Week 3: Canons->Invention about rain garden memo; Eli RevewI
Here we go toward Assignment 1: what is a rain garden aka the brief definition memo
- Read/review my short Google lide set on Aristotle's canons; we we focus on invention aka deliberate research toward making a document.
- Register/pay for Eli Review (about 22 clams).
- Friday night-through Monday night is our first iteration of
- you write (post to the WRITING TASK in Eli Review by Friday 11:45);
- Mb reads./crafts an Eli Review REVIEWING TASK midday Saturday; and
- you respond by Monday evening, to the writing of others.
Note: You MUST do these tasks on time. Imagine being at work and meeting the internal deadlines of colleagues to propel mutual work forward. I am flexible re your turning in work for a grade (the polished draft). You will have a week.
In this first Eli Review (ER), we focus on invention. And, we will reveal our path to ourselves and to others. Why? The new Writing Programs (English Department) guidelines call for me to have an AI policy and to teach/model professional practices in using AI to generate ideas and (gulp) text passages. More on that in class.
Here is our scenario for writing (look for audience, context, purpose elements)-->
Transform the class into a small technical communication/science research group. You work here, with colleagues (our class). I am the research director. Here is Jane, our boss. She asked for a rain garden overview memo at the end of our last staff meeting. First, what is a memo?
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?
Now, to content. What is rain garden? Hint: Search on google (keep track of what search tems you use, what questions you type). Spend 15 minutes tops. We will discuss on Wednesday.
Some of you may want to go right to Wikipedia (try "rain garden" "low impact development" "bioremediation" as entry terms.
What do rain gardens look like "in the wild"? Search on "rain gardens" on campus to see a cornucopia of such installations.
Curious about the syllabus and AI policy? Here are my working ideas (you will help me this semester refine this concept and what this looks like applied at school and work.
I understand and expect that students use AI, especially in the prewriting and invention phases of document generation. Some class activities will require AI exploration. Learning to use AI is an emerging skill for students, teachers, and professionals. We will discuss AI options, in a “pearls and perils” approach about how to leverage AI for our work. We will also try to anticipate how AI works in collaborative writing, copyright contexts, and professional ethics. We will also discuss the limits, cautions -- even dangers (perils) of these software systems.
Professionalism requires that users of AI reflect closely as they generate knowledge and craft texts with AI assistants. At a minimum, students are encouraged to pay close attention to information they use in their own work that is produced from AI, and explain how/what they use at the beginning of assignments.
Emerging best practices include citation of AI. Science and technical context now use AI to point toward credible sources. I expect that you use AI as a consultative resource to deal with complexity of technical knowledge. However, you should be aware for many workplace documents, we will need to cite/source/credit AI knowledge and even particular ways of writing (sentences and paragraphs, for example) The use of AI should be properly documented and credited. For example, the material generated using ChatGPT-4 should include a citation such as: “Chat-GPT-4. (YYYY,Month DD of query). “Text of your query.” Generated using OpenAI. https://chat.openai.com/”
To promote transparency, every assignment that uses AI must include an "AI Acknowledgement" section. This section -- typically in a note heading the document -- should clearly explain how AI was employed in critical analysis work (prewriting, inventing ala Aristotle’s first canon) and in writing/using text, prose, etc. Hint: we will work to make the writing “yours” by adding evidence to claims via formation citation and by powerful information citation using cited referral links.
Marybeth Shea
Happy hoarfrost morning. I am available 9 and 11 BUT this is optional. Campus is closed.
You have your Eli Review (ER) WRITING TASK prompt now live (send by ELMS mail and via a Group Me message by your kind colleague A.A.) Element 1 reflects what I asked you to do on Monday. Element 2 includes follow up information. Recall that I asked you to spend about 15 minutes on the first task; this is a good time to alot to the task in Element 2. Recall, we are working out together how to use AI and AI assist searches to serve ourselves and our audiences.
From the ER prompt-->
ELEMENT 1 of this WRITING TASK: Briefly describe how you searched and what resources you used. Bullets work, like:
- I read the "rain garden" Wikipedia entry.
- I used ChatGPT with these two prompts: Question 1.....and Q 2......
- I can generally tell what a rain garden is, what they do, and that they are a useful way to control flooding and absorb pollution
- I feel a sense of trust/ in this initial work because (what details or approaches make you trust/distrust the offered knowledge). Examples:
- The Wikipedia entry is helpful because sources/citation are included.
- The Claude description seems fine BUT lacking details. I assume Mb wants details to increase trust. Heck, I want details beyond what Claude gives. So, I went to the UMD website and searched on images. Know I have a feel for what rain gardens look like and how they are located.
NEW: I give you sentences to EVENTUALLY start your paragraphs, aka topic sentences. This sentences hint a an arrangement or ordering of knowledge.
ELEMENT 2 of the WRITING TASK (about fifteen minutes): Look at these sentence starters. Pick two and then use AI or Google search with prompts that help you find details. Place them as bulleted items underneath the sentence starter, noting how you got the details.
Here are the sentence starters you can use in your prewriting work:
- A rain garden is an environmental technique that...
- 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.
Later, these topic sentence set you up for a five short-paragraph definition memo. You can use bullet items under each of the paragraphs above, to show what details you found about rain gardens fit each topic sentence. The order of the three middles topic sentences can be re-organized but save that for later.
Most people will prefer to save the Allen Davis/evaluation paragraph to next week.
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See you Friday. Enjoy this lovely day.
Marybeth Shea
Happy (chilly) Friday to all. 
PSA, wake up early Saturday to buy 75% off of most Valentine's candy.
Please return to Monday's post and review the slide set on Aristotle's canons. We are thick in invention, which is a powerful tool to think clearly through how to
- use AI wisely,
- see AI when is subtle (searches in Google, for example,
- recall that search terms -- i.e. key words -- are still important in AI use as well as searches in Google, library data bases, and important federal public biomedical knowledge platforms like PubMed.1
Go to the "Padlet" link on the last slide of that set. I am also placing the link here. We use writing process models to think through complex questions as we shift from research to writing. We also loop back -- fancy word is recursivity -- because as we write, we know we need additional information, sources, authoritative links, to include as we revise our writing.
(now, for some document design for emphasis, below)
YOU MUST COMPLETE TONIGHT'S ASSIGNMENT -- Eli Review (ER) WRITING TASK BY 11:45PM? Why? This is how you enter the next phase, which I will open up midday Saturday. That ER REVIEW TASK is due Monday evening, 11:45.
By the way, what students are posting is excellent. We are learning and will continue to learn with each other.
Now, for fun, enjoy this short slide set about engineers who figured out how to boil a perfect egg, with illustrations.
I will be available 9 and 11 to chat via our course link, if you have questions.
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1 Highly recommend you read this 2022 open access (Journal of the American Medical Library) article on how AI undergirds the search functions of PubMed. Here is the abstract, to tempt you.
This article focuses on PubMed's Best Match sorting algorithm, presenting a simplified explanation of how it operates and highlighting how artificial intelligence affects search results in ways that are not seen by users. We further discuss user search behaviors and the ethical implications of algorithms, specifically for health care practitioners. PubMed recently began using artificial intelligence to improve the sorting of search results using a Best Match option. In 2020, PubMed deployed this algorithm as the default search method, necessitating serious discussion around the ethics of this and similar algorithms, as users do not always know when an algorithm uses artificial intelligence, what artificial intelligence is, and how it may impact their everyday tasks. These implications resonate strongly in health care, in which the speed and relevancy of search results is crucial but does not negate the importance of a lack of bias in how those search results are selected or presented to the user. As a health care provider will not often venture past the first few results in search of a clinical decision, will Best Match help them find the answers they need more quickly? Or will the algorithm bias their results, leading to the potential suppression of more recent or relevant results?
