As a person who is newly a part of the environmental sciences, I have undergone education to prepare me for work in that field. As a part of that process I have taken communications courses that have given me valuable skills required for future careers.

One of the most valuable skills I learned this past year was how to write as a process. Meaning that we were taught when tasked with writing a paper or report or any piece of writing, to first start with a first draft that was terrible but got down what you wanted to say. A second draft would be written to clean it up and make it readable and somewhat good. After that we would finalize the writing with one more revision and present it as complete. This was the first thing we learned in communications and it was used as a part of every major writing assignment after. Not only were we taught to write as a process but we were also marked based on completing first and second drafts and providing peer reviews and feedback for others. This experience was a way of writing I had not ever attempted before and I found it surprisingly effective for me. I kept me in check when given an assignment to work on it throughout the time period I had to complete it as opposed to getting it all done in a few days. I learned the effectiveness that comes with drafting projects before completing them and this is something that will come in handy when I am given a writing task of importance in my career, such as a document that will be seen by the public or a letter to higher ups and so on.

The first thing we learned about in communications 2 was the topic of discourse communities. Understanding what a discourse community is a valuable because it allows you to analyse the forms of communication going on within the community as well as some of the roles present. This becomes even more valuable when you realize that any community that communicates in some form can be a discourse community. We were tasked with an analysis of discourse communities on our field of study and we wrote a memo to analyse the community and make recommendations for steps to take to acquire a career in the community. I initially struggled slightly with the order of the information as indicated by my feedback for the draft “keep in mind that the Background section is supposed to provide any related knowledge necessary for a newcomer … rather than a discussion of the means of communication … which is reserved for the Research and Analysis section.” This will be helpful in the future because many of the recommendations and steps one can take are transferable to multiple communities and areas of work.

What follows is a number of samples of my writing from the 2 semesters of communications courses, that are examples of times when I wrote well. Each piece of writing is paired with a short introduction to provide context.

Writing Samples

1.  This first sample comes from my This I Believe paper from Comm 201. In this sample I am discussing misconceptions people have about ADHD, a disorder I have, and how the misconceptions are partially caused by broad criteria from the DSM 5. This piece of writing I think shows off how I can write with an authentic voice, and showcase relevance for the reader.

“In media, people with ADHD are portrayed as very energetic and often dim-witted, which like all mental disorders leads to stigma. This is a stereotype that people know, and they would agree that it’s not what the average person acts like, but for some reason it’s especially common for people to say that everyone gets distracted and people with ADHD are nothing special, those two thoughts don’t exactly agree with one another. So why don’t people think it’s real? Well the symptoms listed in the DSM are in my opinion very broad and can apply to a lot of people, however, there is strict criteria about how many of those symptoms must affect a person and when and how they do, so just having a symptom doesn’t mean you might have the disorder. I’ll relate to another mental disorder, everyone get’s sad, but not everyone has depression. Here’s one of the symptoms I feel illustrates the misconception people have, “often avoids, dislikes or is reluctant to engage in tasks that require sustained mental effort.” (ADHD Institute, 2017). Doesn’t that sound like something everyone can relate to? That basically means doesn’t like to do things that are hard. So, this is a problem, because people with ADHD who have an extremely hard time functioning in everyday situations are being treated as if everyone has the same problems they do.” 

2.  My second sample comes from my Discourse Community Analysis from this course. The sample comes from the end of the research and analysis section of the memo and highlights the formality my writing can achieve.

“Taking the proper courses in post-secondary education can familiarize yourself with the language these biologists use as well as get you used to preforming the duties that would be expected of you in this career. When entering the field there will be higher ups with much more experience than you, this too satisfies John Swales’ characteristics of a discourse community, namely that the field has novices and experts (Swales, 2011). You will need to acquire skills like proper sampling techniques, writing detailed field notes, analysing data both in the field and in a lab, and writing technical reports to specify their findings which is something virtually all Environmental Biologists do (EnvironmentalScience, 2019). As such, taking courses and programs where you get hands on experience with the work these biologists are doing will help prepare you for working on the job. You’ll find that people coming into this field may have already learned the skills and knowledge they need from their education, but the experience that you get on the job will be different. There will be other members of the community that have been working there for years and might have a similar education to you, but can work a lot better due to their experience.”

3.  This next piece of writing is from my second blog post from Comm 202. In it we were asked to discuss how the skills we’ve acquired from a discourse community we’re a part of will be helpful in the workplace. I’ve taken parts from 2 of the skills I highlighted in the blog. This sample highlights my ability to be persuasive.

“The base of these skills is the singing, acting and dancing training I’ve received, which are among the less useful skills. However that being said, there are aspects of each that are useful. Fist of all, dancing. Learning choreography taught me many things through my years of community theatre, and most useful of them was learning the value of a minute. … That’s something that I’ve taken with me in all aspects of my life … Singing and learning how to sing comes with some other life skills as well, especially if you’re singing in a group. Most noticeably is learning how to breathe. … Posture, inhalation, exhalation, volume, all these things affect your ability to sing and they also come in handy in life. I like most people experience periods of anxiety in my life, and knowing how to breath, how to sit and oxygenate, is instrumental in helping me stay calm or get back to calm. And volume control is something that I take with me in times of argument, to help things stay civil, when you’re aware of how loud you are and you control that, you can keep unhappy situations from getting out of control.”

4.  The forth sample I’ve selected is from the Trend Analysis we were assigned in Comm 202. For this assignment we were to find a trend in our field of study and work collaboratively. Though my group may have been more cooperative than collaborative, and so this is the section of the analysis that I wrote. This piece of writing I think illustrates my ability to integrate quotations well.

“A number of factors are killing of coral reefs, Threewitt (2019) lists “pollution, overfishing and the rising ocean temperatures associated with global warming”. A large cause of the death of all of this coral is warmer ocean temperatures, an article by National Geographic stated that the corals lose their source of food in warmer temperatures and if exposed for long enough will die (Howard, 2016). The more acidic conditions in the ocean are also at fault, cause by the increase of carbon dioxide in the ocean which leads to a lower pH “which can make it harder for reef-building organisms to construct their hard skeletons” (Howard, 2016).  Coral farming is a new practice that is being done to help save coral reefs from being wiped out completely, whereby coral is removed from the ocean, grown in aquariums and then put back in the ocean (Threewitt, 2019). New ways of re-growing this coral are being put into practice, some species grow well on structures made from PVC pipe, and coral has been found in 2006 to grow faster after it’s been cut which has led to reef building on a massive scale in recent years (Threewitt, 2019).”

5.  The last sample is from my first discussion post from this course. This is almost the entirety of the discussion post except for the brief introduction I gave. I think that this sample once again shows how I can write with an authentic voice as well as write clearly and concisely to create an organized piece of writing that reads well.

“There are 2 categories of a discourse community that theatre definitely satisfy and those are specific lingo and novices and experts. When I was 9 or 10, whenever I started, I had never done anything like it before and had to learn everything about how a show was put on and the different parts of a show that have to happen. There were others then who had been in shows for years and had a lot of experience and were able to help teach newcomers like me about the practice. Now I consider myself more of an expert and have seen many people over the years participate in their first show and learn things about theatre that they never knew and continue to come back. There is plenty of lingo in theatre that most people maybe have heard before and some that they wouldn’t know about. The subject I chose, Blocking, refers to a rehearsal where the director and production team work with the actors in a scene and go through where the actors will be on the stage during the scene, how and when they move around the stage in conjunction with what’s happening in the story. There are of course many other examples such as, down-stage, up-stage, spike and strike, and places, etc.”

References

EnvironmentalScience. (2019). What is an Environmental Biologist? Retrieved from EnvironmentalScience.org: https://www.environmentalscience.org/career/environmental-biologist

Howard, B. C. (2016). Corals Are Dying on the Great Barrier Reef. Retrieved from National Geographic: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/03/160321-coral-bleaching-great-barrier-reef-climate-change/

Institute, A. (2017, January 15). Diagnosis of ADHD using DSM-5TM. Retrieved from ADHD Institute: https://adhd-institute.com/assessment-diagnosis/diagnosis/dsm-5/

Swales, J. (2011). Writing about Writing. Boston: Bedford St Martins.

Threewitt, C. (2019). Scientists Develop Quick-Growing Coral Method to Save Dying Reefs. Retrieved from HowStuffWorks: https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-tech/remediation/scientists-develop-quick-growing-coral-method-to-save-dying-reefs.htm