Report on My Interviewees

So far I have only interviewed Kristen Cherney, an actuary for  Scottsdale Insurance Company, and my other interview with math professor Ted Laetsch is not until next week. Most of this information is going to be about my discussion with Cherney, but I do know parts of Laetsch's perspective on his field since I have previously talked to him about the subject as a whole.

What are the most significant or interesting genres that you learned about from your interviewees?
Conveniently, there are exactly three genres that are mainly used.

1: The journal. The journal is the most common way of sharing information in respect to mathematics. Almost all of these journals are similar to the annuls that I analyzed in one of my earlier blog posts. Most of the context and writing within the journals consist of mathematical proofs to logically proof the author's claim while the rest is an English translation.

2: The meeting. Very often, mathematicians (or in the case of Ms. Cherney, actuaries) meet together in committees to discuss the happenings and trends for their respective jobs. Professors usually report on their research, but the bulk of their conversation is a discussion on their opinions on recent mathematical findings in the world. Actuaries, on the other hand, meet in order to discuss what processes are needed to be met in order to monetarily quantify risk in the world.

3: The presentation. Much like how a scientist will hold a presentation on his great new invention, mathematicians will hold presentations to discuss their findings. These presentations are few and far between, but all of them spark some sort of discussion about the truth value of the presenter's findings. Presentations usually create a lot of controversy.

How do these genres differ from one another? Think about things like genre convention, content, purpose, audience, message, and context as you describe these differences.

These three genres are physically different from one another. One is a written explanation, one is an oral discussion , and one is a digital presentation. In respect to context, however, their audience and conventions are mostly the same. Somehow, all three of these genres are mostly mathematical language. The intended audience is pretty much the same too, with mathematicians targeting other mathematicians. The only thing different about these genres is how they are performed. This choices exist depending on the caliber of the author's research or the author's personal preference.

Based on the information you gathered in your interviews, what is challenging and/or difficult about writing within these genres (from a professional's point of view)?

Interestingly, both professionals said that getting other people to agree with your idea is the most challenging thing. Since most of the context of these genres is logical argumentation, my interviewees stated that it was very easy to fight logic with other ways of logical thinking. The thing with mathematical language is that it can be interpreted in many ways. Take the word "or" for example. If we say "do you want the cat or the dog", mathematically speaking, this or can imply a choice of the dog, cat, or the dog and cat. Of course, in this example, the "or" is implied to be exclusive, and this is where the logical arguments start. A good discovery can hold its own against these types of accusations.

Based on the information you gathered in your interviews, what is exciting and/or rewarding about writing within these genres (from a professional's point of view)?

Tying in with the response above, the most rewarding thing about writing these genres is actually gaining support for your ideas. As stated above, it's really easy to argue ideas mathematically, so convincing people is the most rewarding experience in respect to writing these genres.

Where in mass media - popular, academic, and/or social - can examples of this genre be found? If genre examples cannot be found within mass media easily, where can genre examples be found/located?

These are complicated math theorems, so the mass media doesn't really touch that subject. However, most of the presentations and journals are archived on certain websites on the internet, usually in websites dedicated to such a task. Even the University of Arizona has a website that has archived all the journals of the professors of the Math Department today. Live discussions, however, aren't recorded, so they can't really be found per say.