As the other PhD students in my department prep their field gear and assemble field crews, I am feeling a little shocked that my summer will consist of no field work and no lab work. My job has become incredibly straight forward with my only task being to write. I have had many opportunities to work in the field and in the lab the past 4 years and it is now time to synthesize all of that information, time, money, effort into cohesive written units. I am reading and thinking a lot about scientific writing right now including: ways to schedule writing blocks; making my writing clear, concise, and accessible; developing a narrative from a scientific study; working with co-authors on all the stages of a manuscript; and the peer review process. All of the PhD students before me have been able to get through this step and so will I.
As all of this writing happens, I am still trying to get outside and play. There are Stroke & Strides to complete, 14ers to hike, and many miles of Boulder trails that I have not yet explored. Often I find myself writing (in my head) during these long excursions outside, where I can get away from the mundane repetition of real words being typed onto the computer and move toward high level overview writing - the kind that has to happen for a clear story to develop.
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AuthorSierra is a graduate student in the Barger Lab at CU Boulder studying microbial ecology for dryland restoration. Archives
August 2023
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