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Oops, science is POWERFUL!
ENGL 390, 390H, and (sometimes) 398V Class Journal
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Good (soggy) morning.
Do not forget to complete the ER Reviewing Task that is divided between the two trains DUE TONIGHT. At the point in the semester, please endeavor to respect and support colleagues into managing their schedules. Here is a train song for today! Trixie Smith (1895?-1943), blueswoman, with her Freight Train Blues-->
At the end of class, we will chat about "boomer," which appears in this Trixie rendition and the change from the late 1800s to now. The opening lyrics are:
I was born in Dixie in a boomer shack
Just a little shanty by the railroad track
I want to warm up today, but looking at something I posted recently on a Friday: comic ethos in sci illustration. This three-slide set is simply for your contemplation and enjoyment.
Now, to pick up the Google doc guidance sheet you have see before. Let's look at a few items today and Wednesday, including numbers in science prose, conventions on titles for wholes (italics) and parts (double quotation marks), etc. On Wednesday, we will look at dangling modifiers, which are clauses at the beginning of sentences that when read grammatically are wrong and often funny.
I am seeing lots of empty subjects, like It is/was and There is/are. Use your search function to avoid these weak constructions that are often at the beginning of sentences and/or main clauses.
Now, onto word choice/word evolution (including de-evolution with some ideas from thoughtful U Michigan dean and English professor/linguist: Anne Curzan.
Kinder, funner?
registers of formality and occasion
code switching/audience accommodation
many Englishes (airplane English, for one!)
More science is written/promulgated globally by non native English speakers than native speakers
Critical thinking v. perfect grammar and diction
December, 2021 Washington Post opinion "Why Words in English Die Out" by Curzan. Link is NOT paywalled if you are on campus technology.
Marybeth Shea
Oh my goodness, how can this be the last day?
Quick sentence construction lesson on dangling and misplaced modifiers. First up, dangling modifiers, you may recall this example from middle school:
While walking down the street the dog bit Carrie Del.
(so, what is nearly always intended is that Carrie was walking down the street.). The entire first clause -- while walking down the street -- is positioned to technically modify the subject of the sentence, which is dog. Carrie Del is the object (ouch) of the dog bite.
How about this example that makes absolutely clear how wrong the sentence technically is: While walking down the street a piano fell on me.
Piano. from Paul Rayment on Vimeo.
This video "example" came in 2005 to me from a student named Hannah G.Thank you, H for the memorable and odd video to remember this problem in sentence construction. Also, pickle people are scary, actually.
Here is what The Mayfiled Handbooks says: Section 6.12
Dangling Modifiers
A modifier whose connection to the sentence is implied or intended but not actually made explicit is said to dangle. Dangling modifiers detract from the clarity of your writing, so you should make sure your modifiers are properly connected to the words they modify. To repair a dangling modifier, add the the noun or phrase that the modifier was intended to modify and rephrase the sentence accordingly.
Weak
When traveling at the speed of sound, the moon is approximately 320 hours away. [The moon does not travel at the speed of sound.]
Improved
An object traveling at the speed of sound will reach the moon in approximately 320 hours.
Now, on to misplaced modifiers: Here, we MUST know the writer's meaning. Do these sentences have different meanings? Why?
The dachshund under the tree bit Carrie Del. VS. The dachshund bit Carrie Del under the tree.
The dangling modifiers are what you should focus on in your final paper. Why? Because they are often unintentiohnal and confuse readers! Samples plus revisions-->
INCORRECT: After reading the original study, the article conclusions remains unconvincing.
REVISED: After reading the original study in Petrick, I find the researcher's conclusions unconvincing.
INCORRECT: Relieved of your semester's responsibilities now that finals are over, your home should be a place to relax.
REVISED: Relieved of your semesters responsibilities now that finals are over, you should be able to relax at home.
INCORRECT: The experiment was a failure, not having studied the lab manual carefully.
REVISED: The students failed the experiment, not having studied the lab manual carefully.
Lastly these two from one really well written student paper years ago-->
While swimming in the bay, unwitting watermen may catch unsuspecting diamondbacks.
With their meat being served as a delicacy, the Native Americans saw Diamondback Terrapins and their population plummet during the 19th century.
Week 15: wrapping up; WHICH TRAIN are you on?
I will talk about Friday's Eli Review task where I will post TWO DIFFERENT LINKS where you begin your
- Train Ride to Atlanta, planning to wrap up between the last day of class and the first weekend of finals
- Train Ride to Boulder, planning to wrap up after the first weekend and before/on the last day of finals.
Ok, craft lessons, re Theme and Variations, you have seen before!
BEGINNING with Definitions. You can consider bullets. These work well when the concepts are closely related. For example,
Let's review PCR types before we look at Guerro's modifications in her study:
- Polymer chain reaction (PCR) tests for....
- Quantitative PCR (qPRC)...
- Pyro sequencing ....
The treatment studies for Patel's rice productivity work examine subtle soil pH variability in spring crops typical of terraced fields in SE Asia. The soil categories, based on surveys of Thailand posted at the UN FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) data base:
podulized categories 3-8: blah blah....
spodosoil category 6: blah blah....
hydropodosoils (two) designed for this experiment but based on FAO emerging research linked here.
More complex definitions might need their own paragraphs. Consider defining what a highly conserved gene is and how that work helps scientists use animals for human disease. Do not forget the idea of bolds, here. However, we can also use nested definitions. Example from my work-->
In my work with farmers and nitrogen scientists, i need to define Q method, which tests subjectivity rather than objectively. Farmers get this but scientists tend not to. For a short video definition of Q-methods, see this four-minute video and related pages hosted by Q-method expert Tim Deignan. Mb here: curated referal links are an option for your definitions, which are nearly always common knowledge.
Train ATLANTA: Here is our video inspiration from Edward Kennedy, aka Duke, Ellington-->
We change up this metaphor a bit with the idea that we are traveling to Atlanta, GA, down the East Coast from DC. A train to Atlanta will arrive at the destination faster than a train to Boulder, CO starting in the same place.
Train BOULDER: Our inspiration now is Emmy Lou Harris-->
Later today, I will send you an ELMS email with dates for both Trains with the associated ER Writing and Reviewing Tasks. And, similarly, I will adjust your ELMS Calendar.
Next up, for craft lesson: Voice to distinguish between researchers work (show cased by you in the body paragraphs) --> USE THIRD PERSON. Related, in your two analysis tasks (one general; one stats/logos of numbers focused), signal that this is YOU commenting --> USE FIRST PERSON.
Examples you can model after (mentor text is our friend)-->
Postel also sees this genomic study as offering a way to visualize which oncogenes are turned on, likely by environmental factors. (add rest of para)
I see that Postel uses both R-squared and p values to vet some of this genomic analysis. As a computational biologist, Postel understand the scale-effects of p values that, while low, might be more of an artifact of size rather than a check against randomness. She speaks about this in a note to Figures 8 and 9, as well as in the analysis section. I think this means that the R-squared test and associated visuals are a better statistical test for this genomic study.
Pacquin's inference about this study on words that carry emotional import comes from his used of survey instruments from 2018 through 2020. He excluded 2021 forward in an abundance of caution concerning the pandemic context, which might skew results to the negative. He ganged three surveys together -- all used same questions -- to test five words......
Survey analysis relies on t-tests and calculation of a critical value. I agree with Pcquin that the one-tailed sample t-test is correct because the identical surveys are ganged together. This test looks at whether the mean (aka average) of data from one group (in this case the differences in identified emotional content) is different from the critical value. I also noticed that he included within supplementary tables all the ways the five words differed in survey responses by age (quintiles), gender (two variables), and self identified liberalism or conservatism (two variables). The math here involved permutations to yield desired sub categories. Pacquin discussed primarily.....However, I would be interested in the Q categories and plan to study those datasets more closely.
- Lemon and Pear flow chart, aka the Theme+Variations visual
Newish: text-based guidance/checklist, I have references before(long Google doc but worthy!) But first, let's think about new language for our body points in the document middle. I give you
Marybeth Shea
You MUST CHOSE because the trains are on separate tracks starting Friday. Also placed to your ELMS calendar and send via ELMS mail
Spring 2024 Schedule for two trains.
ATLANTA, to finish early, with a week-long parking lot
ONE LAST ER Writing/Reviewing round to check and recheck your work and partners.
Friday, May 3: ER WRITING TASK (use the ATLANTA ONE; LAST ONE)
Monday, May 6 :ER Reviewing TASK (use the ATLANTA ONE; LAST ONE)
Wednesday May 8: Last day of ENGL390
Friday, May 10: ATLANTA parking lot opens; also READING DAY
Saturday May 11: Finals begin
Friday,, May 17: ATLANTA parking lot closes at NOON; Finals end
Monday, May 20:Graduation!
BOULDER , to finish later, with a shorter parking lot of four days
TWO rounds of ER Writing/Reviewing rounds, to check and recheck your work with partners
Friday, May 3: ER WRITING TASK (use the BOULDER ONE; PENULTIMATE ONE)
Monday, May 6 :ER REVIEWING TASK (use the BOULDER ONE; PENULTIMATE ONE)
Wednesday May 8: Last day of ENGL390
Friday, May 10: LAST ER Writing Task for BOULDER; also READING DAY
Saturday May 11: Finals begin
Monday, May 13: LAST ER Reviewing Task for BOULDER
Wednesday, May 15: BOULDER Parking lot opens; note shorter period of 4 days
Friday,, May 17: Finals end
Saturday, May 18 Boulder Parking lot closes at NOON
Monday, May 20: Graduation!
"Get your ticket at the station for the Rock Island Line*."
, which means that you signal your train to me by what you do for Friday night. * Written, most likely, by bluesman Clarence Wilson circa 1929. That Secondhand Songs web archive also notes that Wilson responded to similar folk songs to craft his version. Quick class discussion on folk music and plagiarism. Do you also see the nest little reminding about punctuating that and which?
We will go back to Monday's post and talk about why THING One and THING Two and my addition of Thing Three. If we have time, we look at the short three slides I posted on Friday concerning anime/cartoons and science communication. Just for your interest and fun.
Upcoming lessson within Friday's ER Writing Task. You could consider writing a BLUF -- bottom line up front body paragraph.
Marybeth Shea
Happy Friday.
See you between 9-9:50 and 11-11:50.
Which train are you taking? Tonight is your last chance to commit to a train. Cue The Monkees (original fake boy band but are pretty good, actually) and this 1966 hit "Take the Last Train to Clarksville," from the 1966 album The Monkees: Take the Last Train to Clarksville. The two linked Wikipedia articles flesh out this "fake" band concept from the mid 1960s.
Mb here: Do you see the nested reminder of parts of works are in double quotes and the encompassing work is italics? What does this mean for science writers working on Assignment 3? You use italics on journal articles and double quotes on the article title. Recall, though, my style caution on NOT dropping the article title in your prose. You place the bibliographic cite in the heading of your piece. Also, TBD next week, you do NOT need a bibliographic cite at the end of the piece.
Excerpt from the Mayfield Handbook of Technical Communication (online courtesy of MIT)-->
Section 6.12
Dangling Modifiers
A modifier whose connection to the sentence is implied or intended but not actually made explicit is said to dangle. Dangling modifiers detract from the clarity of your writing, so you should make sure your modifiers are properly connected to the words they modify. To repair a dangling modifier, add the the noun or phrase that the modifier was intended to modify and rephrase the sentence accordingly.
Weak
When traveling at the speed of sound, the moon is approximately 320 hours away.[The moon does not travel at the speed of sound.]Improved
An object traveling at the speed of sound will reach the moon in approximately 320 hours.Mb here: another excerpt from Mayfield on paragraph types/purposes/jobs.Mb again: Are you stuck in this work or other writing project? As yourself this question, "What am I trying to say here? ..... Then, the job of this paragraph is .... Click into the Mayfield examples and see if you are inspired.
I am trying to explain nitrate-nitrite equilibrium. (Ahaha!) Then this job of this paragraph is to present a process. And, I can use a BLUF -- bottom line up front -- topic sentence like this: Nitrogen motility is complex in soil water systems. The equilibrium of N-x salts, however, is part of the winter crop rotation theory. Let's examine the nitrate-nitrite equilibrium closely.....
Week 14: definition choices, analysis para(s) choices, wrapping up
Happy Monday.
DO NOT FORGET MONDAY"S ER Reviewing Task. Doing this on time helps, generally, all your colleagues. You can be especially courtesous to those students in their week of Passover, too.
Let's talk about definitions choices. One way to manage this helpful background for your reader is to divide the primary or main actor definitions from the secondary or supporting actor definitions. You can arrange these in two waysl. The first way is to use two paragraphs in your cognitive wedge, starting with the primary ones. Then transition to the secondary ones in the next paragraph. Here is some language in your openings and closing of these linked paragraphs (sharing the job of defining terms for readers):
Before we look at Kaspari's ethnography study, let's review briefly these essential terms:
You can use bullets, if you like; equally fine is a paragraph where you devote a sentence to each definition.
Expert readers in arboriculture may skip or skim these definitions:
Having established key arboriculture terms, let's turn now to method definitions about Kaspari's use of ethnography in this agro-ecology work.
Ethnography studies typically....
Mixed methods from sociology combines both quantitative and qualitative data sets....
Having described Kaspari's methods that combine rigorous science with thoughtful social science descriptions, we turn to three important take-aways from this innovative 2010 study.
Now you can begin your "thick and rich descriptive" body paragraphs.
A second way to handle these definitions would be to devote one paragraph to the primary or main actor definitions and use nested definitions within the body paragraphs. To make this work, you should be extremely concise. And, use appositives as a good technique (introducing short, helpful information, here, definitions).
For example-->
Patel and Shen used pyrosequencing -- detects pyrophosphate release and light generation on nucleotides -- in their microbiome study of naked mole rats.
For the qualitative data set -- categorical values are qualitative -- Kaspari later used chi-square to assess the presence of a relationship....
Readers will find helpful to recall that chronic wasting disease (a prion "infection") in deer is similar to bovine encephalopathy (aka mad cow disease)....
Both of these definition choices (prefacing paragraphs and nested definitions) are location-dependent.
- smaller definitions set off by punctuation in an appositive -- think bunny ears, paws, and hind feet.
Now, to analysis paragraphs (the hardest you write, for most). Like definitions, these paragraphs are also location-dependant. You have two choices:
- Using one paragraph, you note one or, say two or three, critique(s) AFTER your three or four body paragraphs. This is the arrangement depicted in the celery flow chart. THINK PEARL NECKLACE; of course, Mb uses a metaphor.
- ANOTHER arrangement is that you locate a critique paragraph in between one or more of your body paragraphs. Make them small paragraphs as a way to signal the critique is not the same as the body paragraphs you are presenting from the research article. PEARLs with GOLD BEADS. To be specific-->
- small analysis paragraphs between your body paragraphs of cool points -- think gold beads between larger pearls.
Voice helps, too, in analysis. Use first person in your analysis "moves" aka paragraphs and third person when presenting more generally the points of your author.
We will also look at a Google Doc from an earlier semester where we took on questions the week before the one-article review was due. Can be instructive, I think.
Ok: how do I critique? You have two strategies that will help you work through this critical thinking. First, most researchers conduct self critique! See what they say and adapt that "science humility" into your critiqu. Then, you can use language to acknowledge this-->
Bove and Dearborn acknowledge that their experiment may be under powered....
Yu and Feliz, anticipating push back about mixed methods, note the chi squared technique that they also retest with a correction for smaller sample sizes: Fisher's exact t-test . In the supplemental notes, the authors note an additional test, the Monte Carlo mathematetial approach, that is, a chi-squared test with a simulated p value.
Let's also look at language helpers from the Manchester University Academic Phrasebank and a few other places. Critique and counter argument for junior scientists is hard. Having some phrases to prime the pump can be helpful. Here, the pump is your brain. These sentence starters will help you think critically and write with some confidence.
Wikimedia Common, under Creative Commons license
Manchester University academic writing phrase bank. Look at all these sections:
I will post Friday's Writing Task on Tuesday morning. To prep for Wednesday, look at the stats or number logos that your authors use. Read about these tests. Wikipedia is a good start. Review your stats notes. You might search on the term in a resource called Stack Exchange. Here is a link to the statisics-search there.
Marybeth Shea
Hello Wednesday. We are halfway through the week. Keep in mind these tasks:
- Reply ASAP to Monday's ER Reviewing Task.
- Prepare for Friday's ER Writing Task.
- What Train will you take to end the class?
- Destination Atlanta, to conclude EARLIER in the finals period (with a week-long parking lot) OR
- Destination Boulder, to conclude LATER in the finals period (with a shorter parking lot).
Knitting up from Monday, regarding definitions. If you elect to write your definitions as elegant sentences within one or two paragraphs, you may. I suggest that you bold your terms, in this case. Why? Because skimming is enhanced by bolds. You are helping the expert, with-in field reader as well as the reader outside the field.
Now, on to significance a key idea from frequentist statistics, associated most closely with Ronald Fisher (hence, Fisherian statistics). Read this academically-toned but concise rant about the limits of significance testing by Deirdre McCloskey, a widely respected Chicago-school economist. Her brief definition+caution is accessible.
We can also visit briefly the ER Writing Task (Friday night's work) that asks you to begin your analysis work, which includes a brief paragraph where you comment on the stats or number-logos of the article. Does this help you? I will not grade you down for this stats paragraph. I want you to begin your technical journey with a sense of how these professional standards work in the field. Ask your mentors and pay attention in your labs or research groups for a sense of the stats work in YOUR FIELD.
What critical thinking and writing craft skills does this remind you off?-->
Marybeth Shea
Happy Friday. Do not forget your ER Writing Task due this evening, with the Sat. Am work around. For those in the midst of Passover and Orthodox Easter, email if you are trying to balance two many demands upon time.
See you here between 9-9:50 and 11-11:50
Keys to this week's visual metaphors:
- Priming the pump* means that if you read what others write in peer editing tasks, you will gain motivation and ability to write and rewrite your current work with assignment 3.
- Knitting gnomes leap over the chasms. Recall when I talked about old video game traps when the character leaps over to complete the level? Help your reader NOT fall into a knowledge gap. Use meta discourse and small definitions to help them through your three body points!
*pumping before water is available because the priming action initiates the vacuum and can lubricate the pump
OPTIONAL but fun visual knowledge for you-->
First, from Alsan, Clare & Pinsky, Malin & Ryan, Maureen & Souther, Sara & Terrell, Kimberly. (2014). Cultivating Creativity in Conservation Science. Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology. 28. 10.1111/cobi.12173.
Image to help us enter into the semester's end, from Authur Tansley (short science profile), British ecology pioneer and plant scientist. This piece includes a Peter Trenham cartoon about his three-part insight: 1) learn, 2) struggle, 3) and reflect. Tansley found this process essential to developing theory about ecology.
;)
Tansley (1935) coined ecosystem in his recognition of the integration of the biotic community and its abiotic or physical environment as a fundamental unit of ecology; Tansley further included scale, within a hierarchy of physical systems that range from atom to universe. Mb here: this is a main actor definition.
Mb still: you can nest biotic and abiotic within your body points.
- biotic, living elements of a system,
- abiotic, non living elements of a system,
Now this slide set of three anime images to communicate science complexity!
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.
Week 12: ABT continued, science of counting to fit cognitive bins
Hello. Happy partial eclipse day to us all.
Housekeeping:
- I am enjoying reading your coffee cup memos (35% turned in by today).
- Be sure (subject is understood: you; is command structure+direct address) to complete your ER Reviewing Task that is a brief reflection on the prewriting of others.
- We will have an ER Writing Task on this Friday (to be posted in ELMS calendar/your inbox later today) that asks you to
- write one or two ABT statements about your research article and reflect on possible beginnings.
- Cognitive wedge of your article analysis will include three items:
- an audience-friendly opening,
- ABT statement that captures the main message of the article, and
- comments on the professional ethos of the first author.
- Cognitive wedge of your article analysis will include three items:
- write one or two ABT statements about your research article and reflect on possible beginnings.
Back to Olson's ABT work of last week: this is a framing technique that helps you understand the primary reason that the article has exigence (deserves attention). When the writer understands the main message (think narrative), then, the writer can arrange, select content, use tools to support a reader within their writing. To sum what to do and why: Use the
- And, but, therefore pattern of narrative from Randy Olson
- Why? ABT structure helps you see the main message (overall take-away)and supporting evidence (three or four items you select from the paper).
Let's look at a Google document overview with many environmental ABT statements in environmental science (link to Google Presentation set).
Clipped here from your reading grid (get in there!):
TaDAH!, in (2015 NYT) Andrew Revkin’s words (channeling Randy Olson, Trey Parker, and Aristotle), now write these for each article: BEGIN QUOTE
______ and _____, but _____, therefore ______.
Every story can be reduced to this single structure. I can tell you the story of a little girl living on a farm in Kansas AND her life is boring, BUT one day a tornado sweeps her away to the land of Oz, THEREFORE she must undertake a journey to find her way home. Mb here:END QUOTE.
Now, let's shift to another critical analysis tool: how counting out for the reader respects "bin theory" from memory studies. Also in your readind grid is (in the right-hand column, page.2 of 4)
Recall the “power of three, four, or seven” of George Miller (1956) BUT also look at this 2012 Science Daily summary of “four is magical” ; bottom line?
Three or four, plus perhaps subclusters of related ideas for a total of seven is a good strategy for audience cognition and memory.
- what three points do you want to make in a personal statement?
- for a research statement, what three central, formative experiences do you want to describe (lab, research group, even extensive paper you wrote) for the admissions committee?
- In a long research paper, what seven or so main points do you want to place in the center of your paper? Hint: some research papers need about seven or so main points of description/summary exposition before you go into three or four primary findings to discuss before you conclude.
Marybeth Shea
Coffee cups turned in at 37%. Looks like I will have a big weekend upcoming of reading, thinking, reflecting, grading, commenting, etc. (Little craft lesson on parallel structure in sentence).
I do see that people are using well chosen referral links for readers and for the writer's need to punt or bunt and not have to explain everything. The books designed in a choose-your-own-adventure make me think of this useful technique. Look at how audience-friendly hypertext is for you to refer readers! However, many of you could improve the curation for the ethos angle (why this link?), platform alert (do not send to huge PDF; reader might be on device), and also a sense of datedness. Ethical duty here of supporting the reader.
New critical analysis skill (lemons and pears) grafted upon the cognitive wedge critical analysis idea. The beginning of the lemon and pear, reading from left to right, is like the point of the wedge. Help the reader enter into your document by
- hooking with a good beginning,
- establishing of research-article author ethos, and
- providing definitions/context to help reader see the fat portion of the document -- your three or four elaborated take-aways or points.
These three bullet points map to the job of the first three paragraphs of your one-article review (aka assignment 3). The ABT statement is the first paragraph for most writers of this document but can also be in the two other paragraphs. So, know that the ABT statement you are writing for Friday's ER Writing Task, can live in either of these three paragraphs. Also? ABT statements can be an effective way to wrap up your review and be part of the last paragraph. You are familiar with this technique from the five-paragraph essay also known as the extended constructed response (ECR). Here are ABT statements from previous classes that might help you (Google doc linked in earlier material but re-linked for your convenience.)
Let's look at the overall pattern for your one-article review in a celery-colored flow chart-->
Marybeth Shea
Morning, there, science writers.
Am available between 9-9:50 and 11-11:50. I have three short items of writing craft for you:
- words have more than one meaning (drafting in writing compared to drafting in cycling),
- the block quote is a design technique to showcase ethos of another's writing, and
- the formal punctuation with ABT statements that use fewer sentences.
For ABT statements, you have this pattern and variations -->
information piece 1 AND information piece 2 BUT information/inquiry/condition that creates cognitive tension; THEREFORE, the consequence of the situation you describe. one sentence with formal punctuation at the therefore
information piece 1. [AND] information piece 2. [BUT] information/inquiry/condition that creates cognitive tension. THEREFORE, the consequence of the situation you describe. Separate sentences with formal punctuation, where the connectors are understood, signified by brackets.
information piece 1 AND information piece 2 BUT information/inquiry/condition that creates cognitive tension THEREFORE the consequence of the situation you describe.
information piece 1 AND information piece 2 (can be one sentence or two, using period(s) as you wish). HOWEVER, information/inquiry/condition that creates cognitive tension;(substitute for HOWEVER). SO, the consequence of the situation you describe. one sentence with formal punctuation at the SO. (substitute for therefore).
But and so are less formal words. You may have been warned to never start a sentence with "but"; you can use 'however' if that feels better. This style rule is not an absolute.
However and therefore are more formal words. The more formal punctuation style on these two words look like-->
...when native bees seek pollen; HOWEVER, not all garden plants bloom early enough for these insects coming out of winter hibernation; THEREFORE, this study looks at ten typical garden plants to document average bloom times in spring.
This punctuation convention developed to handle complex information in long, complex sentences. Hence the semicolon to assist readers pause and consider the importance of the connector (however and therefore), followed by a comma to also pause for the reader to then consider the content in the complex sentence.
Over time, we become less formal with language and punctuation, even in formal science/technical writing. In the US, we might want to writer three sentences this way:
...when native bees seek pollen. HOWEVER, not all garden plants bloom early enough for these insects coming out of winter hibernation. THEREFORE, this study looks at ten typical garden plants to document average bloom times in spring.
We keep the commas after however and therefore as this is the convention. You may find, however, that many writers just leave them off. I recommend keeping the commas here. Why? Punctuation can slow a reader down to contemplate meaning. Essentially, you the writer signal this pause to emphasize importance. What does this look like without caps on however and therefore?-->
...when native bees seek pollen. However, not all garden plants bloom early enough for these insects coming out of winter hibernation. Therefore, this study looks at ten typical garden plants to document average bloom times in spring.
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Let's close with a block quote that will also define what drafting is for people on bikes. Yet, this is also a metaphor for your peer work in Eli Review. You can draft off each other in a cycling or aerodynamic way. In this short 2017 web article from Cycling Tips is this quote:
So how much energy can you save from drafting? Interestingly, there seems to be little consensus among researchers that have investigated this topic. Studies have shown drag reductions of between 27% and 50% for riders that are drafting, with the exact reduction depending on a number of variables — the size and on-the-bike position of the rider in front, likewise with the rider drafting, the distance from the wheel in front, the direction and strength of the wind, and more.
de Vroet, Matthew
----- Mb here: in ER we work our drafts (documents in process; which is a noun) and we also draft (assist each other in the exertion, which is a verb) in our writing community. Better together!
