MbShea@PWP@English@UMCP

Jump aboard Train 2!  Here is your Eli Review task for tonight.  ASK FOR THE HELP YOU NEED.  Plan to learn from what others do in their posts.  On Friday, I will open up the collabortive Eli Review Task.  

Hello, this very rainy Friday.  I will be in Office Hours in the Sky, as per usual on Fridays: 9-9:5-, 10-10:50, 11-11:50.

What train are you on?  Please get on board.  I am waiting to open up Train 2 (UPDATED link to your Writing Task) for peer collaboration but I need more participation for this to be meaningful.  

UPDATED for Train 1: the 99% done/final check draft in Eil Review, due tonight. Peer collaboration due by Monday.  

Then, I open up a Train Station 1 for final document parking.  

Next week, after Wednesday, I will open up Train Station 2 for final document parking.

See you Monday for our last day.

Hello.  Here is an update on TRAIN schedules.

TRAIN 1: You can now go to the Eli Review task to give/receive last chance feedback before you turn in your final version for a grade.  HOWEVER, many TRAIN 1 riders have still to complete the uploading of the 99% draft.  That link is here.  PLEASE DO YOUR TRAIN 1 TASKS now, to help each other move forward.

TRAIN 2:  HELLOOOOOO.  Please post your 95% done document here so that you can enter review/feedback process.  WATCH THIS SPACE because I will post on Thursday, the review option even if the numbers stay low.

I implore you to enter these spaces, so that you can earn labor grades and help each other propel thinking and writing forward.

UPDATE (1PM) and modification for those who want this.  Just scratch the stats paragraph if that is messing with your ability to move forward.   I have six emails now, with some bit of panic about this portion of the writing task of Assignment 3. Recall, though, that I said I WOULD NOT GRADE THIS.   In honor of this request, UMD Archives just posted this on my Twitter feed.  Is a genius pig who takes statistics tests.  Made me laugh and think of those of you stressing over this (and more) now. 

 Click into the picture to see all of this and go to Twitter link.

WEDNESDAY CLASS IS CANCELLED.  I am watching for COVID and will test in a few days.  I had a very close contact on Sunday and now that family is all positive. 

We are now focusing on the ending of the one-article review (three or four paragraphs as you slide off the lemon shaped knowledge or explore briefly the heavy end of the pear-shaped knowledge. One of those paragraphs concerns the logos of numbers as

1. an argument that clarifies the conclusion to be drawn from the data analysis of findings OR (and)
2. additional evidence to vett the argument being made OR (and)
3. a check on the hypothesis and claim thinking (remember that we test the null hypothesis in many cases) that means we do not think the finding is due purely to chance or randomness.

Here is some background knowledge on the stats paragraph.  Generally, I want you to understand that the power of stats and numerical analysis is not without limits. 

 I urge you to talk about statistics with your science professors.  For example, in my field of ecology and environmental science, we are in a quiet riot over frequentist, mutivariate, and Bayesian statistics.  This is an assigned reading for me, in one of my classes. Here is another.

For biomedical researchers, you may appreciate this analysis of the limits of p-values in biomedial research.

Please look at your research articles for Friday's Eli Review post, and note the type of statistics tool used.  Look this up in some way to have a working definition.  Common tools or tests include:

• p-values
• Confidence intervals
• Student's t test (and corrections)
• Analysis of variance (ANOVA)

I simply want you to know about this area within science articles, even if you do not understand the statistics. You would not be alone among scientists, if you don't.  I don't.  However, I want you to leave this class with an understanding of this quandry.  And, the limited definition of significance testing and p-values.  For fun, enjoy this comic.

I would write the stats para in first person.  Here are some sentence starters:

• I agree with the use of two-tailed ANOVA testing in this study.....
• I appreciate the author's carefulness when dealing with small sample sizes iin categorical variables, hence the use of the Egon-Pearson correction.
• I notice that the linear regression visual is presented twice: once with all sample values included and accompanied by one with seven NOx readings excluded, due to instrument error (incorrect tare settings on that date).

Note: this type of writing and analysis are often NOT part of formal presentations, say, in a conference.  However, this type of discussion IS PART OF GRADUATE SCHOOL/PROFESSIONAL SCHOOL course work in seminars.  Journal club culture also tends to include this type of discussion orally because this is how we learn.  Always be learning (ABL).  This is hard wired into the life of science/technology. This is why we practice such thinking and working. 

Now, onto other paragraphs at the end of your review when you talk about meaning! Let's gather some useful boilerplate language from Man U Academic Phrasebank:

Expressing a causal relationship tentatively

Finally, read this excellent blog post by water policy expert./professor Raul Pacheco Vega. He summarizes -- including with visuals -- an excellent book about excrement: Josh Bernoff’s Writing Without Bullshit: Boost Your Career by Saying What You Mean. 

Friday, good morning.  I will be in as per usual at Google Meet link: 9:9:50, 10-10:50, 11-11:50.  Here is some language helpers as you turn away from the three point paragraph to your closing section:

(if you analyzed WITHIN the body paragraphs you can say) I assessed some aspects of Salazar's findings earlier.  However, I want to note some of the limitions of this work offered by the team.  One concern expressed about this observational study is....

Let's look briefly at the use of a one-tailed ANOVA test in this study. One-tailed tests are much less common than the two-tailed test of variance.  I think that one reason for this use is that the underlying distribution in these treatement groups are very different, especially in the left hand tail.

The researchers report their p-values at both the 90% and 95% levels, which is helpful to researchers who may want to continue this inquiry albeit with a modified study design.

Now, let's talk about the other ways to close up.  You can return to the opening strategies for some content or ideas.  You can also focus on:

• suggested reading
  • other studies that this work references
  • Science Daly articles that summarize related research
• immediate applications for diagnosis or treatment (many of you are looking at biomedical research)
• how basic knowledge is built in fields like physics, math, astronomy, and, say, philosophy
• how the study helps with an ongoing, large social problem that needs knowledge, modeling, or proposed/tested solutions.

(Thursday) Good morning, I just found this, which is an inverted take on my lemon/pear approach to how science research articles are shaped. From this PDF guide (101 pages) developed by the Asian Institute of Technology.

Good morning.  Still looking for items in three Eli Review spaces.  For triage, I would suggest this order of tasks for those still not on the playing field.

1. Enter SOMETHING in this Eii Review Writing task for Assignment 3 so you can give and receive feedback.
2. DOING no. 1 means that you can now enter the collaborative Eli Review space.  Help others and yourselves by reflecting on the grid work underway now.
3. THEN, go back to the Eli Review Writing task for final version of Memo 2.  Get that out of the way.

Now: let's do a deep dive into the power of three.   Aristotle believed in the power of three (logos, pathos, ethos). Ancient and medieval rhetoric focused on teaching the oration of the three-point argument. Where do you think your FIVE-PARA (extended constructed response)essay came from?  And, the sandwich pattern of bread slices open and close the three layers of fillings.  Also, what about the compliment sandwich of three layers? Here is a little history, with sources.  I recommend reading them (skim-style):

Bell Labs reached out to Harvard professor George Miller who published a classic paper (1956)  “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two.”

• Open access NIH hosted 2015 “celebration commentary” on Miller’s magical seven

• Read the abstract of this Stephen Pinker piece that offers a bio of Miller

New research says that FOUR might be most magical. This Science Daily research summary is a quick and worthy read (see?  Summaries are valuable documents).

We have considered counting out.  Counting out (rememeber Jennifer Lopez?) works well with the power of three/binning knowledge.  To this end, here are sample sentence portions for you to adapt:

Before we look closely at three essential findings from Perez, let's review two concepts from neuroscience....

A first take-away from Pham concerns their method.....

Next, Pham use bootstrapping routines to refine her sample.....

Finally, I want to linger on the findings from Pham concerning differences in treatment group seven and nine. This is my third take-away in this close reading of Pham's work on biogenic di-lithium crystals in long covid therapy. 

Let's loop back to another writing craft you are familiar with: punting and your definitions paragraph:

Readers unfamiliar with quasars may appreciated this definition......For more detail -- incluiding visualizations -- see NASA's helpful web exhibit (curate a link). 

What is long covid?  Just now, many insurance companies do not have a DRG -- diagnostic related group -- to code for this post covid infection.  New guidance from NIH defines long covid as 

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec nisl justo, feugiat at libero sit amet, lacinia ultricies felis. Donec hendrerit velit nisi, ac accumsan nisi lacinia sit amet. Etiam in dictum dolor, et placerat metus. Phasellus et turpis est. Aenean euismod lacinia vulputate. Phasellus vitae quam eget lectus dapibus facilisis. Aenean rutrum tincidunt convallis. Sed rutrum in ex sed rutrum. Ut purus lacus, feugiat pretium venenatis sed, tincidunt ut risus. Integer vitae eleifend dolor. Integer consequat est nec condimentum placerat. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Nunc tristique consectetur lectus nec malesuada. Integer dui leo, euismod in augue at, semper dictum nulla. Nulla turpis tellus, egestas a semper nec, rhoncus eget neque. Vivamus quis vulputate orci.

See more at this NIH webpage (link); you can also listen to an short NPR April '22 piece here. (curate link)

More generally, you can use bullet items for definitions, too.

Same Google Meet link.

Hey, is your article egg shaped?  Intermediate between lemon (symmetrical) and pear (weighted to the end/bottom)?

Click to see: From Wikimedia Commons with restriction on resizing. I will be in Google Meet today at 9:50, 10:50, 11:50.

You have an Eli Review assignment!  Reposting from both the ELMS Calendar and your ELMS email:

Reposted from ELMS Calendar function; I hope this helps those who use mobile app)

My best wishes to all on this Friday (Ramadan continues, passover is upon us, and the Easter observance-- Roman version -- begins today at noon).

Post where you are in the Assignment Three within this Eli Review prompt:

https://app.elireview.com/unit/student/assignment/module_id/14019/assignment_id/95036/deliverable_id/95194 (Links to an external site.)


Do this when and as you can, taking care that all of us need to rowing in our boat together as best we can. I hope your weekend includes rest, food, family, and sunshine.

Take care, dear students of science writing.

And, Thing One and Thing Two (let's see how long this lasts)