Week 13: Beginnings and endings (similar), definitions/descriptions, reading
Articles have beginnings, middles, and ends. Think Lemon-shaped. Interestingly, beginnings and ends have similarities. We have a number of options; look at these seven strategies for opening (Google doc based on CAIN, Rice University). Some rough thoughts about formality and audience type:
News article openings are good for the lay audience. Why? Several strategies:
- highly visual
- interesting case
- hook with tidbit of interesting information
- topic (timely)
For technical audiences, open with
- review of logos (detail of costs, population size, enormity of problem)
- controversy
- new application or breaking news
We hook the reader at the beginning. Being successful here relies on thinking about our readers. Science and technical readers are not leisure readers! Let's look at this recent article in PloS One about writing scientific prose. In Science, two scientists talk about how they read articles. Ruben writes with a somewhat lighthearted approach while Pain responds to his piece with her approach. Read the comments. Peek into the strategies of technical readers.
Arrangement matters in the IMRAD article. Here is one "bible" of writing (and reading) scientific prose: Mayfield Guide (open access courtesy of MIT). Now, let's look/review at the basic parts of the IMRAD article using these elements from Mayfield. (Take-away? Your opening will be different from the IMRAD opening but looking at these links will help you improve as a reader):
(In-class, brief discussion about the ETHOS paragraph. Please ask or type questions.)
- If you cannot find a first author author bio, focus on the last author. Let's review the conventions on order in authors. 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.
- You can also rely on the process of peer review and the journal ethos. One way is to consider the journal's impact factor. This is a crude tool and is like a baseball bat driving a safety pin into fabric.
- You can look at citations BUT consider the boundaries between scientific publisher ecosystems.
- Look up article in PubMed (a National Library of Medicine project, part of NIH).
- For tech/data sci pieces, you can explore the GitHub and/or Stack Exchange activity.
- Try the last name at Science Daily or Phys.org.
Writing craft lesson on article titles and journal names. Italics sourround article titles, while journal titles are italicized. as carrying the ethos of peer review. USE ITALICS! Do NOT put the long title of this article in your paragraph.) Let's discuss these two samples, familiar to you from last week-->
Kaspari s work on traditional, plant-based pigments in Romania, "A ethnographic field study approach to farmer accounts of their Morello cherry arboculture: the difference in local cherry liquors begins with horticultral sections stemming from the laste middle ages." This research article appears in the Journal of Food Science. Her 2010 ethnographic study is based on interviews with 250 families in ten villages.
In a 2010 study on Morello (sour cherry tree) cultivars, ethnographic researcher Kaspari found a number of genetic subtypes, some in use for hundreds of years. Appearing in the Journal of Food Science (July, 2012), this ethnographic analysis …..
Marybeth Shea
We will use Monday's post to reflect on paragraph, arranging them, and using content particularly in the first three paragraphs within your stem/cognitive wedge of your fruit shape.
I am playing catch up with about 12 students who still own me things. I will, early today, post Friday's ER Writing Task. You will work with material you posted for last week's ER Task, refined by what your peer consultations show. We will add these:
- Use one or two of the seven strategies to try out for a hook opening;
- Refine your ethos paragraph
- NEWISH! List the definitions/description you will provide before turning to the three or four main body points.
- Try to divide into categories of main and supporting actors. This metaphor, where the definitions are characters, fits with the power of narrative structures.
- Here is an example from my work: Poultry production on the Delmarva Peninsula is a economic engine for these coastal, rural parts of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. (and) Poultry litter, which is a combination of excrement, bedding, food, and feathers, contains high amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus, which is used as a field fertilizer. However, the high water table and long coastline mean that N and P enter the water at amounts sufficient to degrade water quality. Therefore, environmental scientists work with poultry farmers to reduce N and P in their chicken production.
- Main characters (other than people)= broiler chickens, litter, N, and P.
- Supporting characters: water table, long coastline, microbes in the water, especially algae, dead zone.
- Preview: how are your points going? Are you an elongated lemon or pear shape? This means are you presenting four body paragraphs?
- Preview: You might want to use one of the sevens strategies to conclude. Can you combine with an application? This also if you are a lemon or pear in this closing of your piece. Many applications? Likely you close describing several, making your document a pear.
- Next week? We focus on analysis including statistics, numbers-logos, etc.
New week you must also chose to board the early train (to ATLANTA) if you plan to complete this assignment and turn in for a grade in the first part of finals/edd of class OR you board the later train (to BOULDER) if you plan to wrap up closer to the end of finals.
Marybeth Shea
DO NOT FORGET YOUR ELI REVIEW WRITING TASK DUE THIS EVENING. We are at 5% completion as of 7:55 AM this morning. Get in there.
Happy Friday. Am meeting with a few people between 9-9:50 and 11-11:50 who will want some solo time with me. If you try to get in, just wait. You can also email me to secure a time. I will also be generous with the 10AM hour but need to do a quick dog walk to front and back yard. I expect you can infer meaning, there. 
Critical thinking lesson about the ethos of an author (first author) and the journals they publish in--guidance.
- Use Google carefully, with these choices regarding how Google divides search into categories:
- Google SCHOLAR:See what comes up with the author's last name and some of the general topic (place in quotes).
- Google NEWS: perhaps this research makes an appearance in general news sources. This is not as common across all disciplines as, say, biomedical research. Use author last name, name of journal (in quotes), and the topic phrase (in quotes).
- As I noted earlier this week, try a similar search in Science Daily and Phys Org, as places that round up science findings and are open access to you.
- Shift from author last name to the journal more generally. Most journals are ethical places of authentic peer review. However, we do have the problem of fake journals and even ecosystems of journal farms that are totally fake! Read more about this problem -->
- 65-page PDF of fake journals by developing country scholar who notes that these scholars are targeted by these journals/journal farms. (date unclear).
- Johns Hopkins library research guide on this topic (updated on April 12, confirmed by email) that focuses on open access problems in fake journals. Highly recommend you read this and bookmark.
- This guide includes links that showcase responsible science publication in journals/processes that are less clear than the familiar journals-->
- This guide includes links that showcase responsible science publication in journals/processes that are less clear than the familiar journals-->
- Impact factor (presented in an informative, well-sourced Wikipedia page). We will talk about this metric more on Monday (and) Science and technical readers should know about this valuable ethos check. However, the impact factor is flawed. Therefore, we should talk about how to use this metric and know the limitations.
Do not forget that you have an Eli Review Writing Task due this evening. Do not hurt Trixie's feelings (pictured above) who wants all students (dogs) to go to (assignment/grades) heaven.