Rowe 1
Mic Rowe
English 1101
Jessica Camargo
November 17th 2012
Individual Report
Kinesiology is also known as human kinetics, or the study of human movement. That
definition includes anything that has anything to do with human movement; in other words it
doesn’t just refer to the medical field. Research in Pre-Kinesiology mostly consisted of
interviewing people either already in the professional field or still under-grad. Like the definition
suggested pre-kinesiology isn’t limited to one particular field, therefore in order to gain all the
information needed multiple different people in different fields such as rehabilitation, sport
psychology, orthopedics, etc.. had to be contacted and interviewed.
(http://kinesiology.uncc.edu/academic-degrees-and-programs/bs-athletic-training>)
“The writing while being an undergrad is the most tedious out of anything else you’d have to
do later on in life,” said Eric Zirkle, an athletic trainer and sports medicine teacher at Cox Mill
High School. Once you’ve graduated and have moved into your career the writing styles/genres
are extremely repetitive, unless you’re a leader in your field. Being top in sports medicine or
physical training research you’re going to have to know how to compose your findings. Writing
and recording your information is going to take precision and the know how of a writer. As an
undergrad however the writing consists mainly of essays about controversial treatments for
different injuries, lists of different body part names and their locations, or different medical
experts in your field. The vocabulary and spelling of the anatomy of the human body is
absolutely crucial to be in this field.
Rowe 2
As we continued our interview with Eric Zirkle, he also mentioned that the bulk of the
writing he’s required to do lies mainly with injury report forms. Not to say that these forms
aren’t important, the completion of these forms in the correct manner is essential to the health of
the students and athletes at Cox Mill High School. Sometimes these forms make it to the
students’ personal physician or even the hospital if the injury is serious enough. If these forms
aren’t filled correctly with the proper vocabulary or spelling then the information could be
misread possibly resulting in unsafe treatment. As a sports medicine teacher, the writing he
himself requires primarily revolves around human anatomy as well as injuries and ways to treat
certain injuries. He also said his students learn to help their patients with rehabilitation
techniques.
Phillip Stack, a sophomore pre-kinesiology major at UNCC, said, “I love pre-kinesiology. I
was never much of a writer but that’s ok because its been mostly memorization anyway. The
only writing that I need to do is in my English classes.” I talked to Phillip for awhile about what
his experiences are in the writing world of this major and he said, “… the writing has already
been done by others, our job is to learn and commit it to memory.”
Phillip mentioned later that I should look up clinical evaluations and diagnosis and use that
for more genres of writing in this field. When performing a clinical evaluation or diagnosis you
have to write down everything you find whether it be good or bad with the utmost scrutiny.
(http://kinesiology.uncc.edu/academic-degrees-and-programs/bs-athletic-training>) Professors in
the major based classes have no tolerance for spelling errors and require usage of correct medical
jargon when describing someones physical make up. Studying the material and keeping up with
the notes is key to succeeding in the more major based classes. Work will quickly build and
become overwhelming if one is not careful.
Rowe 3
Portfolio keeping plays a huge role in this field interestingly enough. Pre-Kinesiology majors
keep portfolios for everything from work done, to work they’re going to do, to the patients that
they have done work on. If they don’t then they have no prerequisites or injury history to lean on
when they need to remember how to treat someone with a specific injury. For example is
someone pulls a muscle that’s rarely injured then the expert may be a little foggy on the
treatment, but because they keep a portfolio they simply refer to that to solve the problem. Also
if you’re applying for a job at a hospital or if you’re trying to become an athletic trainer for say
an NFL team then having a portfolio of all the work you’ve done or know how to do would be
extremely helpful. Medical jargon is also extremely important in the Kinesiology world.
Abbreviations for words are used quite frequently because of the complexity of the names of
different body parts. To put it simply a “flexor digitorium longus” is the proper name for a
muscle in the foot that helps to curl the second, third, fourth, and fifth toes. An abbreviated name
for that same muscle is FDL. Not being learned in your area of expertise is going to cut you off
from the rest of the people in your field, and knowing the jargon is a big part of that.
Although the writing areas in pre-kinesiology are scarce there are still plenty of different
ways to incorporate styles and genres learned throughout the years in English. Not everyone has
that knowledge or even knows that there are ways to connect the concepts and tricks learned in
English and pre-kinesiology, so being learned in such ways would help tremendously in
becoming a leader of your field.
Rowe 4
Works Cited
"Bachelor of Science in Athletic Training | Department of Kinesiology | UNC Charlotte."
Bachelor of Science in Athletic Training | Department of Kinesiology | UNC Charlotte.
N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Nov. 2012. <http://kinesiology.uncc.edu/academic-degrees-andprograms/bs-athletic-training>.
Zirkle, Eric. Personal Interview. 23 October 2012
Stack, Phillip. Personal Interview. 4 November 2012