MbShea@PWP@English@UMCP

Articles have beginnings, middles, and ends. Think Lemon-shaped. Interestingly, beginnings and ends have similarlties. We have a number of options; look at these seven strategies for opening. Some rough thoughts about formality and audience type:

News article openings are good for the lay audience.  Why?  Several strategies:

• highly visual
• interesting case
• hook with tidbit of interesting information
• topic (timely)

For technical audiences, open with

• review of logos (detail of costs, population size, enormity of problem)
• controversy
• new application or breaking news

Let's look at this recent article in PloS One about writing scientific prose. In Science, two scientists talk about how they read articles. Ruben writes with a somewhat lighthearted approach while Pain responds to his piece with her approach. Read the comments.

We will talk about what type of article you have:  research article, literature review, meta-analysis, proof, proof-of-concept, specialized application, method, opinion or memoir.

Here is the "bible" of writing (and reading) scientific prose:  Mayfield. Now, let's look/review at the basic parts of the IMRAD article using this guide.

(In-class, brief discussion about the ETHOS paragraph.  Think platform or journal as carrying the ethos of peer review. USE ITALICS! Do NOT put the long title of this article in your paragraph.)

Finally, little mini lesson on dangling modifiers (while walking down the street a piano fell on me) from former student Hannah S circa 2008.

Piano. from Paul Rayment on Vimeo.