MbShea@PWP@English@UMCP

What makes words funny?  Science Daily news article on "skunkoople" effect.

The case for not using humor in science presentations. AAS Science blog post by Adam Ruben, a molecular biologist. Ruben also writes their "Experimental Error" blog.  This entry on how to read a scientific article is good prep for the entire semester and for life.  Do you agree with his critique hidden in the humor?  That scientific writing can be a real up-hill slog?

Here is another guide by Elizabeth Pain to reading scientific literature.

First I read very fast: The point of the first reading is simply to see whether the paper is interesting for me. If it is I read it a second time, slower and with more attention to detail.

If the paper is vital to my research—and if it is theoretical—I would reinvent the paper. In such cases, I only take the starting point and then work out everything else on my own, not looking into the paper. Sometimes this is a painfully slow process. Sometimes I get angry about the authors not writing clearly enough, omitting essential points and dwelling on superfluous nonsense. Sometimes I am electrified by a paper.

- Ulf Leonhardt, professor of physics at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel

Read the comments, also.  And, be sure to know what confirmation bias is. 

Over the weekend, spend about fifteen minutes reading about rain gardens, at sources that you choose.  You could begin at this ScoopIt site and browse the posts. Here, we are not looking at technical literature from a peer reviewed source. We will take that up after labor day.