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Week 7: paragraph focus for coffee cup memo

UPDATE: Wednesday + FRIDAY, OHitS/AMA (No questions for Wednesday, so we will meet in the same document) We will look at paragraph size and think of how cognitive wedge strategies help you in this memo. Here is your NEW Eli task on a pretty darn good draft, due October 19.

Here is Monday's OHitS/AMA. Inside, I will share free paragraphs that you can use in your coffee cup memo. Do not forget that you post your arrangment+content tonight on Eli Review

Paragraphs! Sentences live in paragraphs. Please keep your sentence strategies in place and consider NOT using empty subjects. Remember the cognitive wedge? You can apply that thinking at the beginning of each paragraph (also, simutaneously balancing the topic sentence value with a sense of transition from the earlier paragraph).

Generally, short paragraphs are evidence that you, the writer, does the heavy lifting for the reader. Why? Please consider paragraphing as an ethical duty to your reader. At the very least, think about manners and consideration.

Paragraph architecture

Paragraph samples

Those two handouts linked just above are MS Word short docs to help you review paragraph essentials.

Grammar/Punctuation/Conventions advice

Check out this set of links (on the navigation bar to right but linked for your ease). What skill are you weak on? Semi-colons v colons? Using that v. which? Take a lock.

Linked there are my short memes (I made them) on common points.

Posted today as a follow-up is an exhbit/lesson on the Oxford comma, which I want you to use in this memo.

See you in the OHitSky/AMA place for more on paragraphs, as well as your questions on content for the task due this evening.

Update on Monday, October 12, 2020 at 07:17AM by

Marybeth Shea

OXFORD COMMA review

To my parents, Ayn Rand and God.

To my parents, J.K. Rowling and God.

To my parents, Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart.

OR

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 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."

Now, to be clear, the serial comma does not always solve ambiguity problems:

They went to Oregon with Betty, a maid and a cook –

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.

And, this from S.C.

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/fo5d9i/the-colbert-report-vampire-weekend

Posted on Monday, October 12, 2020 at 06:49AM by

Marybeth Shea |

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Week 6: Coffee Cup MEMO/Short recommendation report

NEW for Wednesday and Friday: OHitS/AMA doc

You also have a prompt to Eli Review for step one. You were notified in ELMS but here is the link, too.

Screencast, mp4 overview about this week and approaching assignment 2. GoogleMeet (same link as alwas) for Monday at either 9AM or 10AM; you can come to either.

Scientific method has a cousin -- actually an ancestor -- in stasis theory. This conceptual diagram show stasis method with an environmental science decisionmaking context.

Writing techniques in this memo: Paragraphs! Paragraph transitions. We will take up a new idea for use in sentences, with emphasis on "empty subjects." Let's also look at brief document on transitions, taken from a real-world setting. We will be looking at tight transitions and loose transitions.

Document genre is the memo. However, this NEW memo content is more complex and wide-ranging. Transitions are a way to thread the cognition for our busy readers. Your first memo focused on the definition stasis, with a evaluation move at the end. Here the concept was more narrow and very concrete. We will look at abstract concepts, where the science is unclear and yet we must make a decision.

Leaf it to Us: Now, our boss wants a problem-solution memo about the type of coffee cup we should use in our firm. Therefore, we need to frame this work with the stasis of policy (what ought we do). Here are your background readings (copy this google doc to your drive and take notes on your reading). Begin with these pieces, please. Others are out there but our focus is narrow here and your research skills are not the point here.

Back to our boss: Jane wants a coffee cup policy for the office that is "green." This means, your first stasis or conjecture question is

What is better for the environment: the paper coffee cup or the styrofoam coffee cup?

Jane wants you to use available science (see the readings linked above). She already knows that the reusable coffe cup is better; be real, though, as people use disposables and she wants an analysis for company decisionmaking. Here is an arrangement for your memo/recommendation report. Roughly, P = paragraph. HINT: open this large image in new tab in your browser to see where we are going with this pattern.

Update on Wednesday, October 7, 2020 at 07:08AM by

Marybeth Shea

WEDNESDAY's OHitS/AMA doc

Our work this week is to read the background reading documents and begin to make plan to place bits of information into the structure I gave in the yellow/greenish flowchart. How is your reading going? Are you using the inserted tables to assess ethos, as well as capture logos data?

Para 1 INTRO + preview RECOMMENDATION+ FRAMING PROBLEM (climate chang or fate of ocean plastic)

Para 2 DESCRIBE localized office problem (quantify problem)

Para 3 DESCRIBE by COMPARE/CONTRAST chains for paper and styrofoam recycling.

Para 4 (NODE JUNCTION) Describe briefly your weighted environmental problem (Do you need a source? Think on this.)

Para 5 DEFINE life cycle assessment (part of you analysis work), with EPA referral link

Para 6 (NODE JUNCTION) EVALUATION, with formal sources

Para 7 RESTATE your recommendation, with acknowledgement of other frame

PARA 8 Polite closure and your additional thoughts.

Update on Friday, October 9, 2020 at 07:22AM by

Marybeth Shea

What if you give a party and no one comes? You give another party in the same place. Here is your document from Monday, now for use on Friday's OHitS/AMA (also linked at top of Week 6 entry.

Here is your ELi Review task, already in the ELMS calendar and at the top of this page.

Posted on Saturday, October 3, 2020 at 12:44PM by

Marybeth Shea |

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Week 5 Rain Garden wrap up and submission for a grade

UPDATED: Week 5 Audio file Mp3 round up

Friday, October 2 and an optional OHitS/AMA document gathering (live 9-11). I emailed grades to all of you via ELMS Coursemail. Here are the earlier documents this week:

WEDNESDAY, 9/30: OHitS/AMA
MONDAY's OHihS/AMA.
WATCH THIS SPACE FOR AN AUDIO FILE and a Screen capture VIDEO to preview the next assignment.
GoogleMeet LIVE SESSION -- by your vote -- on Monday, October 5.

Last task for this assignment is to think about citation. Then, you will write that into the rain garden memo and upload by WEDNESDAY, SEPT 30 (by 11:45 PM).

P1 -- NO CITATION NEEDED as is simple common knowledge of a well establsiehd technology

P2 -- You can build your ethos by including references in natural language to help your reader trust you as wellas find additional sources:

Marybeth noted that both Prince Georges' County and the University of Maryland played key orginating roles in developing this technology, as wellas evaluation this technology. As you know, she is a botanist.

According to ..... You can find this information here in a short web exhaibit.

P3 -- for details on plants and soil layers USE THE PDF guide but curate the links as in P2 and other other examples I gave.

P4 -- Use a formal citation style for the engineering curriculum material as Davis is a co-author. Recall here that you are using a short, open access standing for a paywalled peer review piece by Davis. Our boxx cannot find/access on her smart phone unde rthis meeting deadline.

See you in the Google doc for more details where I answer your question. We will talk about linking to referral source BUT curating them for the boss.

Update on Tuesday, September 29, 2020 at 08:50AM by

Marybeth Shea

Here is a 17 minute test video (MP4) using screencastify (Google product) about the cognitive wedge + citation details.

I think you need to view this for the full effect. Most of my screen time is on the dummy text document but I also spend time on Monday's OHitS/AMA.

I think that meeting on Wednesday in the OHitS/AMA document is a good idea for final detail clarity.

I hope the video helps. Yikes on 17 minues! If we use this in the future, I will try to divide into parts, like 5-7minutes or be really disciplined and "perform" in smaller chunks.

Posted on Monday, September 28, 2020 at 06:03AM by

Marybeth Shea |

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Week 4, posting early to guide you in Eli Review work

WEEK 4's Office Hours in the Sky/AMA Google docs (like going to class but in an asynchornous way.). Three of three: Monday done, Wednesday done, and NOW FRIDAY.

Next week, we will work assynchronously, you largely in Eli Review on your rain garden memo. Yet, I will be "in class online in google doc every day that I call Office Hours in the Sky/AMA. I will post them starting on Monday as an follow up to this week 4 post.

Here is some content to guide our conversation today, concerning citation practices in professional contexts.

According to Phoebe Pym, University of Peoria ornithologist, seasonal variations in songbird populations may not explain recent dips in male robin number.
The cheery "cheeri-UP, cheeri-UP" of male robins may not announce spring in Central Illinois says new research by Dr. Pym. The University of Peoria bird specialist thinks that extreme climate variations may be responsible for fewer male robins in 2003 and 2004.
"El Nino/L Nina cycles are now so extreme temperature-wise, that these varations may explain a drop in male robin populations in the central Mid West states," reports Phoebe Pym in a July 2005 Nature journal.
Pym's findings are confirmed by other bird experts, including wildlife biologist Jeremy Bentham. Working with the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Audubon Society, Bentham tracked songbird populations (2003-2005) and noted significant losses in 2004.

We cite to help our readers AND build our ethos. Within a few sentences around your information, be sure to give your reader a fighting chance at locating the material. Use the journalist's formula of

who did the research
where is the researcher located (institution)
when did the research happen/when was the article published
WHAT is the larger topic you write about.

For our memo, we will use a short bibliography at the end. This rhetorical "move" also builds trust as well as makes available a complete reference to find the specific materia. Be sure to include your sources at the end of the document. Use the conventional format of APA.

Optional reading with more examples in this pedagogy training Google doc. Question for you that we will take up next week: what about links? Can these hypertext choices act as a citation?

Question also for the evaluation paragraph I mentioned that relies on Davis? We will chat about this interesting web exhibit we can use as a stand-in for a formal citation -- recall the context of the memo for our boss.

Update on Friday, September 25, 2020 at 07:16AM by

Marybeth Shea

UPDATED: FRIDAY AUDIO FILE Week 4

Here is a follow-up on Week 4 to help you synthesize what you are learning from Peer Editing/Colleaborative review in Eli.

You now have a good idea how to arrange your details in the order of the paragraphs I gave you in an ARRANGEMENT.
You also have a good idea about the details that need to be in the document (short memo, read under difficult conditions for boss in a high stakes meeting)
Not all people will put in the same flourish details but you can see the basic ones. How about a metaphor: By Lavarmsg, requests attribution
Have you thought about citation? See the patterns I give here and in the OHitS/AMA google docs. The ONLY Paragrah that needs a formal APA citation is the last paragraph, where you support the claim that rain gardens are good with information from Alan Davis. We are also using a work-around resource because getting a peer-reviewed article in this memo does not fit the boss' needs nor her platform.
Have you thought about the paragraph lengh/volum I discussed in Wedneday's OHitS/AMA? Here is another way to think about the progression: cognitive wedge.Go to Friday's document for more discussion
FRIDAY's OHitS/AMA

NOTE: the images are thumbnails linked to largr images that are easier to study.

Posted on Friday, September 18, 2020 at 07:09AM by

Marybeth Shea |

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Week 3: informational memo (rain gardens)

HEY: I confused people. Here is a link to a google doc you can use between 9 and 11 for Office Hours in the Sky/AMA

Memo we are starting: Here is a first-draft structure for your memo, by paragraph job

Define rain garden briefly, focusing on form and function: (definition paragraph); No citation necessary, as this is common knowledge)

Categorize rain gardens as a kind of low impact development (categorizing paragraph); Citation useful here, use EPA or the Bioretention Manual)

Illustrating paragraph describes the form and function

Document the effectiveness of rain gardens (logos-proof paragraph with ethos of citation authority); Citation essential here, based on Allen Davis' work)

SOURCES that will work for you are these:

Low Impact Development Center (founded by inventor of rain gardens, Larry Coffman);browse website, ten minutes or so.

UMD Cooperative Extention brochure, 52 pg. PDF

Skim this local news piece (2010) on managing run-off in Hyattsvlle. Skim this local news piece, too, from 2014.

On Monday, we will look at two additional sources, including work by Alan Davis, PhD, in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering on campus.

IF YOU WANT and only if you are likely to not resist the urge to search more:

Skim the Wikipedia entries for rain gardens and bioretention (technical term for this environmental developmet approach).

A Gathering of Rain Gardens here.

Update on Monday, September 14, 2020 at 07:28AM by

Marybeth Shea

Here is a google doc about using stasis theory to write memos. Our first memo is primarily a Conjecture-Definition memo. And, an arrangement(one of Aristotle's canons of writing---Invention, arrangement, style, delivery, memory)

PARAGRAPH 1 uses Stasis 1: Definition (what is a rain garden, briefly, by two functions)
PARAGRAPH 2 uses Stasis 2: Classification (what type of technology is this? Hint: low impact development and storm water management)
PARAGRAPH 3 extends the definition by
- 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
PARAGRAPH 4 uses Stasis 4: Evaluation (is this good or bad? Use Dr. Davis' research -- within the UMD Cooperative Extension brochure as you do not have authority to evaluate based on your expertise)