This week on Twitter: I was able to do a variety of tweets, follow more relevant accounts and increase in followers! First let me tell you, it is now a habit that while I am reading Carl Safina’s book Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel, any scientist or researcher’s name I come across, I search on Twitter. This week while reading “Howl of Wolves,” I was presented with various experts in the field of animal science that included names like, Rick McIntyre, Doug Smith, Bernd Heinrich, Derek Craighead, Dr. Thomas Savage and Richard Wrangham. Unfortunately, I was not able to find active Twitter accounts for any of those experts. However, later in the week as I was surfing through the internet I came upon an article that resumed what I had read about wolves that now live in Yellowstone National Park along with a story of a recent encounter between a photographer and a big furry wolf in the Lamar Valley. After reading the article, I of course shared it on Twitter. Shifting the focus to posts, this week I was able to explore the various tweets that are possible on the social media platform, Twitter. The past couple of weeks, I tweeted links to articles, videos or retweeted other posts, but never had I made a thread, a group of tweets! In all honesty, I had seen threads on Twitter but never knew what they consisted of or how to create them. So in class and on my own I explored the process behind threads and soon enough was able to make two threads! Check them out in the images below. Going back to the topic of attempting to find more accounts to follow, though my first attempt in the week to follow accounts did not turn out good, through my research on Google, Academic Search Complete and Twitter, I was able to find accounts that tweeted valuable sources of information concerning animal science and advocacy. As you may have read in my Week 3 blog post, I am really interested in researching on bear cognition or bear communication. Thus, after a week of searching for sources of valuable scientific findings related to my interest, I was able to find a couple of organizations and researchers that have conducted studies with bears for years. Just like I usually do after reading Safina’s book, I also searched the researchers and scientists on Twitter. While not all of the experts in bear studies had a social media account, the organizations and groups they belonged to did have active Twitter accounts. For instance, American black bear biologist, Lynn Rogers did not have a Twitter account yet the organization he founded, the North American Bear Center, and The Wildlife Research Institute, where he contributes research time, all have accounts.
Another reason to feel happy is for the fact that I was able to gain followers from different parts in the world! Last week I had 30 now I have 36! Slowly but surely, I am making progress! It all was due to me following accounts that appeared to be advocates within the umbrella of animal issues. Soon afterwards they followed me back! I also think the hashtags I include in my posts are exposing me to a greater audience! What a productive week! Keep up with my Twitter activity @DCSiquin!
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Every day of this week I attempted to find new research material on the possible species I have interest in and subtopics under the theme of animal science. As mentioned in my previous blogs, I would like to focus my research topic on red pandas, brown bears or Andean (spectacled) bears. At the beginning of the week though, after using various internet sources I could not find much research conducted on red pandas, so I decided to eliminate the specie of my list. Now, the remaining species I am interested in are all under the broader category of bears. So that is where I started my research. I remember first opening a Google search tab and just typing “research on bears.” After looking through the search results, I clicked on the header “Current Researcher-The Wildlife Research Institute.” In that page I found the research this institution was working on ranged from social system to play patterns of black bears. Now as I navigated through their website I noticed they had a tab where all their research publication papers could be downloaded. Not only were all the articles on different topics concerning black bears but it listed a couple of researchers involved with bear studies. Out of all the researchers American biologist Lynn Rogers who has been studying wild black bears for decades stood out the most for me. So I proceeded to search him on Google to find more about Dr. Rogers. I found out he is founder of the North American Bear Center, and so decided to click on the project’s website where I also found many information regarding black bears. In fact, when skimming through their black bear communication tab, they had a range of recorded black bear vocalizations that are used to express a variety of messages. Then I decided to dig further on Twitter to see if there was any recent research on bear communication, so I searched bear scents because from the skim reading I did with the previous sources found on Google, I learned bears communicate through not only sounds but scents. All the results pointed to a study conducted by a team of researchers from Poland, Spain and Austria that discovered that brown bear paws contain sweat glands, suggesting that the prints leave behind a scent and thus are used to communicate to other bears. The articles lead me to the original research article published by the Scientific Reports, titled, “Histological, chemical and behavioural evidence of pedal communication in brown bears.” I decided to also see if there was research on other aspects of bear studies, so for this I decided to now look through the Academic Search Complete, a resource provided by the UCI Libraries, where I searched "bear and cognition." Out of all the results I was drawn to an article titled, “Bears ‘count’ too: quantity estimation and comparison in black bears, Ursus americanus,” in which psychologists Jennifer Vonk and Michael Beran conclude that bears have numerical cognitive abilities like other primates. After copying this research article title, I decided to go back to my Google search engine and paste the title and search the full article online. Fortunately, I found the whole study at the PubMed Central a free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature. Besides finding the complete published article on black bear’s numerical cognition, I was suggested other research publication related to bear cognition like “Spatial memory in captive American black bears (Ursus americanus)” and “When top predators become prey: Black bears alter movement behaviour in response to hunting pressure.” Through Google I was later able to find another organization that emphasis is on social behavior, the Brown Bear Research Network a multi-disciplinary group that goal is to fund and facilitate innovative and progressive research on brown (grizzly) bears in British Columbia. Along with finding this informational website, I also came upon more researchers that have spent many years studying bears (specifically brown bears). Every single research publication I mentioned were definitely saved on my Diigo account, because they all contained valuable information concerning bear cognition and communication. Articles or bear organization websites were also saved on my Diigo account, since they contain many names of researchers in the field of bear studies.
Lastly, my list of essential words for further research expanded during this week because I added terms like numerical cognition, social behaviour, Ursus arctos, Ursus americanus, cognition, communication, vocalization, bear biology, and scent communication. While my research this week was still broad I was definitely spending more time searching and searching for research sources through various internet sources! After creating a Twitter account last week, everyday I check my feed, follow researchers and organizations involved in the field of animal science. I am currently following 109 Twitter accounts, when a week ago I was following 73 accounts. How did I increase my numbers? Let me reveal to you my formula. My numbers raise after checking and following accounts that researchers and organizations follow. Also, I skimmed over accounts suggested by Twitter and found a few accounts I believed were good sources of information concerning animal science. Moreover, this past week I began reading Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel by Carl Safina in which many scientists and other experts are mentioned for their discoveries concerning animal cognition, emotions, social groups, or communication. Thus I sought the opportunity to increase my feed with potential animal science research articles, videos, images or comments by following the numerous professionals quoted by Safina. The image below is a glimpse of the accounts I started following as a result of reading Safina’s book. Following Safina's references was also helpful in expanding my feed network because after looking at the accounts these scientists and researchers follow, I found more sources of information. For instance, after searching and following, Vicki Fishlock, resident scientist for the Amboseli Trust for Elephants, I found wildlife biologist Dr. Winnie Kiiru who studies elephants too and the organization Conservation Action which purpose is to protect endangered species.
I connected on Twitter with my peers from Writing 39C as well. This was crucial since we all can now have a more relevant feed since everyone will be sharing information about our theme, animal science. Not only that but I gained followers since my classmates also followed me back! Last but not least, in regards to tweets and retweets, I posted everyday! While my posts varied on research findings and the types of animal cruelty happening around the world, I would say most posts were mostly retweets of well-known researchers like Barbara J. King, and Marc Bekoff. If you wish to know more about my Twitter, I encourage you to follow me @DCSiquin!
Week 2 consisted of exposure to new resources, reading and annotations in order to expand my knowledge within Writing 39C’s theme, animal science. At the beginning of the week, I focused on updating my new Twitter account, @DCSiquin. Not only did I set the basics like my profile photo and a background image, I also began following researchers and organizations within the field of animal science. As I started exploring Twitter, I also found many posts that related to research or cases of animal science subtopics like animal cognition, emotions, social groups and communication. Overall from my personal tour around Twitter, I discovered that indeed many researchers, anthropologists, zoologists and many more scientists are active within this social media platform. Without a doubt, Twitter is an essential tool when finding scientific studies, case-studies, articles and many more texts. If you wish to read more about my first time on Twitter read my previous blog post. Midway through the week, my Writing 39C class had a presentation on resources and tools provided by the librarian Shu Lin at the Ayala Science Library. The presenter talked about a various topics fundamental for the course research and projects required. Finding sources like books, articles, and also distinguishing scholarly versus popular sources were just a few of the topics covered during the presentation. One part of the presentation I believe was crucial to pay attention was when Ms. Lin went over the availability of research guides specific to the courses offered at UCI. After looking through the research guide of Writing 39C, I noticed there is an academic search for articles, news, images, and statistics. I researched well-known scientists like Barbara J. King and John Marzluff, and found many publications by them. I also took the opportunity to search species like bears and red pandas, and found a few peer-reviewed articles. When I looked for animal friendships and social groups along with the species of my interest though I had difficulty finding relevant articles. Nonetheless, with these research tools provided by the UCI Libraries, I know that after having decided the species and what realm of animal science I will research on I will have better outcomes.
Now in Week 2 after gathering and informing all the resources available, I started looking for possible organizations and researchers that study species of my interest like red pandas, brown bears and andean (spectacled) bears. One of the first things I realized was that two of these three animals are labeled as an endangered species, red pandas and andean bears. I was not able to find specific case studies on these animals, but I did find organizations that do research and conservation work. Some of the organizations I discovered include World Wildlife Fund, Red Panda Network, Spectacled Bear Conservation Society-Peru, and Wildlife Conservation Research Unit. Within these organizations I wrote down the names of the researchers and scientists leading the studies conducted by the organizations. I am still not sure which specie out of the three I will focus my research around, yet I think by next week I will have something confirmed. To find out what specie I will eventually focus on keep on reading my blogs! I am happy to announce that I have created a Twitter account, that will become an essential resource towards the research and assignments completed throughout Writing 39C. As stated in my Twitter bio, I want to become better informed on issues that animals face. As one of the first steps in setting up my Twitter, I uploaded a photo of myself and a background image containing various animal silhouettes. I also decided to link my Writing 39C ePortfolio, so my followers have the opportunity to track my work and research topic on animal science. Right after, I began following important researchers, scientists, and prominent experts in the field. The first Twitter accounts I began to follow were from writers involved in the TIME article, “The Animal Mind,” like Jeffrey Kluger, Carl Zimmer, and Dr. Temple Grandin. I figured they would be knowledgeable and informed in the different branches of animal science like friendships, social groups, communication, and mourning because of the extensive information provided in the article. Next, I also thought that following many of the researchers, advocates, and experts mentioned in “The Animal Mind,” would be another good start in obtaining information and evidence in the future. Although some of the names included in the text did not have Twitter accounts, I was able to follow some of the researchers like Lauren Brent, Barbara J. King, Joan Silk, and Peter Singer. While I did take time to see some of their recent tweet and retweets, I also looked at the accounts they followed. I feel this was more helpful in finding other accounts that relate to the purpose of my Twitter, than the ones suggested by the platform. As a result, I followed not only did I follow new researchers like Kotrina, but I also found animal-research and issue-based organizations that caught my attention like AnimWelfareSci and Animal Protection US. The next step included tweeting and retweeting anything that I saw of interest and evidence for the research that Writing 39C requires. I tackled this task by starting to scroll through my Twitter feed and just retweet anything that I thought would not only help me but my peers too. In addition to this, I posted some tweets related to articles I read through my internet research on animal science. My initial posts thus did consist of a variety of topics and animals, but afterwards, I realized that the topics were mostly in regards to animal cognition and animal cruelty (two topics I am interested in). While I am not sure what branch within animal science I will research in the coming weeks, I do have a sense of what animal I could be focusing my research around. In fact, I followed some organizations that advocate for the endangered species I am interested in which include red pandas, sea turtles, and bears. I must admit I had to delete some of my tweets and then post them again because I would forget to include the hashtag #39canimals (our class hashtag). Nonetheless, after this first time exposure to Twitter, I feel more confident in how this social media platform works. I really love how through Twitter there is an abundance of information on animal science; in the few hours I was on Twitter, I learned so many animal related issues and ongoing research. I am excited to what new things I will be reading, retweeting and tweeting. Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @DCSiquin!
Hi blog readers! My name is Devora Siquin and I am currently a sophomore majoring in Psychology and Social Behavior at the University of California, Irvine. And if it is in your interest to know more about me, click on the About the Writer tab. Well so far one of my concerns throughout my school years, is my writing skills which I personally feel are one of my weaknesses. As a matter of fact, my fear of writing papers stopped me from taking any Advanced Placement classes for English in high school. Therefore, when I submitted my Statement of Intent to Register to UCI, I found out I still had to satisfy the Entry Level Writing Requirement. Weeks after taking the placement test, I received an email with the results. Like expected I did not meet the requirement, but I had the opportunity to take Writing 37. As I reflect back at the Writing 37 course, I took with Dr. Haas during my first college quarter, I was able to improve in my writing. Writing 37 was a class that not only taught me how to become a better writer, but how to become a better communicator through various mediums. Now, as I begin my journey through Writing 39C I have more confidence in my writing, knowing that once more with the guidance of Dr. Haas, I will continue the process of becoming a better writer. Definitely, as a writer and a communicator there is always room for improvement! The Language and Grammar Diagnostic Quiz, helped me realize I am not aware of a few grammar terms. For instance, when it came to “comma splice” or “dangling modifier”, I had no idea what they meant. It was no surprise then that I scored an 72% which is a passing score, but certainly not the best score. In regards to writing skills, I believe my writing it is not the best or the worst. During my four years in high school, I would be placed in English Honor Level classes, because I would earn A’s in them. However, I have always felt writing is one my biggest weakness, especially when it comes to in-class timed essays. As I reflect on this, I think I feel this way because I struggle to get all of my ideas, thoughts, and opinions down on paper. For example, when writing an essay, I have difficulties on coming up with my introduction paragraph and also the thesis statement, even though I went through the brainstorming previously. Honestly, the only areas in writing I think I am okay in are spelling and grammar. Without a doubt, the various individual and group presentations I had in Writing 37, helped me not only to become a better presenter but also overcome my shyness and nerves when being on the spotlight. Such course gave me confidence when preparing and giving future presentations; I have seen the results in other college courses as well when it comes to presentations. Despite all of this, I have never done extensive research in any college class, so I am looking forward to the skills I am about to gain with the preparation Dr. Haas will provide. However, I think my close-reading skills are pretty good; whenever I have to read, understand, analyze a text, I like to do it more than once if time permits and take annotations. Nonetheless, I look forward to gaining knowledge in writing and communication, but also in the research aspect. I am confident that with the help of Dr. Haas, at the end of this quarter I will feel very accomplished. One of Week 1’s assignment was to read and annotate various chapter of the TIME article, “The Animal Mind,” by Jeffrey Kluger to have a sense of the topics under the branch of Animal Science. Out of all the chapters I enjoyed chapter 2 “Social Groups” and chapter 4 “Mourning.” Chapter 2 was of my interest because I enjoyed reading the importance of group bonding and community sense within many animals that serves for psychological benefits and physical ones like having a longer life expectancy or more offspring. Chapter 4 from the same article was also one of my favorite readings because it demonstrates that after many years of empirical and observational research, we are starting to uncover that in their own ways animals mourn and feel the upsetting feelings one also faces when losing a loved one. |
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March 2018
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