Emails

E-mail or electronic mail is currently one of the most used form of communication. Come to think of it, I think I have sent my first email back in 2005. If I remember right, it is a letter addressed to Cartoon Network informing them that I want my name to be aired on my birthday for a greeting. I could not recall if they have replied nor did my name appeared in their channel on my birthday. I think my e-mail never went through because of the unstable dial-up connection in the internet café.

Thinking about it, we really had gone a long way in terms of communication. People thousands of miles away is just one message or e-mail away. This is very, very convenient for me as a researcher. I can easily contact other researchers and ask for a either a copy of their work or ask them to reiterate and further explain their research.  

In the scientific community, email is one of the primary means of communicating. So, in one way, e-mails have pushed forward the progress of science.

Writing to Inform (Journal Entry #1)

I believe the main goal of science is to inform and should always be the main purpose of a researcher. As an aspiring scientist and MS degree candidate, I ought to breath the rules of scientific or academic writing. I write emails to my professors, thesis advisers and colleagues daily. Writing, revising and improving my thesis manuscript is keeping me busy.

Writing is a way of expressing myself. However, I find scientific or academic writing a higher way of communication. Not only do I need to express myself, I need to inform people of my scientific results. I do not usually dread it but the problem with me writing scientifically is that I need to make sure that people, I mean most people, even non-technical ones, to understand what I am saying. This way, it is another task to not only make yourself clear but to make it concise. Any form of misinterpretation of my work could lead to scientific disasters. My purpose is to let the public know the highlights or uses of my research. By the way, my work involves probiotics.

I need to improve my skills in writing scientific reports. I find it hard to convey my interpretation of data I have gathered especially if the reader is not from the same field. I also hope to improve my slide presentation skills as this is very useful in scientific conferences, lectures and gatherings.