We're gonna go ahead and move into our
final question and answer session. So our
first question is, What recommendations
do you have for building writing skills
through internships and volunteer
opportunities and are there specific
types of written products or experiences
in writing for specific audiences that I
should look for? I'll get the first one
of those and it's basically yes.
As far as recommendations for building
writing skills. You can't do better
than doing. So the internships and
volunteer opportunities - search those out
either locally. Similar to a friend of
mine who had trouble doing public
speaking, he actually joined Toastmasters.
There are things you can do out there,
volunteer opportunities. I work at a land
trust and in my spare time and write
grants, write reports for them as well,
different audience, different ways to go
about constantly improving what you do.
I could add one other thing about
internships. I know we've had internships
with the state agency that I work for. A
lot of times, it's working on tables and
figures and whatnot, but I think if you
do an internship, volunteer to actually
write up the results of your internship,
that you can show some skills in writing,
which may not be required by the agency
, but it'd be just good for the the intern
to do that. Great thanks so much. Pranoti, did you want to add anything
to that? Sure I would be happy to add to
that. We actually have a handout that is
available in the handout section of the
webinar where you can actually see
a Geoscience Currents that was published
late last year. This is a Geoscience
Currents that talks about
the different types of experiences you
get as an intern as an intern at AGU
and AGI and you will see in that handout
that there is lots of opportunities to
practice writing when you're in an
internship at a professional
organization ,but it just doesn't have to
be at a professional organization. It can be
anywhere. So we when we've had interns at
AGU, and I know when interns have been
at AGI, they've been involved in
obviously writing emails. They've been
writing sometimes they help you know
they end up submitting something for a
conference, so they they write abstracts.
Many interns at AGU have written for
EOS which is the digital newspaper.
Interns at AGI have obviously written news
briefs and they've worked on Geoscience
Currents and other types of writing. So
lots of examples for doing this, and so
if you are an intern somewhere you know
talk to your supervisor and find out
what kinds of things you can be doing to
be building your writing skills and I'm
sure there will be plenty of things that
you could do. Great thank you so much. And
for those of you who want to access the
Currents, they are in the handout section
of your GoToWebinar control panel so you
can download them from there and we'll
also get that posted along with the
speaker's slide up on the webinar
webpage after the webinar session today
so you have access to them there as well.
The next question that we had was, and
this is for Bob, What is an example of a
word that has a specific regulatory
meaning that may mean something else in
a non-technical context? So Bob and Ron I
think this probably applies more to you
guys, if you can comment on that. I can
give a perfect example that you know
based here in the state of
Connecticut, our property transfer
regulation has a word called the "an establishment"
and you could you know you
could see that being used pretty much
commonplace, but it's actually got a
statutory definition and it is basically
someone
who generated hazardous waste at a
certain amount and rate or participated
in one of several types of commercial
enterprise, such as auto body, dry
cleaning and things of that nature and
automatically when one of those
properties or businesses changes hands,
it has to go through the state
environmental cleanup program. So if you
mistakenly use the word "establishment" in
Connecticut referring to a site that
doesn't meet the qualifications, somebody
could get very upset. Great thanks for
that. We'll go ahead on to our next
question, So when writing the thesis,
which do you recommend in terms of
writing style a more descriptive writing
style, or a more technical writing style
and also to follow-on to that, you know
do you have any advice on how to start
writing such a large project or a large
document like a dissertation or thesis
or maybe a peer-reviewed paper or
something like that?
Well I wouldn't start working on your
thesis writing or paper writing by you
know writing the abstract first. 
Obviously that's the last
thing you would write. You might consider
starting to work on your methods section.
You know that's a, you know some lab
procedure that you need to write to
explain, or you may want to write some
descriptive materials related to your
field study. If you have done a
literature survey about you know what
kind of research was done in this
particular locality prior to your
beginning the work you know the
justification for doing the kind of work
that you're doing, you already have some
of that. So that might be another easy
section. I would recommend those three
pieces as things that you could work on
first because it is pretty intimidating
to write you know a large document like
a thesis or a dissertation. So that's my
advice
to the person who asked the question. 
That's a good question actually.
Yeah in the environmental business as
well, I mean you work in small bites. You
know like I said we sometimes we
actually have to have different people
writing different sections. So it's a lot
easier to take one section and talk
about the history of the property, or to
talk about the methodology that was
employed, and write that section up you
know particularly if you were the the
field geologist who implemented the
investigation and then you know work on
different aspects of the report and
similar to a thesis, work on different
aspects of it, different chapters, one at
a time. Get those in a really good
position before moving into the next one. 
But taking it in in smaller bites I
think is my recommendation. Great thank
you very much and we've got just time
for one other question. I know we're
running over a little bit but I
definitely wanted to get this last
question in before we close out today, and
that is, What recommendations do you have
for building partnerships with potential
employers so that I can help students
find and pursue some opportunities that
would give them the ability to build
their writing skills. So I know, I think
Bob you said that you did internships
there, and maybe Ron is there any advice
you can give also in terms of working
with state agencies for internships.
I would say they need to invite employers
or state regulatory people into the into
the university to have them speak and
then you get a relationship that way
where you go from there having to do
with writing skills. Yeah I would agree
with that Ron, and you know we we have
developed relationships with a number of
the local universities, their geology and
engineering departments and we will go
in and assist with a class or in
particular, field experiences where we've
actually you know brought drill rigs
onto the property and and taking
the students through the whole process
of using drill rigs, logging, screening,
sample handling and things of that
nature.
This sounds like it was written by a
faculty member, so yeah I mean we're the
the resources that are out there for you
at least from my perspective with
environmental consulting is if you call,
someone will come. Plain and simple. Yeah
and one other thing having to do with writing
skills - obviously if you ask consultant
to come in and review resumes, they'd be
more than happy to do that, and that's
obviously very important writing skills
that students need to learn.
Wonderful. Thanks so much for that insight I know that'll be very helpful. So that's about
all we have time for today, so thank you
everyone for the excellent questions and
thank you Pranoti, Bob and Ron for your
great talks today and for the vibrant
discussion - a lot of great information, a
lot of great tips and advice for
everyone. And if you have any questions
that were not addressed today you can
definitely email them to us at workforce@americangeosciences.org, and we'll
make sure to go ahead and send your
questions along to the speakers. So
thanks again Pranoti and Bob and Ron
for sharing your time and expertise and
insight with us today. I really
appreciate you taking the time out to do
that, and this concludes our webinar for
today. Thank you everyone for joining us
and we look forward to seeing you next
time.
