embryos to be missing a certain organ and then inject that embryo with human stem cells in an attempt to get the stem cells to grow into a human organ inside the animal. The organ would then be later extracted and given to donor. With over 100,000 people on the wait-list for organs this could potentially expedite the process of waiting for an organ. However, the problem with this is that people are afraid that the animals could develop a human conscious furthermore, they do not like the idea of scientist creating part animal part human creations.

Revise Text:

Discovery News publish an article in  January  that talks about how scientist can grow human organs in animals. They modify the genes of the animal embryos to be missing a certain organ then inject human stem cells  into the embryo that will grow to become the missing organ. With 100,000 people on the organ donor waiting list, making organs like this would be extremely helpful. However people are worried that the animals could develop human consciousness and also don't like the idea of scientist creating such creatures. 

I believe the revised text it better than the original. A lot of the information I removed was being repeated throughout the podcast. This redundancy is unnecessary and makes the podcast more boring for the audience. I found a way to get the rest of the information across by using much less words than before.