MbShea@PWP@English@UMCP

November comes in a litle be blustery.  I love all the weathers!

Ideas to help you think about this memo and critical thinking/writing generally. First up,

• Metadiscourse is a strategic roadmapping that you, the writer, provide as a courtesy to the reader, so that the reader knows what you are doing in the document. You are helping the reader, well, read what you have written.   Meta discuourse is related to choices you make about
• Voice: by now, you have seen how I offer first and second person (aka first person plural) phrases that reveal your thinking -- a metadiscourse strategy -- that helps your reader take a journey in the subject with you. Note, active+passive voice relates to third person+ first person voice. We can look at this short Google slide set. Slide 13 is pretty emblematic of how this works.  Involves the agency of the door; if you? Report this agency by saying: I did this.  Or if in a team?  We did this.
• Time: Remember the tight transitions and loose transitions guide?  I said in that presentation that time always helps a reader feel oriented and move through the material with a sense of coherence.  Here are a few new phrases you might consider:
  • Hocking conducted these energy comparison studies in the early 90s.
  • Moore noticed huge swaths -- he first coined these as gyres -- while on technical marine expeditions in the mid to late 1990s.

Reminder of free phrases of metadiscourse for you:

Let's turn now to Hocking's work on...

Having established the broad outlines of ocean plastic extent, we can read Moore's work with a sense of proportion on this emerging discipline,

I want to emphasize the reasonableness of the other position.  Changing the frame to .....

You can see even in my quick, first-cut analysis that the science is not clear on the better coffee cup....

I am willing to look at this further, including the link between both problems....

 Ok: This folk song still scares me.  Why?  The minor key and scale is part of the effect 

Happy Friday, we are wrapping up the three-day fest about dead people.  First up was Halloween, meaning the eve of the day of the dead, and then the idea of the good dead people aka saints!

Enjoy this depression era song about the boogeyman aka the boogie man.

Here are some ideas that I see in your drafts as well as from students of yore.  This last set of commentary is a way to accompany an argument -- your proposal with evidence, including the frame (environmental problem) and decision criteria (LCA, which examines the environmental shadow over the life of the material) -- with a polite yet powerful critique of the ordinal question. 

• Both cups have an environmental footprint that stems from petroleum production and use.
• Reusable cups are better than both disposal cups when used even times to overcome their energy inputs.  Also notable here is the energy and water use required to clean cups.
  • Not all facilities can wash re-usuable cups.
  • European infrastructure, excluding generally the UK, still includes washing facilities and employment for washing tasks.
  • The aesthetics of paper complicate the picture.  You can view Starbucks and the paper cup as a partial greenwashing act to tap into the common notion of a green cup.  Yet, Starbucks is positioned to be the high quality consumer experience over, say, WaWa, Dunkin' Donuts, and 7-11 coffee experiences.
• Styrofoam is just one type of plastic. Other types -- think, generally, "clear" plastics -- do give rise to the phenomenon of microplastics.  The human health and ecosystem health effects look ominous. I suggest that we read science journalist Matt Simon's new book:
  
  A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies 
• You may know that Styrofoam can be recycled but not in our county.  I would be willing to look at how to ban with other institutions locally for a group recycling option. Let me know if you would care for me to study this.
• New technology regarding ocean plastic recovery include the use of microbes that can digest types of plastic.
• Shall we focus a new study team on microplastics in the Chesapeake?  Perhaps the governor and the Maryland Department of the Environment might have exploratory funding for this effort.  Here is a local, current even that might serve as a case study.  This NBC-4 October 1 news piece (includes 2 minute video; caution, YouTube is placing minute-long ads at the front of most videos)

Anyway, why am I sharing?  And, do you need to close your memo thusly?  First, the why: I am teaching you a pattern of argument that includes a way to critique politely the very question that Jane, your boss, assigned.  And, no, you do not need to close with any or additional ideas.

Learn the pattern to use in the future for real-world writing.

And, since this memo can be a short and powerful writing sample for you, you may want to close thusly.  One of these ideas demonstrates your thoughtfulness and professionalism.