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Oops, science is POWERFUL!
ENGL 390, 390H, and (sometimes) 398V Class Journal
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Directions, a document design genre
On Monday, bring to class a draft of directions to work on. Peer review (digitally with your trio of partners) on Friday, November 15. Due for grade on Monday, November 18.
Let's warm up with a mini lesson on voice and nominalization:
Check out this active voice exhibit from Duke's Scientific Communication overview. Read this web exhibit, starting with Principles 2 and 3. In your reading for your science classes, you may want to look for these techniques. Then, return to Principle 1.
Principle 1 is new to you. This focus concerns nominalizations. Read this clip from a New York Times article, which calls nominalizations "zombie nouns." Writer Helen Sword says:
Take an adjective (implacable) or a verb (calibrate) or even another noun (crony) and add a suffix like ity, tion or ism. You’ve created a new noun: implacability, calibration, cronyism. Sounds impressive, right?
Nouns formed from other parts of speech are called nominalizations. Academics love them; so do lawyers, bureaucrats and business writers. I call them “zombie nouns” because they cannibalize active verbs, suck the lifeblood from adjectives and substitute abstract entities for human beings:
The proliferation of nominalizations in a discursive formation may be an indication of a tendency toward pomposity and abstraction.
H.S.'s "Draft" -- a regular feature of the Times -- is a series about the art and craft of writing.
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- front matter,
- the heart of the directions (numbered, ordered commands), and
- back matter.
Let's talk about recipes, also a directions genre. Bones of the Dead (Osse de Mort). What about visuals? And, this website for publishing science procedure videos: JoVE.
How do we build trust in writing directions? To be discussed.
Also, where on the web do directions live?
Friday, I will post an online document for Friday's digital class. You can respond by 11.59 SATURDAY (updated to give you moreflexibility), just before the stroke of midnight. This is the Cinderella way of being clear about what day does "by midnight" actually mean.
Marybeth Shea
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A bit more on paragraphs
Paragraph Definition: think Architectures
And, we will talk about modifiers that do not fit, cognitively, the subject-verb pair of the sentence. By the way, Grammar Girl (aka Mignon Fogerty) is another excellent resource for you, now and in the future. You have the choice to listen or read her guidance on writing. Her expertise? Years of technical writing and editing. Her work focuses on how to use the "rules" and conventions well, and achieve clarity for your reader. Her document design and arrangement choices are nicely showcased her in Ten Myths of Writing.
Shall we have a seasonal punctuation lesson?
That-which: which takes a comma; that does not! See this handout on choosing which and that.
And, some verbs that will help you in your description and analysis paragraphs: Helpful signal verbs to show the reader where the citation information begins within your paragraph, first for the author,
...as in Quintillian
says writes observes notes remarks adds declares informs us alleges claims states comments thinks affirms asserts explains argues Additional signal verbs that we often use in technical and science settings to focus especiallyl on the research: ...this study (or finding or data or results) suggests asserts demonstrates finds establishes affirms attests supports correlates proves denies defies counters weakens
We can also talk briefly about "hopefully" or take than up on Wednesday.
Office Hours in the Sky 3-4
Questions posted before this interval will be answered HERE.
GO NATS. Come on, this game is pretty high stakes.
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Due to excellent argumentation by your colleagues, we move the DUE DATE to Wednesday. Would some kind soul put this on the groupMe? And, I am still waiting for my Hello Kitty GO NATS MVP MEME.
Check list linked below for Friday peer review
here in a Google Doc (long but worthy, I think).
https://docs.google.com/document/d/12Qal4-sSFzGGznIeEQbpnj0QVhCOA7aqTkBLxOGzdP4/edit?usp=sharing