Our team transcribed the Science Student Spotlight interviews that Chris Valluzzo recorded in the recording studio in Whittemore. The students who conducted the interviews decided on a set number of questions to ask, with freedom to ask more. After transcribing these videos, we analyzed them with respect to the content of the class. This portion of the website shows the different areas of science writing that were prominent within the interviews and important points associated with each area, including how research fits into society, how researchers faced personal challenges, and how to best explain and relate research. We found that much of what Virginia Tech students are researching and how they choose to communicate their research relates to what we learned in ENGL 4824.
The analysis below shows how the graduate students we interviewed view their research’s effect on society and how important this is for science and scientific communication.
Earle Holland asks, “What is the news? Why is it important? What is the context for the research? That is, what are the what are the questions that drive it? Why should the readers care? And last, do the findings point us somewhere new?” in reference to how science writers should frame their stories (267). Here Holland is enforcing the idea that in order to effectively communicate science, it must be put into some sort of context that the reader will care about. Time after time, this context is society. The reader cares how science will affect them and their community. Furthermore, many scientists strive to have some sort of effect on people’s communities either in the short term or the long term. Thus, when deciding what questions to ask our researchers, there was a consensus that a question should be asked about the researcher’s intended or desired effects on society; this question gives the interviewer important information for their story and also showcases the effect researchers want their research to have on individuals, community, environment, and society.
Having a clear idea of a researcher’s intended effects on society not only helps a journalist in science writing, but also a scientific writer. As our interviewees start the process of writing papers for scientific journals they must keep in mind the effects they went their research to have. This is due to the fact that scientific writing must address the importance of the topic of the paper in the Introduction of an IMRAD formatted paper. Scott Mogull states in his book, Scientific and Medical Communication: A Guide for Effective Practice, “Most journal article introductions begin with one to two sentences stating the importance of the research topic” (89). Furthermore, Mogull states, “A strong Introduction also establishes the value of the research topic to journal editors, reviewers, and readers” (84).
Prior to our interviews, our class met with a class of graduate students researchers to discuss the importance of science communication. Inevitably, society became the focal point of the discussion. Responses from the graduate students included, “scientists should be aware of how science fits into the broader spectrum of science and the world,” and “how to make your work something that others can relate to?” Clearly these students are thinking along the same lines as Holland.
After reviewing the transcriptions of the 14 researchers who all work in very different fields, two trends caught my eye. The first is that almost every researcher wants their research to improve society in some way, despite working on very different topics. The second is that many researchers want to diminish the negative effects that humans have on the environment. It seems that, at least among Virginia Tech researchers, the environment is a concern every field of research.
Improvement seems to be the number one thing on every researcher’s mind when considering the effects of their work on society. Neda Moayerian, who studies struggling communities in Appalachia, wants her research to help people “think outside of the box for themselves,” thus creating more self-reliant communities. Michelle Graham, who studies the locomotion of flying snakes, notes, “I hope that by the kind of science I do will help people see that science can be really fun and interesting and draw people to look at the field.” And finally, Maddie Brouse, who studies water quality, hopes that her work will get people better drinking water.
Seyedreza Fateminasab, an architecture graduate student, commented in his interview that he does not believe society is considered enough in his department. When asked about how architecture impacts society he stated, “Well it’s kind of a hard question because to be honest it’s not much discussed as it should be inside the architecture departments.” He then went on to explain that prefabrication is a popular idea among his colleagues, but he doesn’t think prefabrication is benefiting society because it doesn’t make housing more affordable and reduces construction jobs. Fateminasab’s example shows where a lack of thought towards society could end up having negative effects.
And so, it is clear that research’s effect on society is vital to science writers and scientific writers as they communicate research to other scientists or the public. The scientists interviewed for our class have clear goals in mind and seem to know the steps they need to take to reach them. Their goals have a common theme: improvement to society and the environment. It is also clear that their paths to that goal are very different. Some researchers intend to work with the government, others with small communities, and still others want to create something like a robot or an online platform.
Researchers Erin Poor—who looks at anthropogenic changes to the forests of Sumatra—and Carrie Jensen—who looks at the health of Appalachian streams—are concerned about the environment and intend to use their results to make recommendations to the government about lessening negative impacts on the environment. Erin Poor plans to submit her research to the Indonesian government, while Carrie Jensen hopes to affect the Clean Water Act by providing detailed maps of streams and rivers in the area of Appalachia she is looking at.
M.J. Farrugia, who looks at how change in water can affect amphibians, put it well when she told interviewer Hayley Oliver, “Because of climate change or overuse by humans or land use change how all these things are affected by humans can potentially also affect animals, so understanding how those two things work together I think is both scientifically relevant and also socially relevant.”
Furthermore, dairy scientist, Jacquelyn Prestegaard, notes the importance of sustainability in the farming industry when she states, “In order to be sustainable in a dairy operation, you need to be using the least amount of resources possible but still getting the product we need while also maintaining animal health.”
It is clear through the interview transcripts that researchers don’t consider society in terms of only how to best showcase their work. Benefiting society is the driving force that keeps researchers doing what they love. Something that cannot be conveyed through transcripts is an excited expression and a broad smile on the face of a researcher when they talk about what effect they want their work to have on society. Graduate researchers at Virginia Tech want to bring people better water, save a species, increase farming sustainability, lessen traffic and, as Yucheng Fu states, “change the world.”
By Savannah Leeah
Works Cited
Holland, Earle. “Universities.” A field guide for science writers, 2nd ed., edited by Deborah Blum, Mary Knudson, and Robin Marantz Henig, Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 267-272.
Mogull, Scott A. Scientific and Medical Communication: A Guide for Effective Practice. Routledge, 2018.
This section analyzes how both student interviewers from our class and their respective student scientist interviewees approached the topic of what personal challenges these scientists faced as a result of the intersections in their multifaceted identities. I also address a class visit we had from a female scientist and faculty member here at Virginia Tech.
The class discussion around our project to directly interview student scientists at Virginia Tech was framed so that the importance of highlighting female scientists and scientists of color was frequently emphasized, through which the notion of personal challenges in terms of the intersections of identity was also emphasized. 9 interviewers out of our 14 students asked directly about personal challenges in terms of intersections of identity. I make this distinction between questions that pertained to personal challenges in terms of identity and questions that pertain to overall obstacles, for the latter question was oftentimes interpreted by interviewees as research-related; thus I analyze responses to the former in this section.
7 of the 9 interviewers analyzed here asked questions that were related to personal challenges in terms of identity, and used such wording that addressed the “challenges as a female scientist” some of our interviewees may have faced, with a few that included the specifications of whether the scientist was international and/or of color. Connor Buza specifically tied his question directly to our class focus on female scientists and scientists of color, and was polite in asking whether or not such a question was too personal.
Just as each interviewee had their unique line of research, each interviewee also had their own way of responding to this question. Some of the female scientists shared stories of having experienced covert discrimination and personal intimidation. A handful have worked hard not only to excel in their field of research, but to convince others that they could even do so. They’ve felt intimidated working alongside a majority of men well-experienced in the field, which brought with it the unspoken challenge of having to constantly prove themselves and validate their own presence in the field. Many found that while their male coworkers ostensibly meant to do no harm in asking if they could help the female scientists in doing hard, outdoor, manual labor, it only motivated these female scientists to decline the help and prove that they could do the work themselves. Other female scientist interviewees described quite the opposite, in terms of feeling lucky enough to have never felt such discrimination in the workplace.
The other 2 of the 9 questions addressed the personal challenges interviewees face: “Are there any disadvantages you can think of?” and “What challenges, if any, have you faced as a scientist?” However, I do include these in my analysis, for it was the interviewees who then provided answers to those questions that included specific ties to challenges they’ve faced as a result of their identities. Sergio Ballivian answered Lauren Armstrong’s open question by describing how a language barrier served as motivation to go forward with his studies. Andre Stevenson responded to Kendall Daniels’s open question by clarifying that though people of color working in fields that are predominantly white will always face the challenge of ignorance; Stevenson believes it is also true that “for every for every person that’s ignorant there are 10 or 20 people that are not.” On top of his scientific research, Andre believes it is his job to “shed light on how we can all focus on our similarities as opposed to our differences.”
In our class, we’ve previously come across the idea of scientists who face certain challenges as a result of the intersections of their identity feeling the need to educate others on more than their own research—namely, on how to respectfully interact and work with them in the workplace. In mid-March, Dr. Tallon from the department of Materials Science & Engineering came to class to discuss her research and a few science stories about her research. We focused on how some writers may have erred in correctly explaining her work. However, our discussion turned to other errors these writers—and other scientists in the field, for that matter—have made in how they address Dr. Tallon, as a female international scientist. Firstly, in the work “In London for dinner – with an Australian ceramic rocket” on the website Fresh Science, the writer referred to Dr. Tallon by her first name, Carolina, instead of her official, doctoral title that took her years of hard work to earn. Many in the class doubted that any male scientist of such stature would be referred to as such. So why her? Just as I’m sure no male scientist would have been offered help in completing hard, outdoor, manual labor, why are the female scientists asked thus? Secondly, Dr. Tallon, in moving to the United States to work several years ago, has since then stopped correcting people in how they pronounce her name (t-aa-y-OH-n), simply accepting their Americanized pronunciation for the sake of ease.
Additionally, in our readings “Being Female in Science” by Paige Brown Jarreau and “Women of color face staggering harassment in space science” by Sarah Kaplan, many of the very issues that our interviewee science students endure are further exemplified. As Jarreau writes, Abby Lawson, a PhD candidate studying alligator population ecology, knows what it is like for male coworkers to perceive her as weak and needing assistance doing her share of the work—in her case, capturing alligators. Though one of our own female scientists of color, MJ Farruggia, describes the strange experience of having had all white mentors throughout her career, we are all glad to hear that she has never felt “unsafe,” as Kaplan reports forty percent of women of color say they feel because of gender-based harassment (Kaplan).
Thus, while it is exciting to know that the topics we’ve studied this semester are relevant outside of the classroom—as was made evident by the experiences our interviewees shared with us—it is still troublesome to note that those topics pertain to the discrimination, potential harassment, and overall challenges that people face as a result of the intersections of their identities. I encourage science writing students to come to incorporate this notion into their own work and further progress in the direction of a solution.
By Hayley Oliver
Ut Prosim
In English 4824, we learned much on how to effectively communicate science. A concept that encompasses our entire semester is the university’s motto, Ut Prosim, or That I May Serve, because being able to write effectively and clearly communicate for the readers’ benefit makes sure information is not lost and “does not undermine the quality of the science” (Mogull, 2018, p. 5). For instance, in an interview involving nanoparticles, Dr. Andre Stevenson explains that his work in the biomedical field aims to improve human health in hopes to one day treat traumatic brain injuries, which is beneficial to the community and science. Sergio Ballivian states in his interview on energy sustainable design that his research serves the community on a “smaller scale because it contributes to the body of knowledge,” which ties into our discussions about epistemology. Epistemology is “the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope;” it also relates to how scientific research is used to justify belief (Oxford Dictionary). Therefore, a researcher’s epistemic contribution can work hand-in-hand with Ut Prosim when their work is unbiased and justified, while also serving the goal of helping people and enhancing society.
Carrie Jensen, another interviewee, talked about how headwater stream lengths across highlands of Appalachia can affect management and applications of streams in the local communities. People in these communities may not know or understand why these streams have an impact on their community, but it’s Carrie’s job to not only conduct the research, but also to convey the information to them. Likewise, Jacquelyn Prestegaard’s research benefits the local community in that it helps local farmers in their day-to-day work. Prestegaard says that her work with dairy science and cattle nutrition aims to “improve feed efficiency and milk production efficiency for our dairy farmers so that they can maximize their economic returns and continue to have their family operations.” All of these examples are perfect reasons to be able to effectively communicate science, especially if the research is meant to serve the community.
Science Writing
A huge part of research, after figuring out the goals and how it impacts the community, is how to use science writing to communicate to a wider audience. In Carrie Jensen’s interview on the streams of Appalachia, she says that she wants to get temporary headwaters more recognized in both the public and scientific literature. Many researchers will want to conduct the experiments and do the research, but might not know how to convey to the public what they discovered. In her interview on flying snakes, Michelle Graham says that right behind the actual science, communication is incredibly important in stimulating people’s curiosity. She also says “there’s no point in me doing the research if I’m not going to tell anybody about it.” Like we learned in Mogull’s book, “[S]cientific information that is not communicated is lost. […] By publishing, other researchers, medical practitioners, policy decision makers, and others can find and make use of the knowledge” (Mogull, 2018, p. 15). In an interview involving construction research, Farnaz Khaghani talks about doing expanded literature reviews to figure out potential applications of data she had been researching. Khagani’s practice supports what we learned at the beginning of the semester: that lit reviews offer a “Summary of the important research theories from multiple scientific or medical papers” (Mogull, 2018, p. 17). In her interview on water, MJ Farruggia explains the importance of science communication, and how collaboration between trained communicators and scientists can help effectively progress science fields.
Research Challenges
A lot of how we communicate science research is based upon how the experimentation was conducted. IMRAD format is a great example of this, because it effectively shows the outline of an experiment through the introduction, methods, results, and discussion sections. Here I explain research challenges of the interviewees in the context of which IMRAD section it falls under. While publishing a paper might not fall under one specific section, figuring out where to publish a paper can depend on who the audience is – which involves the introduction in the IMRAD structure. In his nanoparticle interview, Dr. Andre Stevenson explains his challenge of figuring out which journal to submit a paper to or how to make the research “easily understood by a broad audience.” With a strong introduction, he would be able to establish “the value of the research topic to journal editors, reviewers, and readers” while also creating “continuity of a ‘story’ from previously published research to the present study” (Mogull, 2018, p. 84). Another relation to class is with the Jarreau article that wouldn’t be published because it contained too many anecdotes. Knowing your audience and what they’re looking for can make your research (and writing) more effective.
Another aspect of IMRAD that the interviewees talked about was the methods section, whether it related analysis, data collection, or the actual experimental design. With her construction research, Khaghani explains that the biggest challenges have been data collection, especially since the method she uses is not from the civil engineering discipline. Data collection can be challenging for any researcher, whether they have the background or experience to begin with. It can also be difficult to organize the outcome so that each “experimental subsection leads logically to the next” (Mogull, 2018, p. 116). In terms of data, Prestegaard explains that research isn’t perfect. Experimental design is pivotal in conducting research, so if the protocols, plan, and goals aren’t mapped out, it’s going to be difficult to anticipate different outcomes. Like we learned in class, whether it’s through exploratory or experimental research, researchers need to investigate procedures since “investigation appropriately address[es] the research purpose” (Mogull, 2018, p. 122).
How to Explain and Conduct Research
The last area that I’ll touch on that links to class and the research from the interviews is how to actually conduct and explain research. A common question that we asked the researchers was how they would explain their research to a certain age group. Knowing the audience you’re writing to is imperative when explaining research. As explained in Mogull, “audiences unfamiliar with particular laboratory methods may have difficulty understanding the data. As a result, such audiences are more dependent on an explanation of why a laboratory method was selected, how the method addresses the research question, and what the data mean” (Mogull, 2018, p. 20). In the plant pathology interview with Rachel Brooks, she explains that her research is about killing bad plants for the good of society, but she also goes into detail about how she needs to be careful about who she’s talking to; to the wrong person, it might sound like she’s doing something harmful. This is related to a researcher’s word choice. Jargon is “when the terms are misused with an audience that is unfamiliar with the definitions of those terms” (Mogul, 2018, p. 110). Using the words “killing the Tree of Heaven” without explaining that the Tree of Heaven is actually invasive can confuse an audience. In Graham’s interview on flying snakes, she explains her research to strangers by first just talking about the snakes and letting them ask questions. Then, she would give a short elevator pitch on the locomotion of snakes and how that affects their ecology. This is related to how effective science writing can give clarity to an audience, and how articulating your research “justifies a particular insight, interpretation, or conclusion” (Mogull, 2018, p. 6). A lot of the researchers answered the question of explaining their research to a particular group, which helps explain what the data means to the audience.
By Caroline Stewart