Week 3 Day 1 Knitting up from last week; preview of memo assignment
Looping/strategic reduncy:
- What is a text?
- Reading strategies, including in a podcast or YouTube video
- Mb's visual strategies of triangles and circles to review/learn special language of rhetoric (basic field concerning
- how to think
- how to analyze information
- how to communicate, including writing.
- how to analyze information
- how to think
Nuts and bolts advice on overall writing strategies from Weeks 1 and 2 summarized in this Google Doc, in table format. Thinking task for Wednesday: Do you see overlap between the "lists" showcased in this document? Related thinking task: Is a table in a document a visual?
Overall writing strategies sometimes reveal specific writing craft lessons. By now, you should be pretty clear about how to recognize passive v. active voice in a text and begin to see why and when you can choose to write in active voice more often than you do. One "gain" in using active voice is that the sentences crafted thusly are often shorter. Shorter sentences is one way to achieve concision in your writing. Concision is a hallmark of strong, audience-centered writing.
Let's look at sentence-level writing craft options in these short Google doc handouts (new to you):
And, on to paragraphs (short MS Word handouts) that we will take up starting Wednesday.
Paragraph Types/Definitions: think Architectures
Paragraph Types by purpose, from the field as in real paragraph (longer doc)
Preview: we will learn about memos* also on Wednesday.
in professional settings memos tend to be of three types:
- tasking memo
- informational memo
- short report memo, with proposal or recommendation type being the most common
Documents tend to have one of three jobs (how/what to DO, what to KNOW, what to DO that is BIG) with some overlap. Review these slides to think about these types fo documents.
Final housekeeping details, from last week:
- Why the Siamese cat video? (Why not! Many of you posted cat pix.)
- What kind of cat co-authored the serious physics paper?
- Fridays will including some comic relief to close out the week and start the weekend.
- Of course, we acknowledge religious observances upcoming!
- Do not buy Eli Review yet but if you want you can check out the student-centered videso on their website.
*Our first two assignments will take the form of memos. The first one will be a short infromational memo. The second will be a short recommendation report/memo.
Marybeth Shea
Wednesday and on with the sentence analysis work. I will revisit the links of Monday that focus on sentences with additional examples that are more science focused with these resources-->
- Duke University web exhibit on passive voice in science/scientific writing
- My short Google slide set on active v passive (used in consultation with fully-baked scientists)
- Web exhibit from Nature's Scitable pages (good resource) on past, present, and future tense
Preview of Friday is that I will present the attributes of the first memo assignment that we write together in drafts over about three week. Basically, we write the same memo, with the content being rain gardens, bioretention, and low impact development.
Please look at this two-slide resource that prevents stasis theory, which is is a powerful rhetorical frame for dissecting complexity to both understand and communicate about a topic. Focus on this part of the visual for now-->
Notes to connect today to Monday:
- Verbs are key to understanding tense about time/power of short, well-chosen verb (avoid long verby strings)
- Choosing present tense when information continues across time is a powerful way to signal disciplinary knowledge
- The theory of evolution is (not vvolution was) + Buffy wears garlic necklaces (not wore)
- Look for these writing craft choices in your research articles and science texts (mentor text while you learn!)
Marybeth Shea
Happy Friday. We are heading into hoodie and sweater weather! I welcome these days and I expect many of you do, too. Next week we will look at the attributes of paragraphs (check out the two handouts posted earlier this week. The longer document includes examples of paragraphs that havea "job" or role in the larger document. 
We will consider topic sentences that open paragraphs and announce the key content.We will also look at the transition sentence position at the end of paragraphs. Transitions can help acheive flow for readers. Now, to the theory I briefly introduced on Wednesday.
Stasis theory and the rain garden memo
The structure and type of paragraphs you will write follow Hermanagoras' stasis theory (very much a system of analysis and action, like your scientific method steps):
- Stasis 1: Definition (what is a rain garden, briefly, by two functions)
- Stasis 2: Classification (what type of technology is this? Hint: low impact development and storm water management)
- Description (Illustrative; give detail on the layers of soil and the type of plants)
- include two examples; consider the ones on campus
- Where is stasis 3? TBD: hint -- practical causality
- Description (Illustrative; give detail on the layers of soil and the type of plants)
- Stasis 4: Evaluation (is this good or bad? Hint: Use Dr. A. Davis' research as you do not have authority to evaluate based on your research expertise)
Preview: I would think you need about one source per these four paras: classifying, illustrating, evaluating. Use (author, date) citation from APA guidelines. Include a works cited page also.
Audience scenario for this memo: Here is Jane, our boss. She asked for the memo at the end of our last staff meeting.
irst up! What is a memo?
By the way, the OWL website at Purdue is a fabulous resource for writing. Memos also have a standard format: See the image to the left. Also, look at the email heading in your software. This electronic message is based on the memo format. Bonus question: what is the difference, traditionally, between a memo and a letter.
Option: you can prepare YOUR understanding of content by reading Wikipedia entries on rain gardens, bioretention, and low impact development. We will talk about the limited ethos of Wikipedia but the great utility of this crowd sourced platform to learn key terms and leap into an ocean of knowledge with a good life vest on. A local professional source would be the website of the Low Impact Development Center.
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