17. Field Lab Earth, Storytelling, and Hanging Out with Oysters w/ Abby Morrison

Y'all, I'm so excited for you to hear this one. Abby Morrison is the
Publication Systems Assistant for ACSESS, a blogger, podcaster, writer, and such a cool person. We got to nerd out about science, storytelling, plants, science communication, Tolkien, and so many other things. I feel like I've found a friend and kindred spirit in Abby, and this episode made me so happy. Also, go check out her podcast Field, Lab, Earth where you might hear a familiar voice on the most recent episode!

Field, Lab, Earth Podcast
Twitter: https://twitter.com/fieldlabearth
Website: https://www.agronomy.org/publications/podcast
Listen: http://fieldlabearth.libsyn.com/

Agronomy, Crop, Soil Societies:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ASA_CSSA_SSSA
Website: https://www.agronomy.org/, https://www.crops.org/, https://www.soils.org/

Tim Storm
https://www.stormwritingschool.com/

https://twitter.com/writingstorm

Check out our Sponsor, Pecan Ridge and use the promo code "plantpeople" at check out for %10 off your order!
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thepecanridge/
Website: https://pecanridge.com/ 

As always, thanks so much for listening! Subscribe, rate, and review Planthropology on your favorite podcast app. It really helps the sh

Transcript

Unknown Speaker : 0:00

What is up plant people? It is Tuesday, May 19 2020. And I'm back with you today with another episode of the Planthropology podcast, the show where we dive into the lives and careers of some really, really cool plant people. This is Vikram Baliga, your host, and I'm excited to be back for another one. Today's episode is totally rad. And I got to talk with Abby Morrison from the field lab Earth podcast, which is produced by the American Society of Agronomy, the crop Science Society of America and the Soil Science Society of America, which is a mouthful, we sometimes just call it the try societies. Or we pick the one that we're most familiar with or most associated with and go with that one. But it is a group of all these professional societies of people in agriculture in plant sciences, and it's really a cool deal. More on that in a minute. First, again, we have a partner in not crime, but a partner. You're in show. And that is pecan ridge. So if you need pecans really cool. Just stuff, local stuff for the Lubbock area, or cool hats or pecan flavored candy or if you need some pecan shell go hit them up, check it out pecan ridge.com. And use promo code, plant people all one word at checkout for 10% off your order, they'll ship it right to your door, and you'll get some really cool pecan stuff. And again, it's not called pecans. I'm just that's a hill I'm willing to die on. Next, I have a new show coming out sort of, well, not sort of I do have a new show coming out. If you'll remember, a few episodes ago, I had a guest named air fond that Fae, who was an entomologist. Well, he came to me a few weeks ago and said, Hey, I'm thinking about starting a podcast. Do you have some tips? And what I didn't realize was do you have some tips means Do you want to co host the show? With me, well, either way, the answer was yes. So, starting on June 9, we'll be releasing the Jolly Green scientists a podcast, where we will take a paper to every episode either from entomology or horticulture and discuss it. So we're going to take these journal articles that are written in, oftentimes some technical jargon and other silliness, and we're going to distill them down and tell you the high points and I'm ridiculous human and he is a hilarious stand up comedian and improv comedian in addition to being a really fabulous scientists, so I think you're really gonna like that show. stick around till the end of this episode. For a preview, a short trailer of the Jolly Green scientists podcast. I'm really excited about it again. That is June 9. You'll hear about it more between now and then. So, Abby Morrison, I feel like I found a kindred spirit in Abby. Now. I was last year. week actually on the field lab Earth podcast, if you'd like to hear about some of my research that'll be linked in the show notes, but go check that out. It was really fun talking to her, but we get in there like story structure and nerdiness. And we talk about Lord of the Rings and science and the universe and life in this episode today, and I guys, I'm just so excited for you to hear it. It was wonderful. I really had a lot of fun talking to Abby. She's a wonderful host. So definitely check out her show. And it turns out she's a really great podcast guest as well. So buckle up, put on your hats, take off your shoes. I don't know why you need to do those things, but do them and get your auditory Oregon's ready for Episode 17 of the planet apology podcast.

Vikram Baliga : 4:02

All right, well, we are alive. How are you? How are you?

Abby Morrison : 4:05

I'm doing really well. I'm doing super

Unknown Speaker : 4:08

good. I'm glad to hear that. Are you holding up? Okay in the middle of all the craziness right now?

Abby Morrison : 4:14

Yeah, I'm pretty introverted normally so. So that's very fortunate I can work from home. So that's very lucky in a lot of ways. So yeah, I'm doing I'm doing pretty good.

Unknown Speaker : 4:25

That is good. Well, and so I don't we're recording on what April 7 and this will come out sometime in May. So who knows what the world will look like in four or five weeks when this comes out. But you know, hopefully future us is are not in quarantine anymore, and we're able to go out in the world and do things but we'll see. I've been okay, I think I'm probably a little more extroverted. So I'm only losing my mind a little bit, but it's okay. I've just been putting googly eyes on my plants and it's okay.

Unknown Speaker : 4:59

I love that I've been following that on Twitter and I am very engaged. audience.

Unknown Speaker : 5:05

I'm glad to hear it. It's give me someone to talk to in the greenhouse. Oh.

Unknown Speaker : 5:10

Abbi, tell me about what you do, who you work for what your job is all that fun stuff.

Unknown Speaker : 5:15

Sure. So I work for a company called access, where the alliance of crops soil and environmental science societies, which is why we have an acronym. And we're the management company for the American Society of Agronomy, crop Science Society of America and Soil Science Society of America. So we handle all of their meetings, certifications, publications really just help them do what they need to do to function as societies. I work in their publications department, where I help authors get through the peer review system, and I also run our podcast feel lab Earth,

Unknown Speaker : 5:52

which I love By the way, I really enjoy it. Great. So how how did y'all as a Guess as an organization and as the tri societies or whatever, get into podcasting, where did that whole idea come from?

Unknown Speaker : 6:09

Yeah, so this was actually pretty neat. When I first started there in early 2017, I had this awesome boss, Brad Halsey, but unfortunately, like two months after I started, he actually took another job, but he was super cool. And he was like, What do you want to do that I can try to set up for you? Like before I leave on my way out? Is there anything you want to try? And I was like, Well, uh, I've been doing some proofing on some of our magazines and going into this job. I do not come from an ag or science background at all. And I was reading his articles. I was like, Man, this stuff is so cool. But when they try to explain my job, people are like, what is agronomy? And I'm like, Did you eat today? And they're like, yeah, cool. agronomy probably wants that to happen. But Just a I do a lot of creative writing, I love authors, I love writers. And I was like, I would love to be able to just help people promote what they're doing, because it's so cool. And nobody knows that this exists. So I asked if I could do a podcast and they were like, sure. And I was like, cool, I have no idea how to do any of this. And they're like, just try it, see what happens. Great, great place to work in in that they're so willing to be like, just try it. And, and then things kind of just went from there.

Unknown Speaker : 7:31

That's really cool. And it's so cool to work for an organization and, and my University's been largely the same way except you have one up on me you actually asked before you did it, I was just like, well, I'm going for it and maybe they won't fire me. But um, which they didn't so good on them, I guess. But no, that's really cool to be part of an organization that is supportive of innovation and supportive of new ideas and new ways to present information because if we're being honest and I think That our listeners the probably expect to that at this point but academia and agriculture and some of the sciences or maybe not the first to innovate in terms of outreach and that kind of stuff now we innovate I think in the subject matter pretty well. And we're, you know, trying new things. But when it comes to taking our information and throwing it out in the public, that's maybe not at the forefront a lot. So it's really cool being a part of an organization that'll let you do that.

Unknown Speaker : 8:30

Yeah. It's awesome. It's so cool. I love it.

Unknown Speaker : 8:34

That's great. So you said that you don't come from a science background or an agricultural background and that you know, some of your experiences in creative writing, what has it been like, going from that to having to read the boring ridiculous articles that we academics, right?

Unknown Speaker : 8:53

Um, so it's pretty interesting because I'm, so I don't do a lot of reading online. Lessons for

Unknown Speaker : 9:02

the podcast if I see like a title that catches my attention, so pro tip, like try to find a title that they can be, could maybe be a little tidbit for anyone who's interested. But yeah, it's it's really interesting because there are some really cool correlations between just story at large and science, which I think are really interesting. And it's also interesting to seeing the differences in like, the publishing worlds between creative and academic is really interesting. So, those those are been some cool, cool things to just experience, I guess.

Unknown Speaker : 9:41

Yeah, can you I mean, do you mind touching on that a little bit, just as some of the differences you've seen between creative and an academic because, you know, personally, I If I had my way, I would write more creatively all the time. You know, and, and I think that's, that eats into my academic writing sometimes and then You know, reviewer two is always mad at me, they're like, you don't need all these extra words, stop it with the extra words. So in, in the world of publishing what what are some of those differences that you've seen?

Unknown Speaker : 10:11

Um, I mean, I think primarily just the experience of submitting things, I think would be very different. So, for me, as a creative writer, if there are certain people that it's like, if you submit to us once and we don't like it, like never again, don't don't even try.

Vikram Baliga : 10:29

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So, so it's, it's pretty extreme.

Unknown Speaker : 10:34

Whereas, like, in my job, a lot of times, it's like, hey, just, you know, don't, don't do that. Again, you know, like, like, remember to add line numbers or, you know, I work I work very much on the kind of the front end, just making sure that it's formatted correctly for review. So it's interesting to see some of those differences or,

Unknown Speaker : 10:55

and, and I guess, speaking as an analogy, maybe

Unknown Speaker : 11:02

If you were submitting like a creative like a book, you would have like your abstract and in your like within your cover letter to convince an agent to represent you. And if they don't like it, they're like never again.

Unknown Speaker : 11:16

Oh, yeah. Okay, so it's very different.

Unknown Speaker : 11:19

As far as like, just getting that entry level thing. There's, you know, there's gatekeepers in both worlds. Sure, yeah. You know, there's more academic rigor obviously in an academic publishing than there is in in creative publishing. They're not gonna nail you on every scientific facts in creative writing.

Unknown Speaker : 11:42

But yeah, it's it's very different. But it's, it's fun to see.

Unknown Speaker : 11:45

That is pretty cool. So as we were discussing some of you know, discussing having this interview and all of that over the past couple of days, you self identify as a plant murder and So, which I think we all are. And I think that that's, that's interesting that you say that because people People say that to me all the time, like, Oh, I kill a bunch of plants. I'm like, do you have any idea how many plants we kill? employment research, like millions of plants? So um, okay, so you've covered a wide variety of topics and a ton of different things, you know, again, everything from 350 years of soil phosphorus to plant blindness, which by the way, I loved those plant blindness episodes are so fun, so fascinating. so fascinating. So what, like, what so far has been your favorite thing that you've learned? It may be hard to nail that down, but maybe what are a couple of like really interesting tidbits you've picked up?

Unknown Speaker : 12:45

Oh, man, that that is a very hard question. Yeah, sure.

Unknown Speaker : 12:50

Now, I feel like I should pull up the website.

Unknown Speaker : 12:53

I mean, if we're talking like scientific facts, I think the plant blindness one was was a really Fun one, I think something that's been really fun to learn is just all of the different areas that this that these kinds of science touch and how interconnected they are. Because I'll have frequently episodes that you think would be completely unrelated. And you're like, Oh, yeah, we talked about that on a different episode or Yeah, it just, uh, seeing the different places that people do their work is another is another cool thing. Because speaking to your point about, you know, kind of maybe that stereotype of egg and that kind of field not not being great at at communicating some of those things. That was one of the biggest surprises when I started at my job was just like, oh, we're learning about soil on the moon. And like, nobody knows they're doing this. And, and then, you know, I meet people, you know, I virtually meet people, I guess. But they're like, yeah, I Like Portage, all of my stuff to live for like weeks, and also all of this scientific communication, like equipment stuff for miles and miles into the woods, and I got eaten alive, or I'm off in a jungle somewhere or I'm just like all these different places and you would never know or like the cool technology. We had a guy who is. He's like, I'm learning how to phenotype seeds with basically like, Do It Yourself equipment and open source coding so that you don't have to sit there with the tweezers and count seeds for forever. And it's just stuff you would never expect. And it's so cool. And they're the nicest, coolest people. There's, they're so humble and cool. And funny. They're just awesome people to work with. I don't know if that answers your question well or not, but no,

Unknown Speaker : 14:54

it really does. It really does. And and so one of the reasons I even got into doing this podcast thing was For the same reason you just said is that, you know, my backgrounds a little bit different. I am an academic, but I was an extension for a while. And so, you know, that experience gave me this passion for putting the scientific message out to the community, and doing it in a way that is packaged appropriately for general audiences, you know, whoever's listening to it. But what I started to find in through my own experience, and through listening to a couple of different podcasts, about scientists and about science, I love I nerd out on science podcasts, like hardcore. There's one called ologies. That was a big like, inspiration for getting into this. And but yeah, the stories are so interesting. And like, we maybe don't do a good job and of I don't know, the best way to say this is maybe maybe humanizing our research and humanizing our youth fields. There's so much jargon and there's so much, you know, real serious, hard science that we do that you start throwing jargon at the average person and they're like, okay, I don't I, I'm bored. I don't care. You know, I don't, I don't want to hear about this. So, um, you know, something we talked about covering which I think I really like to talk about, you know, maybe for most of the rest of the time we have is. So as someone coming into this as a non scientist, non ag person, plant murder, I'm gonna keep calling you that. I'm sorry.

Unknown Speaker : 16:28

It's okay.

Unknown Speaker : 16:32

What is your perspective on telling this story as not someone necessarily from the outside, but someone who's maybe not doing the actual science work? How do you tell that story? How should we as scientists be telling that story?

Unknown Speaker : 16:46

Sure. Uh, so the first one that I that you kind of mentioned already, just as maybe unrelated to the general, vast story of piecing this together is jargon and I would Say it. what's what's nice being a non expert in any of these things is that I always joke and tell people that I'm like, the low bar, they have to duck under to communicate.

Unknown Speaker : 17:16

I would disagree with you, but anyway,

Unknown Speaker : 17:18

like, I'm smart, but I don't know any of this stuff and show. Sure. So that's, um, you know, you also, were on our show, and, you know, I sent out that worksheet and I'm, like, explain words to me that you use that I don't understand. And so it's really, it's, it's kind of cool being the non expert to kind of come in and be like, okay, I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means. Please explain this in a more simple way and helping people find ways to do that is is really fun for me. As a creative writer, using analogies or metaphors is always really fun to help come up with those and I have to give credit to my coworker, Susan fist. She does a ton of training she she's the head of our Science, Science communications department at my work. And she's always like, jargon jargon jargon. Get rid of it. Because it really is like you are communicating with another person. And I think, you know, it's not communicating in the sense of like a bullhorn where you're just shouting out what you're doing, you have to communicate at the level of your audience. And so, if they don't understand what you're talking about, in these jargon terms, they're not going to be able to pick up that passion that you have for it because it's just, there's this veil of like, not not being able to understand even if they want to, and they want to, like people love hearing about what people are passionate about. That's part of why I wanted to do the show. It's because that I just love it and I and people love to hear it. So I think that's kind of maybe the first thing that I would I would look at, but then there so I guess if you were trying to try to find a way to communicate your science As a story story has a lot of structure built into it. And I think people don't think that it does. And that's a lie. I've recently been doing a deep dive on plot structure I, I adore it I that that's my like, nerd out area. But I took a I took a retreat class kind of thing last summer with a guy named Tim storm. He's a wonderful editor, if any creative writers out there looking and he kind of boils down story to like status, and then a change and then a new normal and that's like scientific progress in a nutshell, right? Like, you have a problem and then you address it and then you have like a new state where you've advanced and grown as a person. So it's, it's cool to just see those those similarities and maybe be able to use those to give you a lot of focus. would be like another tip is just trying to figure out like, what is what is the through line of what you're trying to say. And then all all the stuff on the sides, all the jargon, even sometimes, like getting really nitty gritty about like methods that people are like, I don't know what that method means, like that kind of thing or equations that, you know, that kind of thing. Being able to really condense that into like, one thing is, is really helpful.

Unknown Speaker : 20:30

Yeah, and that's and you may or may not realize this, but I think that everything you just said about how part of your job and let me back up a little bit. This is this was gonna be a long rambling thing. Let me back up a little bit. I really appreciated you sending me that, you know, question sheet before, because I mentioned that I'm very much a fly by the seat of my pants kind of human. And so like, when we're doing this, I'm out blanked out for days and then have to come back. But it forced me you know, even though I just wrote this paper and just have done this research and it's fresh in my mind, it forced me to critically reevaluate the way that I presented it. And I don't know if you know how important that is, for an academic, because I think we've all had that teacher, and that college professor, whoever, who is, you know, maybe the smartest human in the world, but then they try to convey that information to you. And it's like, I, you know, even at the PhD level, when I've been taking courses at the PhD level, I've had professors tell me things and I'm like, Listen, I've been doing this for 10 years, and I have no idea what you just said to me. Right? And so I think the the service that you're providing, through the education kind of back to us even just through what you're doing is so important. And I don't know if you've thought of it in those terms, but from where I sit, that is like Something that we need so badly in the sciences is people that are willing to take everything you just said, story structure, everything from, you know what you mentioned of the three parts of a story, the three basic parts of a story and teach us that because those are the things we need to learn as scientists and as communicators and all that. So I think that's really cool. I love what you're doing.

Unknown Speaker : 22:28

Thank you. here's a here's a mind blowing thing. First of all, my heart just, like fluttered a little bit of like, teach people story and how's it going? Oh, my gosh.

Unknown Speaker : 22:39

Like a little nerd out moment.

Unknown Speaker : 22:42

But also, my mind blower here is that that worksheet that I sent, I mean, pretty much follows the scientific method. I mean, that's what we structure our show. Yeah, so it's, it's funny that you should say like, Oh, I had to completely like reevaluate it when it is in fact, like so much of it, just from follows very basic scientific method.

Unknown Speaker : 23:03

Oh, yeah, no. And it really did and thinking back over it, no, it's like, Okay, what was your introduction? What was the point? You know, what were your methods and a practical way. But I think we get so lost in the data and the writing and the whole process that we forget that the scientific method exists for a reason. And that reason is to, and this is gonna maybe sound a little more philosophical than a lot of people look at it, but I think the scientific method is us trying to tell the story of the universe, right? It's, it's, how do we take the complexity that is everything around us, and distill it into knowledge. And we don't look at it that way. We look at it as experiments and data and all those things. But there's, for me, there's this grander mission that we have to have and I think it's important that we keep those things Mind.

Unknown Speaker : 24:00

Oh, absolutely. And I'm gonna I'm gonna give you a book recommendation here. I'm actually reading this book. It's called wired for story. And I think the author's name is Lisa Kron I'll send you a link which doesn't help the listener but look it up wired for story.

Unknown Speaker : 24:16

They could be somewhere in there fine.

Unknown Speaker : 24:17

Yeah. And it's actually this lady is like a neuroscientist and she applies neuroscience to like storytelling structure and what you need to tell a good story. And the first part of her book is like we tell stories because we need to learn how to live on earth and like she talks about you know, like, hey, a billy stepped on a fire once and got really hurt. Like don't step on a fire and like nothing. Yeah, don't do the thing or or do do the thing. You know, like Harry added these nutrients to his plants and they lived better or yield More like that's, that's the story of your science. And that's why we tell stories is to learn things and explore things. She talks a lot about, like we tell stories to learn. Also, I've experienced that myself of just like, Hey, what do I think about this thing? Well, let me write about it. And then I'll figure it out as I go along. And that's, that is also sciences. Yeah. What do I know about this? How can I add to that and and then how do I pass that knowledge on to others? and storytelling is, like the oldest method to tell other people stuff that you know.

Unknown Speaker : 25:36

Yeah. Oh, for sure. And yeah, no, and that would be I wish they would. Okay, so you probably have learned this by now. But I'm like a big like sci fi and fantasy nerd. I like really enjoy that stuff. I wish they would make every academic read token and dissect it. Because that is like if you look at story structure in the hero Journey or the monomyth, or whatever you want to call it. For me, I've read that the whole Lord of the Rings series and all the nerdy side things a lot. But it does such a good job of teach. It taught me how to tell the story. I read, I think I read Lord of the Rings, the first time when I was like, 11 years old or something, and I, you know, I didn't understand most of what I was reading, but it started to teach me how to communicate about life and a lot of ways. And, you know, again, I'm a super nerd about that stuff. But, again, I think that we should work more of that into our academic curriculum. I think we need to know that.

Unknown Speaker : 26:40

Yeah, I think every human should reach

Unknown Speaker : 26:44

their next ethnic or not, yes, personally speaking. I agree. But yeah, you're absolutely right. I think it's, and it makes things more fun too, because right, like, I think science gets this bad rap of like being boring or like being like, oh, All scientists are in lab coats, please don't put that out of context.

Unknown Speaker : 27:07

So title, Morrison, three

Unknown Speaker : 27:11

classic me.

Unknown Speaker : 27:14

But that's like part of why we do this show is to be like no, like they're out there like in in the field in the woods in the like in a lagoon just hanging out with oysters, like they're doing what they do and, and so I think it is it is finding ways to make it fun. I think it's great. We had a paper just come in the other day and it literally had a quote from Princess Bride in the title. And I was immediately like, I please accept this so I can interview this person. That's fantastic. It was amazing. And I was like, I want more stuff like that. And I think you know, especially as we move into more, you know, open access things like that's something I think about a lot is like you know if your paper is open access You know, with the theory of like everyone should have access to the science. Are you making it accessible through the way that you're writing about it? And is it? Is it something that, you know? Obviously, the whole open access? discussion has been on the table for years and years? Yeah. and will continue for years and years, I'm sure. But, you know, if you are writing an open access paper, are you writing it on a level that's going to be helpful to the people who are actually trying to read it? Or? Or do we need to look at the way that we teach academics to write to be more appropriate to an open access setting? You know, because if it's not just going to be read by 20 people who all have 14 PhDs in this field, like, don't, you know, you should probably make it a little bit easier, or you're still only going to have those 20 people read it anyway, because there are only people who can understand it. So

Unknown Speaker : 28:52

yeah, well, yeah, well, no, absolutely. And then in, you know, and then also maybe adding extension style public comes in with like in the same. So we take these things and we divide them out, right? It's like you've got extension over here. And you've got, like, Am I going to say academia is separate, but we have like all our journal articles over here. And you know, it's like Extension has their own journals and other organizations have their own and that's fine. But Gosh, wouldn't it be nice to have some of that in the same place? So, you know, you get a, you know, article about whatever water conservation or whatever that has all the jargon, but then, in the sidebar, it's like, well, here's three extension articles that talk about it. Here's how you can actually take this information and apply it to your life. I think that's so cool.

Unknown Speaker : 29:41

Yeah, yeah, I've been I've been working at access for about three years now. And I literally just learned what extension was officially, right. Like when I was doing the plant blindness episode, which was like, two months ago, or something like that, because I just, it's It's a weird ecosystem to navigate all of the different pieces and ag but it's really fun to learn about all of them and I would love if they came together more often so that it wouldn't take me three years to to learn that. Yeah, but also I just didn't ask sometimes when it came up because I didn't want to like them so that's also partly on me

Unknown Speaker : 30:21

that that I don't put that on my tombstone. He didn't ask because he didn't want to look now. I am so guilty of that all the time. I'm like, Oh, no, I should know this. So I'm just gonna pretend

Unknown Speaker : 30:33

for just a few minutes i think i

Unknown Speaker : 30:35

think it is just

Unknown Speaker : 30:38

oh man that's that's really funny. But no, I I kind of love where this conversation has gone just because that it science communication live so close to my heart because that is what I feel we should be doing and maybe it's just because of my background. Maybe it's because of the way I've come into all this but I think that the future of of academia is gonna have to change. I think that the way that we've been operating and I've said this before on the podcast, and I've said this to people who gave me dirty looks for saying, and I don't care because it's the truth, the way that we have been operating for the past. I don't know, maybe, maybe since the beginnings of academia, but definitely for the past, like 3040 years of, I don't know, circling the wagons, so to speak and and the way that you know, and I know that you maybe can't say this as someone who works for a publishing company, but I sure can. That, you know, we take we take the information and it's not that we hide it intentionally, but we gatekeeper it, like you said earlier in a lot of ways and I think the future of academia in so many ways has to be opening the gates, you know, and and letting the people who paid for the research, understand the research. And so that, you know, it's that's not a small task. And I think we're all, you know, kind of working in our own ways to address that. But,

Unknown Speaker : 32:04

yeah, yeah. All of all of my opinions are my own.

Unknown Speaker : 32:12

Just so you know, if anyone's mad, just be mad at me.

Unknown Speaker : 32:17

But yeah, I mean, that's, that's what's so fun about it too, is it's like you care about the research that you do. And I know it's hard for me when I care about things, but can't get other people to care about. Sure. And that's not to say that I want everybody that I meet to become a creative writer, like that's fine. less coverage for me. But I mean, but I think being able to communicate the stuff that you care about in a way that people can see that it's important and has value is huge. And that's part of why we started the podcast is part of why I love podcasts. I love listening to yours and all of the other ones that we Just goof off.

Unknown Speaker : 33:01

No, I know.

Unknown Speaker : 33:03

But it Yeah, it's it's important to be able to know how to tell other people about the things that you love is super important,

Unknown Speaker : 33:11

for sure. And actually so that that leads me to something I kind of wanted to touch on. We I hate Twitter, and I will stand by that till the day I die. I hate Twitter. However, I feel like we have this weird little pod science podcast tribe that we found on Twitter. And like it, they're just the coolest people. Yeah, just the coolest people.

Unknown Speaker : 33:38

Yeah, totally. Yeah, they're great. I enjoy that immensely. I, I personally am not on Twitter or Facebook anymore. Like I just got off. And I was like, this just stresses me out. And so I got off and like now that I'm on it for my job. I'm like, Yeah, but like, I love seeing what These people are up to you. And it's it's it's a blast. I really like it.

Unknown Speaker : 34:04

Yeah. So that's, that's been fun just getting to make some, you know, Twitter friends and just I don't know, you know and we cover I think podcast Twitter's really if you're if you're a podcaster out there and you're not part of the podcast Twitter community I think you should be because it's really strong and it's really helpful. And I think that like everyone I've interacted with through Facebook and Instagram too, but really on Twitter primarily, if I've had questions or if I've had issues with the podcast, and I throw something out there because people are so cool about being like, Well, here's what worked for me. Here's what didn't work. Let me send you some resources. Let me help and it's just been really a cool thing.

Unknown Speaker : 34:44

Yeah, it's a cool space for sure.

Unknown Speaker : 34:46

Especially since I have no idea what I'm doing. I just make this up as I go, but

Unknown Speaker : 34:50

also the human experience.

Unknown Speaker : 34:54

Yeah, my tombstones getting pretty long. We're gonna have to get a big one.

Unknown Speaker : 34:59

So We'll kind of start working on wrapping up a little bit but so one thing I ask all my guests or try to remember to ask all my guests, there's a couple I forgotten because, you know, but um, so if there was, and we've talked about a lot of things, but if there was like one thing whether it be about communicating science or just about telling a good story in general, actually, I like that. If there was one thing you could tell the people listening or a couple of things about telling a good story, what would that be?

Unknown Speaker : 35:35

Oh, man, that is the hardest

Unknown Speaker : 35:37

question. I'm sorry.

Unknown Speaker : 35:39

ever gotten in my life? Maybe not in my life. I guess.

Unknown Speaker : 35:46

It's up there though, right?

Unknown Speaker : 35:47

Yeah, it's up there. Um, man, I guess I guess one that pertains to my my personal life as well as podcasting life would be To pay attention to structure because that really helps you to figure out like what needs to be in the story and what doesn't. So I think just be like being aware of kind of the A lot of people will call it like the story spine. So really what is that like causal chain from start to finish that you want to explore, and then if anything doesn't fit on that spine or add to it in some way or connected to it, then you don't really need to have it there. That helps me a lot with podcasts editing too, because it's like, there's so many cool rabbit trails that we go off on and I'm just like to borrow like the writing expression of kill your darlings, which is just like it may be the best thing you've ever written. But if it doesn't work you'd like you have to get rid of it and you have to be like ruthless about it. So I guess that that's really helpful, though, to really focus your message and understand what you need to keep in there or not, would be paying attention to structure, I guess.

Unknown Speaker : 37:11

Okay. That's great advice. I mean, that's, that's great. advices we write dissertations and papers and stories and everything else is, make sure it makes sense and tells the story you want to tell. I love it. It's great.

Unknown Speaker : 37:24

So get rid of jargon. And yeah,

Unknown Speaker : 37:27

yeah, yeah, let's, let's dial back the jargon, folks, you know?

Unknown Speaker : 37:32

Yeah, absolutely. I was gonna try to make a jargon joke. And maybe I just don't know enough of it to throw it out there. So we're just gonna move on. So Well, I mean, he said that you're you're mostly not doing the social media, which I think maybe makes you one of the smartest people I've ever talked to. Where do we find you? Tell us about just some of the web presence and the social media presence for feel by birth and the other things you do?

Unknown Speaker : 37:58

Yeah, I'm so

Unknown Speaker : 38:01

For the podcast, we are at field lab Earth on Twitter. And the societies also have the three societies I mentioned earlier. They also have Twitter accounts. And our websites are agronomy or crops at Oregon soils. org nice and easy.

Unknown Speaker : 38:18

We have our like libsyn homepage you can find us on pretty much any of your classic podcast catcher kind of thing that you want to be on aggregator, anything like that.

Unknown Speaker : 38:29

Well, Abby, I think I could talk to you for hours about stories but thanks so much for being on.

Unknown Speaker : 38:35

Such a pleasure. Thank you for having me. It's been such a blast.

Unknown Speaker : 38:39

Very cool. Well, thanks for listening as always. I don't know what today is but I'm sure voiceover Vikram will have told you what day it is and what's going on in the world if you you don't have the paying attention, but y'all are the best. Thanks for listening and we will see you all next time. You know, interviewer Vikram was right, telling you what day it is is one of voices. Over there from strong suits, y'all. Thanks so much for listening. I hope we inspired you to tell a good story. Whether it's a story of yourself or the story of the universe, just be telling good stories. As always, you can find us on the social medias anywhere you look Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, search for the word anthropology with a PL slapped on the front and look for the white tree. Thanks as always for the texas tech department of plant and soil science for supporting me and supporting the show. leave us a review on pod chaser or iTunes and send me a screenshot and I'll send you some stickers and a thank you know, and get yourself ready for the trailer of Jolly Green scientists which is going to start right now. Hi, my name is air Fon with Texas a&m Agrilife Extension and I'm Vikram with Texas Tech University and we are the jelly green scientists. Bringing you information from scientific literature and Popular Science articles related to the green industry straight into your domes. Each week we'll take one or two papers that we found interesting and shared with each other and we'll discuss them in terms that anyone can understand. And even though we'll do it every week, we're only going to share it with you bi weekly. Oh yeah, yeah. Transcribed by https://otter.ai