Field Notes: Science, Theology, & Social Media
A Reflection on a Past Science Class
An instance where I had deeply considered what and how I was writing had been last semester during a mandatory science class. I had difficulty writing the essays even though I thought I had understood the material. Unfortunately, I didn’t understand that I should’ve been writing depending on how the teacher taught the class. At the time I remember being frustrated because I didn’t like science and the word count was difficult to keep. I usually started the essays late since I wasn’t interested much on the subject and would put them off. Being at home and working on something I didn’t like didn’t help my writing either. However, I had developed a habit of working on my writing at my desk next to a window while listening to music, which personally did help improve my mood, all things considered. The word count was low but the In the last two months of class I finally realized that there was no need to go into such depth with explanation of my evidence and was able to cut down on words. The writing for that class was all based on pure evidence with transition. Since the work had been for the professor, she had already known how to interpret the evidence. Most of my feedback on the writing had been focused on my unnecessary rambling on the evidence which I had been able to fix. The writing aimed to provide evidence for a claim rather than dissect the evidence presented. Since I didn’t have much of an interest in the subject, there was nothing at stake, other than my grade. Overall, in the instances where I had to write for that class, I had become self aware of my writing style simply because I had struggled so much. Nonetheless, that class was a major instance where I had to consider the purpose, audience, style, etc. of my writing.
A Reflection on a Theological Writing
My theology class focuses on understanding love in the catholic tradition. I am an atheist and a firm believer that love is a choice so writing essays with personal experiences and revelations is somewhat difficult. I had had the teacher before and in the last class, the writing was focused heavily on reading analysis so most of my essay merely summarized and connected different authors. However, for this class, I think my first struggle is the fact that I have little experience using first person in an academic setting, I usually relate first person to something more personal. The essays themselves were both an analysis of different theologians but connected to personal experiences which had made me consider how I can present an analysis and something personal together. I felt like I had been exposing myself and so there was a new stake in my writing. Although the professor was testing our understanding of each theologian, the writing felt to also be for me since they required introspection on my understanding of love as a whole. My first few essays had gotten feedback that I should focus more on my experiences so I adjusted to connect my analysis to personal thoughts. I enjoyed the content of the class and the essays weren’t long so I was able to do them in a good amount of time. Since I was usually not racing against the clock, I was in a good mood while working on the essays. A minor detail could be that the weather was getting warmer so working during hours with sunlight and by windows had become much more enjoyable. My writing for theology improved after the first few essays as a result of improved conditions but also working more with first-person writing, even though it felt excessively personal.
Social Media
In class, the professor had talked about Instagram captions and how we make captions things we may think are necessary to share with the world. I thought about my social media and the type of writing I use in it versus in academic settings. For my socials, I noticed, grammatically, I have nothing capitalized while most words are abbreviated and there is an overall lack of grammar. Most of my social media is just my tweets since I have only 2 posts on Instagram and deleted Facebook a while ago. As for my tweets, they are mainly my thoughts at the moment, which I don’t consider important enough to share but do so because I think of them as funny or interesting. Which brings me to the question of who it is that I post for on social media? I feel as if there is really nothing at stake when posting on social media, except for maybe digital footprints, but personally, my Twitter is private with only my close friends, so there is no true purpose. Considering it has no purpose, my tweets don’t aim to do anything and the only feedback possible is my friend responding to anything I say. I think the fact that the target audience is only my close friend and there is no aim in the writing, there can be room for error. For example, I tweeted out “I have made it a new goal to buy REAL plants and actually take of them” which has no purpose other than announcing to my friends that I do not have a green thumb, but at the time I felt beginning to work on my green thumb was significant enough to share. I do doubt my writing or posting habits will change throughout the semester, but hopefully, in areas where my writing does matter, it will improve.
