Professional Interview

For this blog post I have decided to ask my Human Geography instructor about his writings.

My first question was about the type of writing he does now as an instructor or what kind of writings he had to do to get into his position. He went on to tell me that he is still working towards becoming a professor and still has a bit to go, mainly writing! As far as the writings he had to do to get to his current position included analysis, and synthesis papers. Because he is a geographer, and an academic he has an interesting paradox. As a geographer he is working with what we see in the world, and as an academic he is working with ho people think about, understand, and construct meaning.

My second question was about his audience and how he writes toward those specific audience. His response stated that his specific audience recently have been other students. Because of this he needs to get fairly clear about the ideas he is dealing with. Also, clear about what researchers have said about these ideas and what they think of them. After that he looks through his own notes and thoughts to develop what he needs to say to an organization. After that he brings together bits and pieces of his thoughts and ideas and puts them together in a coherent way so that his audience can understand and it is clear to others.

He ended the interview with stating that another professor once said, "A piece is never really 'done.' You just reach a point when you have to stop working on it and send it off."

I can compare the type of writing explained to the type of writings by Alcott. With Alcott, the writing was straight to the point with no filler which is what this type of writing seems to be. They both will get to the point, and not go into many other points.

I would like to throw a thank you out there to Gary Schnakenberg for his time and answers!