Researcher's Autobiography

I love researching. I can spend hours on the internet finding interesting articles about anything that grabs my interest, especially articles relating to earth science and other science fields. In fact, a lot of websites that I go on are both science and technology related. Most of them are already bookmarked. Everyone in my family is always asking me to help them look something up because of my “internet researching skills” and somehow I find things they are looking for.

The research part comes easy to me but the writing does not. Last semester, I took SOM 301 which is a course for business communication. We learned about writing professionally on paper as well as electronically. It definitely helped me with my writing skills and most importantly taught me how to cite my sources. Unfortunately, I would not be getting any credit for SOM 301 since I am changing my major to Earth Science. However, I am glad that I took the course.

The way I get things done when it comes to writing is by doing it. I have learned in the SOM 301 course that planning a paper should take about 50% of your time during writing. That time is spent on researching, brainstorming, rough drafts, and finding your “audience”. What I mean by audience is figuring out who are you writing to – professor, colleague, general public, etc. Truth be told, I am not entirely perfect at that stage but I am working on it. Writing to me is a very long process and needs a lot of time spent on revising or editing, proofreading and completing. Before completing my papers, I would have someone else proofread my papers just to make sure there are no mistakes that are easily overlooked. One advice I have about writing paper is talk out your sentences out loud and see if it sounds correct and if it does not, chances are you need to go back and redo it.

Hopefully by this semesters end, I will mesh both of my researching skills and my writing skills together to help me with my academic as well as professional world.