Blog Assignment #1

  My name is Erika Selman. I am 25 years old, and I am an Environmental Biology major here at Southern Miss. I currently work for the biology department as the gardener for the Biological Sciences Teaching Garden. I love plants and gardening, and I hope to one day work for a botanical garden or nature center. I enjoy the outdoors. I like to hike, go camping, and travel in my free time.

  To be honest, I have never really enjoyed writing. English has never been a favorite subject of mine. Although I do not particularly enjoy writing, it does play an important role in my field. Science is all about research. In doing research, writing is crucial. One academic document that I frequently do have to write is research papers. I take someone else’s research experiment that they have conducted, and I interpret and summarize into a paper. In my present employment circumstances, writing in my workplace is very rare. I basically just work with plants all day, and they can’t read! However I do sometimes make lists of what needs to be done. I also email my professor frequently, as well as text on the phone. Email is the most frequent way writing is incorporated into my workplace. I have engaged in writing in the public sphere. I have done this is a variety of ways. I recently posted an ad to sale some items. I work with children at my church, and I have made posters for their room. There are numerous other examples, each seem to have a different audience.  

   

  One type of writing I really find myself enjoying is writing music. I recently wrote my first song. I loved that experience. It was very liberating. One the contrary I do not like to write long research papers. I often find that when I am forced to write something that requires a set number of pages, I have trouble coming up with things to say. Sometimes I think writing “fails” as a way to communicate because you can’t tell just by words sometimes the true emotions that are behind the words. For instance, I have gotten into an argument with a friend over a text message and took what she wrote out of the context that she meant to send it. Sometimes it is hard to put feeling into words. This semester I hope to get my resume together and become better at writing workplace documents. That is really my ultimate goal.