Writing the scientific profile really challenged me in many ways because I had to conduct an interview which was something I had never done before. It was also challenging reading my scientist’s articles because at first, I could not understand what the articles were about. I spent one week thinking about who was the right person to interview. I talked to a friend and she recommend that I interview one of the psychology professors at CCNY. I thought this was a good idea because I could communicate with him easily. I was worried if my scientist would not understand what I was asking or if he would not have time to meet with me. During my process of writing this assignment, I met with him two times to do an interview. For the first interview I searched one article that had his name and I asked him questions about the article. He told me that he did not write the article that I chose. He also told me that he was not part of the research and that the author only asked him if she can put his name in the article and he agreed. I was stressed, but then I calmed down and I allowed him to choose one of his articles that he felt comfortable talking about.
In order to determine the questions that I would ask my scientist, I focused on the three research articles and I asked him questions related to his research. I also asked him questions about where he went to school, how many years he had been teaching, and what is the main topic that he focuses on his research. Asking questions related with his research really helped me understand his research articles and know him well in order to let my readers fully understand how my scientist is capable in doing research related to post traumatic stress disorder. Additionally, my experience with my introductory letter informed my approach to this assignment because the same way I was introducing myself was same way I had to introduce my scientist. The only difference was that I had to include his research and let my readers know how his work caught my attention. I feel like my editing process did not change between my introductory letter and this assignment. I used the same method which was writing my first draft and going to tutoring so my tutor could check my grammar and if I addressed my claim effectively. I don’t think I was very successful at addressing the prompt, because I struggled organizing my profile and what to talk about. I really had a bad time writing this paper because it was difficult for me to understand his article because they had a lot of jargon.
When I was writing the scientist profile, I addressed four course learning outcomes in order to complete this assignment. The first learning outcome that I addressed was “Enhance strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing, and self- assessment”. I feel I addressed this course learning outcome when I was reading his articles, trying to analyze it, drafting my paper and revising my draft. The second learning outcome that I addressed was “ Negotiate your own writing goals and audience expectations regarding conventions of genre, medium, and rhetorical situation”. I addressed this course learning outcome because I was trying to inform my audience why I was so intrigued about his research and why I chose him. The third course learning outcome was“ Practice using various library resources, online databases, and the internet to locate sources appropriate to your writing projects”. I feel like I addressed this course learning outcome because I used the CCNY database to search for my scientist’s article. The fourth course learning outcome was, “ Strengthen your source use practices( including evaluating, integrating, quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, synthesizing, analyzing and citing sources). Lastly, I feel like addressed this course learning outcome because in order to support my claim I had to analyze the articles and look for quotes to support my claim.
