Week 4 Rain gardens and stasis theory +paragraphs
Happy Monday to us all. We have two holiday seasons underway:
- High holy days that opened with Rosh Hashanah and soon focus on the deeply serious and introspective Yom Kippur.
- Autumn festivals of many East Asian cultures. Moon cakes, anyone?
Lantern clipped from Lazada
Let's start up with simple knowledge that is easy to apply.
Bonus knowledge: what is the difference, traditionally, between a memo and a letter? Do you know?
Topic Sentences: A list of qualities for you to strive for
- Usually a short direct sentence (think announcement)
- Signals the topic in the paragraph (think preview)
- Hooks the reader by 1) raising a question or 2) provoking thought
- Can be placed anywhere, but early on in the paragraph is the best default strategy for most professional documents; in other words, at the beginning of the paragraph
- Contains an element of transition from the previous paragraph
Now, bolow are free sentences for you to use in your memo drafting. Some of them are rather flexible and can fit more than one paragraph.
Note: topic sentences can be implied in tightly coherent prose (for now, leave this subtle technique to the professionals!) Let's look at examples of topic sentences useful in the rain garden memo:
Rain gardens, or bioretention ponds, are a kind of low impact development. Low impact development....
Rain gardens have two components: layers of percolation material and carefully chosen plants.
Rain gardens protect the local environment by absorbing water run-off from impervious surfaces and by sequestering pollutants.
Dr. Allen Davis studies rain garden effectiveness. Davis, a civil engineering professor, has been studying bioretention for more than twenty years.
More complex knowlege: Who is Allen Davis and why is he so important for rain gardens, bioretention, and low impact develpment? Short anser: Davis is the arch druid of bioretention analysis and their function.
Longer answer? How would you research his ethos without emailing him? TBD.
Even more complex knowledge: Stasis theory? Beyond what MbS shares, how do you trust her and deepen your ability of this cognitve frame? Let's start with OWL at Purdue, with their site map a good landing spot. Together we will look at their stasis theory pages. Note that the versions presented here look a little different than mine. I base my work on modern stasis application based on the work of Jeanne Fahnestock and Marie Secor (why did I NOT link to their bios?). A stasis theory expert, Allen Brizee, was trained by Fahnestock, as was I. Here is a short OWL html page with Brizee's take on how stasis theory can help you in teamwork, now and in the future.
Knitting up from previous weeks:
Pitch the Verb (verbs are perhaps the most important part of sentence: being and/or action)
And, on to paragraphs that you previewed, right?
Paragraph Types/Definitions: think Architectures
Paragraph Types by purpose, from the field as in real paragraph (longer doc; with errors because copy/pasting from html and other docs propagates errors).
Alert: I am building a calendar of small assignments in ELMS. Likely open on Wednesday. Prepare to buy/sign up for Eli Review on Friday. More details on Wednesday.
Questions for Wednesday: Why did I italize some words here?
Also, think about what I did not link. Writing is a series of trade-offs, with audience courtesy your best guide to choices.
Marybeth Shea
Wednesday!
Let's knit up from a punctuation lesson that we looked at already about using that and which. Remember the witch's hat in one of the three sentence handouts? If not, scroll back and look. Here is a recap of that lesson with a picture to help you remember (visual communication!)
With a clause that trails after the direct portion of the sentence: "that" and "which" should be used with care. Read more here, at Grammar Girl. She offers a simple rule (start here) and a more complex rule; her discussion relies on understanding the difference between restrictive and non restrictive clauses. Note: WHICH takes a comma while THAT does not. Here is another image to help you:
Need more on how to decide? Here is a several page handout (Google doc by me) with many examples about that and which. Recall, that much of this decision lies in the emphasis of the writer.
YET: you can ALWAYS punctuate correctly, whether or not you are completely clear on using that vs. using which. WHICH takes a comma. THAT does not take a comma.
See that hat? Visual memory for you that WHICH (witch) takes a comma. That is a golden comma, emblazed on the front.
Sometimes, getting the punctuation right is enough for a fussy, gate keeping, older, more exacting reader. Those of you writing personal statements for medical and dental school may want to think about this final flourish, as these readers are often gatekeepers with knowledge of all the grammar and punctuation conventions.
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New idea that I am using here: cognitive wedge. What is the cognitive wedge? This is my way of saying, ease your audience into your document a couple of strategies:
- simple example
- short orienting definitions (stasis theory)
- preview of why they need/can use this information
All three of these strategies should be concise. Let's look at this one-pager in Google docs with pictures.
Why you should care about the cognitive wedge? Audience centered, helps you arrange complex information, respects the way people's brains work. We have theory about this including short-term memory bins, from cognitive studies. You can also adjust the wedge incline for more expert audiences. I will demonstrate this in class with my very own cognitve wedge made of wood. Seriously.
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Open Staxx Physics
Common knowledge practice will help you see that most of rain garden knowledge is common knowledge and does not need to be cited in this memo. However, we may want to refer readers to useful authoratative sources even if we do not need to cite technically. Bottom line for you in this memo? You only need one formal citation and that is for an Allen Davis source for the evaluatino paragraph where you make a claim.
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Now, get thee to Eli Review and register. I will send the class code by ELMS email to you circa noon today. You will have a small assignment due on by Friday evening about how to use Eli Review. Hint: this assignment is way for you to practice in Eli Review.
We will use Eli Review all semester to give and receive feedback on parts of our three assignments. Generally, we have something due every week, with your two tasks taking place between a Friday and the following Monday. I open the assignment for Friday on each Wednesday midday. This means that you can organize your time to meet a:
- Friday 11:45 PM deadline in Eli Review where you post your current work according to a prompt in Eli Review. This activity is called a Writing Task in Eli Review.
- Over the weekend, I will read your post and craft a next step for you called a Review Task.
- THe Review Task prompts you to comment according to my guidance in peer review/commentary mode in groups of 3-5.
- Review Tasks must be completed by Monday evening (11:45).
Do not be intimidated by your ELMS calendar this morning. I use the Elms calendar to prompt you to enter Eli Review and work. Also, I have to use the Events function in ELMS rather than Assignment function. WIll explain in class.
Think of this class as a lab or studio class, with work due each week in digestable "chunks."
Task take-aways!
- Register and purchase at Eli Review.
- Use your class code emailed to you via ELMS email
- Find the Writing Task (Preview: you will skim a long html web exhibit AND watch three short videos on writing feedback).
- Complete by Friday, 11:45 (ELMS calendar will prompt you).
- Recall that class on Friday is our first asynchonous session. I will be there at 9 and at 11 for about a hour each time.
Marybeth Shea
Happy Friday. Recall that classes on Friday are pretty much optional now. You have an assignment due at 11:45 tonight that is a practice for how Eli Review (ER) Writing tasks (the drafts that I ask you to post) and ER Reviewing Tasks work (where you give and receive feedback with your peers, according to my prompt).
Promise to you: I will write prompts for the review tasks that
- related to the cognitive content and the document content we are working with at that time,
- help you focus quickly and efficiently on what the others in your group write in response to the writing tasks
- Assignment 1: an informational memo (definition) for a special audience, context, purpose.
- Assignment 2: a problem-solution memo (classic report arrangement from engineering and other worlds) for a specific audience, context, purpose.
- Assignment 3: a closely focused read of one research article from your field that you choose. For a journal club audience.
- (often) features a bit of humor to help spur you along to perhaps enjoy this process.
OK, now a huge wall of text that will underscore that in science and technical settings we nearly always HONOR THE OXORD COMMA PRINCIPLE.
Bottom line up front (BLUF)? Use the Oxforc Comma. (Hey, a BLUF statement or paragraph can function as the pointy end of the cognitive wedge! Let people know where they are going. Give them the destination. Think of writing structures and choices you make as audience-freindly maps.
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Samples for consideration, first the book inscription-->
To my parents, Ayn Rand and God.
(Link to PBS 2018 short article on Ayn Rand. You can read or skip to the J.K Rowling example below. This example was used when I was in college ('78-'82; I did not know who she was and we did not have the internet to look up things on our phones. Hah. We can think about audience when we choose our examples.)
To my parents, J.K. Rowling and God.
To my parents, Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart.
OR, what can happen in journalism style, which does not require Oxford comma style -->
In a newspaper account of a documentary about Merle Haggard:
Among those interviewed were his two ex-wives, Kris Kristofferson and Robert Duvall.
These two preceding examples are from Theresa Hayden. Here is another doosie that cries out for a serial or Oxford comma.
Here is another doosie (two doosies1) that cries out for a serial or Oxford comma.
The Times once published an unintentionally humorous description of a Peter Ustinov documentary, noting that
"highlights of his global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector."
NOTE to all y'all: Hey, I think I should caution as a bit untoward, there about that collector. Do I have your attention? Hope so.
Now, to be clear, the serial comma does not always solve ambiguity problems:
They went to Oregon with Betty, a maid and a cook – (can you parse this exactly and be correct as the reader interpreting what the writer intends?) Not sure you can. Look at these interpretive statements -->
- They went to Oregon with Betty, who was a maid and a cook. (One person)
- They went to Oregon with Betty, both a maid and a cook. (One person)
- They went to Oregon with Betty, a maid and cook. (One person)
- They went to Oregon with Betty (a maid) and a cook. (Two people)
- They went to Oregon with Betty, a maid, and with a cook. (Two people)
- They went to Oregon with Betty – a maid – and a cook. (Two people)
- They went to Oregon with the maid Betty and a cook. (Two people)
- They went to Oregon with a cook and Betty, a maid. (Two people)
- They went to Oregon with Betty as well as a maid and a cook. (Three people)
- They went to Oregon with Betty and a maid and a cook. (Three people)
- They went to Oregon with Betty, one maid and a cook. (Three people)
- They went to Oregon with a maid, a cook, and Betty. (Three people)
We can also look at the grocery list problem:
buying bread, jam, coffee, cream, juice, eggs, and bacon.
VS
eating toast and jam, coffee and cream, juice, and bacon and eggs
Finally, we have a theme song to remember this punctuation convention. Eff-word warning here.
And, this from S.C. (does this work as a hint to make you click or as a poorly curated link. Lessons from Mb are everwhere). I would click as is pretty funny. S.C. is a hero and I have met him.)
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/fo5d9i/the-colbert-report-vampire-weekend
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