From Academia to Social Media

      It is an acknowledged fact that as the Internet grows, it is most likely that people will have some sort of social media presence.

Norenzayan, Ara. "Armenia Berlin Summer 2008"
Copyrite © 2015, Ara Norenzayan

The Author
      The author I've decided to try and find on social media is Ara Norenzayan; so far he has been mentioned a lot on t\Twitter but I cannot seem to find him having a personal Twitter. The only Facebook page related to him is about his book "Big Gods". On LinkedIn people who have studied under him or were his assistants are on there but Norenzayan himself is not. Like Twitter he is not explicitly on Reddit, but those on Reddit enjoy his ideas and his writings. He's not personally on YouTube or Tumblr either though he is referenced.

Their Presence 
       Since Ara Norenzayan has no social media presence personally it is hard to describe their presence besides "nonexistent". He has not personally made any sort of contribution on the Internet so I cannot really that I learned anything about him personally.

Who Are They Really?
         The only Ara Norenzayan that I have been able to find is the one that writes in scientific journals and is a member of the scientific communities and an author to multiple books. If these are all a persona then there is no true distinction from a different persona that I was able to find.

Academic Discourse & Genre

      There is a lot of information being produced in this journal, in a couple different ways.

The Types of Genres
       There are only about two different types of genres within this specific scientific journal, the main research papers and the shorter distinct responses.

david_17in. "Journals" 03/20/2010 via Flickr.

                 

Attribution 2.0 Generic

Their Names
        The names of the two different genres are best coined as a scientific research paper and a formal response to a paper, The main difference between the two genres is the length and extent to which they answer a question or argue a point. The research papers are trying to prove their point through long research and experimental examples; the responses on the other hand are commenting ideas or opinions on the paper, that may still have research to back them, but are still not to the extent the research paper is.

Defining Moment
           A good definition of the scientific research paper is a long dissertation type paper, including an abstract and a conclusion, with many paragraphs between detailing analysis experiment and the result. They include many graphs and charts explaining results as well. The main purpose of this sort of genre is to express ideas and experimental results of some scientific experience.
           The responses are defined as exactly that, a response. Usually short they can be at max a few paragraphs, and may include one graph, not as much about experimental results but more about criticism of the original research paper.

Rhetorical Analysis of Scientific Journal

     The journal that I have decided to use for this rhetorical analysis is Behavioral and Brain Sciences. Sadly the most recent physical copy available to me is only the one of 2004.

Who are the Writers?
       There are a lot of authors in this journal; the main ones being Scott Atran, Ara Norenzayan, Ralf-Peter Behrendt, Claire Young, and Jonathan Kenneth Burns. But added to that are about 20 responses to each work with a different author for each one. The authors are primarily portrayed as trained and knowledgeable individuals.

Who is the Intended Audience?
       The intended audience are those that regularly read the Journal of Behavioral and Brain Sciences mostly because it's a continuing issue, with addendum from the previous issues. Not only that but the journal is heavily focused on those that would want to learn about how the brain affects behavior and does not pander that the people may not understand everything that is being addressed.

Morrison, Alexis. "'Behavior and Brain Science, Volume 27, Issue 6"
02/28/2016

What is the Context for this Journal?
        This journal was published in December of 2004 by Cambridge University; as a scientific journal it's expected to be formatted with a certain style of lots of words and graphs to back up the claims, adding on to that are the numerous published responses given by other sources to the main article.

What is the Overall Message?
          There isn't really an overall message within the journal, as there are multiple unconnected articles within the journal all delineating some neuroscience research and are not as a whole making a point in research.

What is the Journal Trying to Achieve?
         The journal issue in question is trying to educate not only on things like schizophrenia but also issues like religion and how they have effected the brains of those practicing these religions and their attitudes.

Report on My Interviews

       After I had my interviews this week it was imperative that I discuss what was said by my interviewees.

Genres in the Field
       The most prominent genre written in within the fields that I interviewed, both agreed that long research papers are the main part of their field and writing style. Along with the long papers though comes with the shorter writings of abstracts, which sometimes are separate from long research papers. Also shorter works that are done are writings for grants.

How do these Genres Differ?
        The differences between these genres include length and some of the language used. Research papers are the definite longest, can be upwards of sixteen pages of writing including graphs and references. An abstract on the other hand, while usually at the beginning of a research paper, can be separate and is usually only a single paragraph.
         Grant writing is a bit different from both of these, writing to receive a grant needs to have more sway over the audience, the language while academic and formal does not have to be and sometimes should not be as scientifically wordy as a research paper or abstract would be.
       

Fotownetrza. "Coffee, Tablet, Headphones, Work" 01/08/2016 via Pixabay.
CC0 Public Domain

What is Challenging About Them?
         A large part of the challenge of research papers is the length and extent to which they have to go through. While they should publish at least once a year this requires a lot of work. As both of my interviewees are also teachers along with their research positions they really have to have a time trying to balance all this work.
        A challenging part of grant writing is that they have to be persuasive about their project that it would seem to deserve funding, they can't just use big fancy words and expect the funders would understand or want to bother to understand.

What is Exciting About Them?
            To my interviewees the exciting part of writing is getting to tell everyone about their views and the new information that they have been able to discover through their research. Even if what the results of a study turn out opposite of what was expected they significantly can impact the field in that way still.

Hide and Go Seek within Media
        Finding genre examples are relatively easy through social media; social media has drastically affected the way research gets out into the public, now anyone can search for the articles and generally is able to find them relatively easily; social media like twitter is very accessible with such topics as well as online journals and journal reviews. Its a brave new world of open possibilities.

My Field of Study

     My field of study is neuroscience and before going into a long detailed analysis of the writing and audiences within the field it may be pertinent to tell you a it more some things about the field.

What do Students Learn?

        Students within the field of Neuroscience and Cognitive Science have to learn at least all of the basic sciences; biology, chemistry and physics. Then once those have been covered there's also things called "soft sciences" that are taught like linguistics and psychology. Once in the higher levels of the field the students of neuroscience are then taught the basics of brain function and structure and the like.

Where Will We Work?

       Most of the people that study neuroscience go one of two routes, either a medical route or a research route. The medical route leads to neurologist ans brain surgeons, and the research is more focused on understanding the brain usually by using the study of different animal brains and experimenting on them to better understand aspects of the brain as a whole.

Waag Society. "Hack the Brain / Day 3" 05/25/2014 via Flickr.

      

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic

The Draw

      What drew me to Neuroscience in the first place is sort of fuzzy for me, I think I can trace the interest in brain disease to a summer I spent with grandparents and I learned about the effects of Alzheimer's but it mostly felt right to want to study such an unexplored part of our own human bodies.

Who's "So Hot Right Now"?

        It's hard to tell since 2016 just began who will be truly active in the field at this time so instead I'll tell you three influential people that are significantly in recent times, or who have impacted me. 

        A main person who is a real person of interest to me an is a real inspiration is Mayim Bialik. She's known for being an actress but has studied and published in the field of neuroscience. She's an inspiration to me because not only is she a female scientist but she really breaks a stereotype in both the fields of scientist and in entertainment.

        Another well known Neuroscientist in the field is David Eagleman, he is certainly interesting because he is pioneering research and application of neuroscience into law. Not only that but he has done work on synesthesia, which is endlessly interesting to me and how the brain understands and processes certain senses and its responses to those senses.

       Antonio Damasio  is the third neuroscientist that I would say is significant to the field overall, mostly because of his work in how brain processes affect how feelings and emotions work and how we react to them overall.

Journals of Import 

         A large journal for the Neuroscience community is the Nature journal; Nature Neuroscience is a collaborative online journal so it's not really published in one place since it is also published under a publishing group based out of 40+ countries.

       The second blog I think that has a very high importance rating among neuroscience journals is the Behavioral and Brain Sciences journal published out of Cambridge University.

         A third journal of import is the PLOS: Biology journal that is a review journal for works of science. It's based out of San Francisco, California. 

My Interviewees on Social Media

     As the world has progressed over the years there has been a large movement towards the internet and social media, even in academia. To get to know my interviewees a bit more personally I decided to see how much they were on the social media areas.

What Are the Networks?

   (I a unable to check Instagram or wordpress due to not having a profile)

      So far I've been able to find Anna Dornahus for sure on Facebook, LinkedIn, she is mentioned a lot on Twitter even though she does not seem to have a profile, and not only does she have lecture videos uploaded by other on YouTube, she has a profile there as well.

     Alan Nighorn on the other hand is very difficult to find on any media. I may have found him on Facebook but there are no distinguishing features.

mkhmarketing, "The Art of Social Media" 07/31/2011 via Flickr.
Attribution 2.0 Generic

How Active Are They?

      Anna Dornhaus is relatively active on social media, however most of the posts I have seen by her revolve around her work with her social insects. Her YouTube channel only is comprised of a couple or filmed ant observation videos. And her Facebook is not open to the public.

      Dr. Nighorn has seemingly no presence on social media and so it is hard to judge his attitude or even his interests when he seems shrouded in anonymity. 

Different Personas?

      Truly I can not detect different personas from their academic writing or their attitudes outside of academics.

My Interviewees as Professional

      I'm interviewing these people but it important that they actually have writing to speak of, or it would be a bit wasteful to interview them in light of the project being about the writing in my field of study.

McPhee, Nic. "2008-01-26 (Editing a Paper) -20" 01/26/2008 via Flickr.
Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic

What Is This Writing You Speak Of?
         Most of Alan Nighorn's publications deal with sensory systems, like the olfactory and the connections of neurons inside it, pertaining to certain insects, like breeds of moths or drosophila.
          Anna Dornhaus has the similar theme of insects within her publications, but differently is that her focus within her works are "social insects" and how they interact.

But What Type Is It?
        Alan Nighorn has primarily only published research papers into journals, such examples as this publication in the Journal of Neurochemistry and this publication in the Journal of Neuroscience. So there isnt much genre convention differences between the two, generally a journal publication will include the abstract of the paper and then the main written part usually with some section differentiation like titles, journal research papers longer paragraphs usually structures in a single or two column way.  Usually these pieces are heavily referenced.
       Anna Dornhaus is similar in the way that she has written for multiple journals, papers like this in the Animal Behavior journal and a different one in Apidologie. So like what was said before for Dr. Nighorn, however unlike Dr. Nighorn, Dr. Dornhaus also has had a larger presence at conferences. While these haven't actually been technically published works they are importantly distinct from written works. She has to make the experience more capturing in a conference talk than in a long many page research paper. Also technically writing for such things would be put onto science posters and the conventions of those also include abstracts, graphs but more shorter amounts of main writing. It has to summarize the overall work done.
         

What's Your Message Here?
             The message in Dr. Nighorn's article in the Journal of Neurochemistry deals with specific genes in the antennal neurons of Manduca sexta that are activated by calcium, and they were trying to determine how these differed from other activators in another sensory systems within insects. His second journal writing is about how certain signals may help sorting of olfactory sensory axons in Manduca sexta. The specific signal studied has been determined to seem to have multiple use for the Manduca and may point towards other studies to see the more extensive effects.
             In Dr. Dornhaus' publication in the Animal Behavior journal the message that is reached is that bumble bees seem to have a connection between their division of labor and the space within which they mostly reside within the nest of the colony. The other work by Dr. Dornhaus has to do with how information travels within bumble bees in regards to their foraging habits. The message ultimately is that when bumble bees forage they don't just get food they also get information which they share and are then able to influence the other bees on whether they should take up foraging or not based on their success.

What's The Point Even?
         The point for each of Dr. Nighorn's pieces deal with internal working in the neuron and sensory connectors of the Manduca sexta; having this knowledge allows us to know more deeply about how the connections work and can lead to complete understanding of neuron connection and effects of signals.
         For Dr. Dornhaus' works her goal is to educate and learn more deeply about how social insects get their information and interact. Such actions are important to understanding how animals without direct communication truly work.