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Being a chemist. Oops, science is POWERFUL!

ENGL 390, 390H, and (sometimes) 398V  Class Journal

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Week 10: Assignment 3, the close one-article review

Warm and likely a spring storm today

Let's start with some due dates:

  1. Tonight! Last ER Reviewing Task for the coffee cup memo. GET IN THERE.
  2. Friday, I open up the coffee cup parking lot and you have one week.
  3. Friday, I will also open up a short assignment for your article review, Assignment 3
    1. You will need the abstract of your desired piece.
  4. Number 3 means you have an article now or will have one by Friday. Must be peer reviewed article of your choice.  For comp sci/data sci students, please email me because your field publishes differently than many expert disciplines.
  5. I will fill out the April to May ELMS calendar for Assignment 3.  And, debut two ways to complete: 
    1. Train A to complete early (close to the last day of class)
    2. Train B to complete midway through finals.

Now, on to more work thinking about transitions between paragraphs and even document sections. We have two metaphors for this.  First up?  muffin tin.

In the muffin tin metaphor, we chunk information into the tins, which is natural and good. We divide complex information to conquer the complexity.  Doing this heaving cognitive lifting is necessary for analysis and even uses of the information.  However, muffin tin "scoops" of information are largely the type of information that is joined by the conjunctive and. We have yet to introduction the powerful (also wakes up reader cognition) conjunctives of but (however) and or (contrast or choices or options). We have yet to introduce the power of therefore, where we create meaning and actions based on meaning.  See the video below from Randy Olson.

One of Aristotle's canons for writing is ARRANGEMENT.  The order and "chunking" of information matters very much for reader cognition and receptivity to what you write.

Now, the (Lego) train metaphor, where the cars are different, helping us think about and, but, or, and toward the end (caboose) of therefore.

 

Now, to the exciting and somewhat potty-mouthed Randy Olson, marine biologist, filmmaker, and science communication evangelist. (NOTE: Video fixed at 3:20, Monday)

 

Randy's work is the and, but, therefore framework, which we call ABT.  

Let's think a bit about peer reviewed research articles and link this topic to ABT statements/framework:

  1. This google slide set about the research article.
  2. Keep a running grid  on your reading. Copy this google doc to your drive.  Reading IS essential to writing. Again, this is part of my case for labor grades. ABT statement is previewed here.
Posted on Monday, March 31, 2025 at 05:17AM by Registered CommenterMarybeth Shea | Comments Off

Week 9! (8 was spring break): coffee cup nearly done; one article close review up next

Morning, returning Terps.  

You have an Eli Review Reviewing Task due this evening.  Help each other out!  ASAP.

Let's gather up resources to chat about today and Wednesday. You have seen these before in this journal and as reposts in Eli Review Writing Task/Reviewing Tast prompts.

  1. Lime-green flow chart
  2. coffee cup round-up document (focused on free phrases, sentences, perhaps a bit of a paragraph or two; AKA mentoring text to propel writing forward).
  3. Here is a dummy text exhibit in Google docs using lorum ipsum about the coffee cup memo pattern. 

NEW: Here are questions from last year in an interactive google doc.  

Today, I will reflect on several topics/conundrums about wrapping this assignment up. We can also ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS, too.

 Mb topics:

  • PARA 2 local and global problem description (stasis two of definition WITH the logos of numbers.
  • PARA 1 (reveals frame, sets up for the punt paragraph of PARA 4 (a node paragraph)
  • PARA 5 category of problem approach:  life cycle analysis/cradle-to-grave (stasis two of definition; EPA is the accepted authority here, though the ethos is rapidly being diminished just now)
  • PARA 7 restates your recommendation in PARA 1; then acknowledges the reasonableness of the other frame

Options (PARAS 7 and 8):

  • offer a combined solution
  • caution graciously about the limits of this framing and -- indeed -- the question
  • suggest that the team research more carefully what others (including, perhaps the EU and the Netherlands) are doing.
  • Offer to track the emerging health problems with microplastics, with focus on local watershed
  • Note the incommensurability problem here

Now a few words about Assignment 3 and what sort of technical article you need from your field. Select an article to review  I noted this in the syllabus.  Details: Find a research results article published in a peer reviewed journal.  You will read, analyze, and review this piece in the manner of a journal club. We imagine that at Leaf it to Us, we share knowledge with each other across our disciplines every Friday.  We share an in-depth write up of the article after we present.  We can assume that all will read/skim the article.  However, the heavy intellectual lifting is on the presenter.  Hints on how/where to find an article:

  • are you reading an article for a class now?  Select that and you learn for both classes (efficiency),
  • did you read last semester for a class?  Select one of those articles (cognitive), 
  • are you deeply interested in a topic and want to explore (interestingness).

Please have an article in mind by Friday. 

 

 

Posted on Monday, March 24, 2025 at 05:27AM by Registered CommenterMarybeth Shea | Comments Off

Week 7: coffee cup, spring break and letting document rest a bit

Good morning in the new time regime of Spring Forward.

Cognitive frame that is really hard but totally important to human beings who must work through complexity. incommensurability.  Here is long entry from the Stanford Library of Philosophy (online). TLDR?

  • Some concepts, methods, frames, social problems as well as policy decisions cannot be compared directly. Why?  They lack a common measure.  Some of the is math-focused but qualitative factors can be part of incommensurability, too. 
    • Consider apples and oranges, that old metaphor. 

Why are we talking about incommensurability? Simply put: this memo is really hard to think about because our first instinct is figure out WHICH environmental problem is worse and then recommend a cup choice that addresses this problem.  Makes sense in the mind.  Yet, the world is not in our mind. The world is wild and complex and resists analysis all the time. This means the confusion and frustration you feel is human.

Knowing that some problems resist common measure helps us make sense of the non sensible world.

Side trip in philosophy of how science works: Have you heard of paradigm shift to describe how scientists build knowledge (claim and counter claim. Thomas Kuhn, philosopher of science, claims science process reveals that some discussions/arguments about competing paradigms fails to "make complete contact with each other’s views." This means (apples and oranges) that those in the "conversation" are always talking at least slightly at cross-purposes.

Kuhn calls the collective causes of this communication failures incommensurability. Here are some examples:

  • the Newtonian physics paradigm is incommensurable with its Cartesian and Aristotelian predecessors in physics;
  • Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier’s paradigm is incommensurable with that of Joseph Priestley’s in chemistry; and
  • God's action as designer conflicts with Darwin's central understanding of evolution condenses into natural selection.

UPDATE today at 9:33 AM.  After quick conversation with JK, I edited these passages to make sure that

the frame fits the cup. 

Thank you, JK.

For us, we cannot compare directly the gravity of climate change with the fate of aquatic plastic.  Therefore, in our memo we must lead with these sorts of framing statements:

In my analysis of hot beverage cups and environmental footprint, I weight climate change more heavily than ocean plastic.  Therefore, this frame is a central assumption in this short problem-solution report. I recommend Styrofoam cups for their lower energy profile that that of paper cups.

You can also hint at how you will address this problem with qualifications in your recommendation at the end of this short memo.

Later in this short recommendation memo, I will address this conceptual framing limitation and speak briefly about how framing this problem as one of ocean plastic leads to another recommendation: paper cuups.

Comment on the above: If you chose this frame, you are TEAM STYROFOAM. In contrast, It you weight aquatic plastic as the central frame (TEAM PAPER), then your sentences look like this:

In my analysis of hot beverage cups and environmental footprint, I weight the fate of ocean plastic more heavily than climate change; this frame is a central assumption in my short problem-solution report in favor of paper cups.

Later in this short report, I will address this conceptual framing limitation and speak briefly about how framing this problem as one of climate change would lead to Styrofoam cups as the more environmentally sensitive cup,

Writing craft/collaboration note:  you may use these sentences in your work as is or modify them as you wish.  Remember that most workplace writing is collaborative.  And, I am a coach-style supervisor. Additional comment: mentor texts are a good way to learn.  A sentence is a text, therefore a mentoring passage. We learn by imitation of good models.

Coffee, tea, hot chocolate culture varies. Also added between the 9am and 11am sections? A visual about hot beverage culture, meaning that what if we drank hot beverages sitting down, with a ritual, and perhaps company rather than clutching a "venti". What kind of cup would Murial use? 

Posted on Monday, March 10, 2025 at 06:04AM by Registered CommenterMarybeth Shea | Comments Off

Week 6: March is coffee cup recommendation month

Good morning.

Housekeeping:

  • You have an ER Writing Task due by Friday.  Turn in your rain garden memo for a grade (email me).
  • NO ER Reviewing Task today (because you turn in your document to the "Parking Lot" for a grade.
  • Knitting up from Friday:
    • Did you look at what I posted re AI and Stasis theory? Skim is fine. I highly recommend listening to the "fake" pod cast.  
    • Couple of items to discuss briefly:
      • What are hanging indents and why do we care?
      • What does embedding a link mean.

On to the policy memo (we use ALL the stasis steps in this document-->

Source/citation comment: This time, we WILL USE peer-reviewed sources for two primary researchers:  Marine biologist Charles Moore's work (if you plan to recommend paper cups) and for materials chemist Martin Hocking's work (recommending Styrofoam cups).

You will also use web-available summary documents as referral citations in several places.. Recall that we do not want our audience to hit a payway.

  1. Use the library research databases to find one peer reviewed source for each expert.  
    1. Consider looking at environmental science and technology categories for Hocking.  The two articles I am thinking of are circa 1991 and 1994.
    2. Consider marine biology or ocean science categories for Moore.
  2. For the open access sources, search the web for
    1. Charles Moore's foundation.
    2. A summary of Hockings' work at a major science publication.
  3. Use Wikipedia for a working sense of what life cycle assessment/life cycle analysis is. We will discuss in class how to use Wikipedia as a citation that both buids our ethos and is helpful to the busy reader.  
  4. US AI and take notes, as we did for the prewriting activity (invention) for the rain garden memo.

This arrangment approach below can help us, too.  Apologies for the large size file nested here.

Does this visualized arrangement of our thinking help? Here is a rough cut at how a flow chart would make the NODE paragraph choices clearer.  What do you think?  I saved this as a PNG file so this is scalable.  You can download the image and look at this in an image viewer.  I tried Popplet at the advice of JP Dickerson, in Computer Science.  

Writing craft lesson that relies on cognitive awareness about how people read, think, parse meaning from writing: empty subjects. What are they? Perfectly usable subjects in sentences that can introduce confusion for readers.  Try to avoid these constructions. Resources for you:

DO NOT USE THESE PLACEHOLDER CONSTRUCTIONS IN YOUR MEMO.  

I will open up the ER Writing Task on Tuesday, close to noon.  And, as usual, alert you in ELMS via mail and calendar.

HINT: pick a side. research as described above, both recommendations are justifiable by science.  You can/will close with your critique of the question as well as the importance of reusuable cups.

For fun--> (use  Google image search to leadn more, if you like.

Posted on Monday, March 3, 2025 at 06:44AM by Registered CommenterMarybeth Shea | Comments Off

Week 10 (not 9, spring break): wrapping up rain garden memo (due Feb. 27 for a grade)

Good morning at a nearly balmy 35

Two craft lessons to present.  First up? Signal phrase details that alert the reader to the ethos of sources.  You can use signal phrases with both formation citation and information citaiton llike the curated referral links we practice in this memo. We also consider location within sentences and paragraphs; in other words, where do we place signal phrases in sentences and paragraphs. 

 Bookending with signal phrases at the location of the referral link information.

Aliquam scelerisque eget felis sit amet tincidunt. The Low Impact Development Center, founded by rain garden inventor Larry Coffman, roin laoreet tempus sem nec placerat. Duis ut feugiat dolor. Quisque nec pharetra tellus. Phasellus vitae nulla eu ante consequat iaculis. Nullam quis imperdiet tellus, nec bibendum magna. Access these helpful LID exhibits here on the technical specifications page. Aenean iaculis suscipit elit, vel volutpat augue pharetra sed. Ut justo ipsum, accumsan sed massa et, viverra aliquam velit. Curabitur mauris elit, consequat quis pretium at, viverra porta nunc. Donec tristique, leo facilisis pharetra ultrices, according to the PG County Bioretention Manuel, felis ex blandit lectus, tempus molestie lectus nulla eget velit. Quisque ut sem ex. Cras quis accumsan metus, in gravida leo. Maecenas quis efficitur felis, sed maximus elit. The Bioretention Manual, 2007 version, is available for download as a PDF here. Caution: 267+ pages. 

Both the "bioretention" and "rain garden"  Wikipedia entries provide excellent overview of rain gardens and the storm water problem. Sed gravida ullamcorper urna eu feugiat. Vestibulum non eros maximus, consequat odio non, rhoncus est. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Sed sit amet condimentum quam. Duis vitae libero ullamcorper erat lacinia mollis eget ac massa. In addition, Chesapeake Bay Program pages at the U.S EPA site provide numbers on pollutants remitted:  Mauris iaculis mollis leo et varius. Morbi gravida, ex vel ornare dapibus, elit sem interdum elit, vel egestas elit purus eget purus. Duis orci ante, placerat a urna efficitur, placerat feugiat turpis. Find the EPA CBP article; cost saving  summary linked here. Ut auctor mauris vel erat facilisis accumsan. Morbi posuere turpis a quam congue elementum. Quisque aliquam scelerisque eros quis eleifend.

Recall that I expect one curated link in both the classfying and illustrating paragraphs.  You also need at least one formal curated citation for Davis and the evaluation paragraph.  

Link to AI assisted writing: signal phrases, sources, with links as optimal all help you take the generic AI writing/responses into a professional level. Your judgement matters.  You also are less like to be accused of plagiarism and/or intellectual property theft.

Second writing craft idea: Oxford comma is the preferred punctuation convention in both formal scientifc writing/technical writing and is highly advised in less formal science/technical contexts.  We will look at Friday's long post for a few highlights on using this formal comma convention.  Here is a short Googld dco on science-focused examples of Oxford commas.


Joke to remember Oxford comma (widespread but popularized by Lynn Truss of the (iinfamouse) grammar guide Eats, Shoots and Leaves  The linked Wikipedia page explains.

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.

'Why?' asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

'Well, I'm a panda', he says, at the door. 'Look it up.'

The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. "Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Now, a critical analysis frame from Aristotle and Hermanagorus: stasis theory.  This large format Google slide (poster option) offers an overview.  Here is a guide document (2-page Google doc) about how stasis theory can help you wrap up the rain garden memo. 

 

Important take away from the stasis theory posted above (large format; you can copy/paste to a document for you to retain. As well for examination, you can look at this jpg in another browser.

Posted on Monday, February 24, 2025 at 07:06AM by Registered CommenterMarybeth Shea | Comments Off
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