Email: Jessica.Ebert@ndsu.edu
Phone: 231-9779
Office: 131 Van Es Hall
About Me:
I'm a Minnesota native with graduate degrees in Microbiology
(from the University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Science and
Environmental Reporting (from New York University). I have a joint
appointment with the English department and the Vet &
Microbiological Sciences department. To that end, I teach ENGL 324
(Writing in the Sciences), ENGL 325 (Writing in the Health
Professions), MICR 354 (Scientific Writing), MICR 452/652
(Microbial Ecology), and, in the spring, a few micro labs thrown in
for good measure.
My literary interests include creative nonfiction, nature writing,
and health writing. Lately, I've been writing mostly about
renewable energy, conservation and environmental policy for a
couple of magazines. My interests outside teaching and writing
include competitive swimming and coaching, music (performing,
writing, listening), and photography.
Teaching Philosophy:
Somewhere along the course of my studies and work as a writer
and lecturer I've developed something of a hybrid, two-pronged
teaching/learning philosophy. The first part stems from something I
read once about the French screenwriter, playwright, and teacher,
Marcel Achard. He was quoted as saying, "When I give a lecture, I
accept that people look at their watches, but what I do not
tolerate is when they look at it and raise it to their ear to find
out if it stopped." And I guess I've taken that to heart; if
students turn zombie-like at some point in a lecture I know I
haven't spent enough time preparing 50-minutes that foster engaged
learning, critical-thinking, and collaboration.
The second part grew from this idea that learning is best done by
doing. I can share with my students what I know about science and
health writing from my experiences actually doing science and
health writing but listening to me and/or other writers talk about
the craft is only a small part of becoming a better writer in the
sciences. Reading the work of great writers and trying to figure
out how they make it work is another part of the process but I
think it comes down to putting pen to paper or fingertips to keys
and trying to figure out how to make it work for yourself. So I
guess this part of my philosophy is simply writeâŻand write a
lot!
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