MbShea@PWP@English@UMCP

This NEW memo content is more complex and wide-ranging. One craft technique concerns transitions are a way to thread the cognition for our busy readers. Your first memo focused on the definition stasis, with a evaluation move at the end. The content and definition frame was limited in ways that helped with most of the transitions between paragraphs.  We want to deepen our ability to work with transitions.

First, begin by looking at this OWL PURDUE exhibit on useful transition words and phrases.  Back to paragraphs, recall our train image where we let the couple be the transitional element that links both cars:  

• look at the last sentence of each paragraph; 
• then look at the first sentence in the next paragraph.

Do you see connection between content, including a reasonable pivot to new information?  The paragraphs, although they stand alone in topic and content, should CONNECT or TRANSITION with the surrounding paragraphs.  

Paragraph check: Ask

• What is the paragraph doing in the document?  What type of paragraph serves this purpose? For example, a narrative paragraph can tell a brief story or present a case or example.  An illustrative paragraph – cousin to descriptive paragraphs - paints a picture.
  
• Is the paragraph cohesive?  Does the content “hang” together?  Do the sentence choices achieve cohesion?  Look at the transition words and phrases in the OWL link above.  You can use them to achieve cohesion and flow between sentences. This focus is called local coherence, which is key to achieving flow.
  

Finally, paragraphs do not truly stand alone in most documents. Paragraphs combine to provide coherent content in a document for a reader.  Ask this:  do the paragraphs fit and support the arrangement or structure of the document?  Focus on transitions between paragraphs, which help with cohesion in the document.  Local coherence (within a paragraph) + global coherence (between paragraphs and within a document) create overall flow.

Cheap! Way To achieve cohesion between paragraphs try "chaining" by transitions. Place the  topic of the next paragraph in the last sentence of the preceding paragraph. The first sentence of the new paragraph must include that topic also. Doing this knits or binds the paragraphs to each other.  Here is how a math person would say this: 

Let ParaA be the preceding paragraph. 

Let ParaB be the following paragraph.  

Let T be the topic that should appear in both paragraphs.  

We will limit our discussion now to two sentences: 

• the last sentence of ParaA and the 
• first sentence of ParaB. 

In reality, ParaA and ParaB exist in a document with an arrangement of many paragraphs.

ParaA relates to ParaB through the last sentence of ParaA AND SIMULTANEOUSLY through the first sentence of ParaB. The relating elements is a topic, T;  T can be a repeated word or a phrase.  Some variation on T makes for good style.  Now, let's look at two real world documents that show two types of T: tight transitions and loose transitions.

MEMO 2: Now, our boss wants a problem-solution memo about the type of coffee cup we use in our firm. Therefore, we need to frame this work with the stasis of policy (what ought we do).

We will need to read about this topic This reading task is your most important work on Friday. You can begin with these short pieces:

• 2019 Science Daily research summary on polystyrene, sunlight, and persistence as a pollutant. Note: Science Daily is a really good science journalism site that you can use as an open access referral link for many writing contexts.
• 2017 Anthropocene magazine "Science Short" on coffee cups and their environmental impact.
• 2021 Atlantic magazine analysis of the limits of recycling.

Back to our boss: Jane wants a coffee cup policy for the office that is "green."  This is your question (first stasis).  We have lots of definitions that you will need to think about before Monday.

 CLASS DISCUSSION ON PROBLEM FRAMING!!!!

• Two environmental problems 
  • climate change
  • fate of ocean plastic

Incommensurability

Dividing a problem into simpler "models"

Decide which problem to weight more fully.

Sometimes we reverse engineer

What if we not agree with question or problem division? Keep notes on this.

• do both?
• find out which problem is worse
• re-usables, right?

Happy Friday.  I will be around between 9-9:50, 10-10:50, and 11-11:50 at the same link for all semester: GoogleMeet for Shea/Science writing.

A few of you have asked about 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. 

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.
• God's action as designer conflicts with Darwin's central understanding of evolution condenses into natural selection.

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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 this:

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.

...

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

If you chose this frame, you are TEAM STYROFOAM this month. If you weight aquatic plastic as the central frame, then you 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 this short problem-solution report.

...

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 leads to another recommendation. 

via GIPHY