Week 12: bookending aka when your beginning holds clues for the end
Please post to Eli Review tonight to help your colleagues go forward. On Friday night, you will need to post 
content options for the beginning (and a nod to the end). I will also ask you to focus on a few take-aways. You can list up to five with the idea that you review partners can signal reader importance and interest to you.
Coffee Cup memo parking lot is still open. I have graded 24 percent of the 26 percent posted. Will continue. When you post, please give me a courtesy email to remind me to read and enjoy your work (grade, too).
Beginning strategies (cognitive wedge in the shape of the left side of the lemon shape):
Para 1: Use one of the seven openings and combine with another strategy.
- Case/anecdote + stat/number of importance (can include rate/speed and economic quality like savings or even earnings
- Pose a current events question; (see how that is two?) Perhaps add a stat/number, as in no. 1
- Use dissonance as a way to induce readers to enter into your work.
Para 2: Establish the author ethos of first author and link to above by describing their research question/hypothesis.
Para 3: What small but necessary definitions do you need to provide for your reader? What referral links might you use to punt or to all readers to "choose your own adventure"?
NOW to the Middle portion (think fat lemom or pear). What three or four points can you make from the article?
- Questions to ask yourself:
- Should you talk about the method as a point? Is method novel or innovative?
- Does the conclusion (Analysis and Discussion of IMRAD) hold clues about applicability? That can be your third point or your analysis/critique. They overlap.
Lesson for the day: And/But/Therefore (ABT) statements (which can appear in your document; hint, I will ask you for this on Friday.) Hint: You will be pleasantly surprised who is credited in the linked video by RO for the ABT structure.
Marine biologist Randy Olson shifted from tenured position to film making so to share stories based in the knowledge of peer reviewed science. Listen to this 10 minute video where he defines/elaborates about the ABT framework. HUGE F-Bomb so be careful with your sound.
Before Wednesday, deepen your understanding of this powerful structure (Aristotle would say "arrangement") by skim reading this link to a rich and practical explication of ABT framework within science by Keisha Barh, a marine biologist. Caution: 67 slide PDF. I think you should save this for your real-world writing that matters to you. In a way, you have writing that propels your career forward. :)
See how your ABT statement can organize your thinking and writing for cognitive flow (both you and your readers)? ABT is an economical and elegant way to establish context. This is part of the summary/description work we looked at last week. ABT helps set you up to analyze (name your three/four points and critque).
Olson's analysis also fits with the big three from Aristotle. Imagine a top to bottom view of our bodies: See a long axis from Head (LOGOS), through Heart (PATHOS), and down through the GUT (ETHOS) to, well, the gonads+pelvic floor.
And yes, we hear/see from Randy Olson again. Two qualities to contrast are:
- Narrative structure, ABT, follows a horizontal axis arrow (times arrow, actually)
- Rational->irrational structure -- head, heart, guts, gonads/sex organs-- follows a vertical axis, where the action is from top down.
Vitruvian man
How is your grid work going? Here is a round up of some resources we have already discussion. Copy paste to your grid for quick reference?
Lemon+peas flow chart jpeg for Assignment 3.
If you have not copied this reading grid, do so now. Is the launchpad for your work in Assignment 3.
Marybeth Shea
Nippy Wednesday.
We will talk more about ABT statements. Of course, you viewed the Olson video, right? I will scroll back and pick up a few slides from the long marine science PDF of slides. However, you are already prompted in the reading grid about ABT statements. Clip -->
Summarize the article according to a story narrative using AND>BUT>THEREFORE.
TaDAH! , in Andrew Revkin’s words (channeling Randy Olson, Trey Parker, and Aristotle), now write these for each article: BEGIN QUOTE
______ and _____, but _____, therefore ______.
Every story can be reduced to this single structure. I can tell you the story of a little girl living on a farm in Kansas AND her life is boring, BUT one day a tornado sweeps her away to the land of Oz, THEREFORE she must undertake a journey to find her way home. END QUOTE
You WILL include an ABT statement in your final assignment 3; therefore, learning/practicing ithis n Friday evening's Eli Review Writing task is one of several tasks upcoming.
Scientists tend to stack about fifty-'leven "ands" in their work. Understandable. However, research questions arise in the "but" moment. Truly. Think about how YOU experience this:
- wait, what?
- hold on a minute
- are you sure
- "I do not think that word means what you think it does?"
These phrases above capture when the human brain is engaged in a "but" moment.
On reading your article: Selected critical thinking lessons about your reading/writing for the one-article review assignment.
- Mining the abstract in this short html presentation from CAIN (same people who brought you the seven openings).
- Understanding that technical style (CAIN, again) is different from literary style, news/journalism style, and even humanities style. Common errors in technical and scientific writing: see this helpful table, from CAIN.
Mini writing craft lesson: As you read, note the treatment of numbers in your article. Here is an html short presentation from CAIN about conventions on writing about numerical information. Watch for this technical style in the article you are reading.
Mentor model and support for writing your ethocs paragraph (first author focus).
Writing about the ethos of the first author. In author paragraph (within the first three paragraphs/on the ramp of the cognitive wedge), give expertise and institution. Do not focus overmuch on undergraduate study. Note: PhD are earned, rather than obtained.
Kaspari earned a PhD in pharmacognition from the University of Illinois. She leads an interdisciplinary team at Wexler Institute of Plant Based Technology, which is part of the University of California at Berkeley Plant Science Department.
Here is a thoughtful NCBI/NIH article on first author conventions. Two additional resources are this 2010 open access piece at Science and this 2012 Nature short guidance article.
Some ABT samples from the neighborhood of UMCP and the University of Maryland System (UMS)-->
- First attempt (google doc roundup) at ABT statements from Spring 2023; Hint: skim read and focus on shorter ones to see the pattern. The longer ones tended to need editing. However, if you are familiar with the subject in the long ones, you can look at how a peer wrestles with science complexity.
- Long but worthy slide set from 2016 graduate school workshop with RO.
Preview of Friday?
- Colon v semi colon (sample-rich html piece) and even the power of the period to close a thought (terminal punctuation)
- Fun way to think on the counting out power of three, four, and perhaps even seven. Why did I spell those one-decimal place numers out as prose?
- From your grid
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