MbShea@PWP@English@UMCP

Hello there. (Wrapping up grading/reflecting on the coffee cup memos.  Thank you!).  I want to reflect quickly on a teaching approach that you can use at work and your personal future.  Do not use a deficit model.  Google's AI (cringing a bit about doing this) says (11/4/24):

The deficit model in education is a theory that students' academic performance is due to their own internal deficiencies, rather than the school's structure or other factors. The model assumes that students lack skills, knowledge, or experience, and that the teacher's role is to provide the missing knowledge. 

 

The deficit model can lead to teachers assuming that students are lazy, unmotivated, or underprepared. It can also lead to low expectations for students, and students may not be set up for real-world success. 

 

A more inclusive approach is the asset model, also known as the strengths-based approach. This model focuses on what students already know and their strengths, and can help students feel a sense of belonging and be motivated to succeed. 

Spitballing on the CAIN seven openings:

1. Tell a short story/be visual and clear about characters and actions.
   1. Case that is real (patient)
   2. Composite case that you reveal as not real but highly plausible
   3. Use a widely know lit/media event
2. Use a current event.
   1. Professional meeting
   2. Political event
   3. Cultural event/phenom
3. Capture the size of the problem (very large but sometimes very small works too).
   1. Rate of illness in a population (like diabetes or COVID infection numbers)
   2. Number of Goldilocks planets
   3. Depth of sea flow and number of heat vents
   4. Estimates of insects globally
   5. Financial cost of cod fishery collapse.
4. Open with huge social problem, perhaps a wicked problem.
   1. Can geo-engineering address carbon capture in practical, short-term ways?
   2. Drones may play a role in distributing vaccines in remote areas.
5. Use a smaller question to open a document.
   1. Does ultra high resolution mammography improve the problem of false positives in breast cancer diagnosis?
   2. Can Josh Silver's 2009 TED talk on spectacles be scaled in Amazonia?
6. Quote a respected thinking, related to your problem/research question.
   1. Pick someone you admire.  I suggest looking at Nobel Prize speeches but also the annual cohorts of MacArthur genius winners.
      1. “The power of a theory is exactly proportional to the diversity of situations it can explain.”
         ― Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action.
      2. ‘As birds form flocks and ants carry food to nests using bottom-up principles of communication and collective action, people can solve their own problems.’
      – Ruth DeFries, 2020. What Would Nature Do?
7. Use statistics (related to number 3).
   1. Protein folding operations are very small and very fast. For example,  very small single-domain proteins ( up to a hundred amino acids) typically fold in one  step. 
   2. Time scales for protein folding are typically at the millisecond level. Indeed, the very fastest known protein folding reactions conclude with one to five microseconds.

How does this help you write paragraphs now?  Try writing am opening paragraph using two of these strategies -- all the while honoring the cognitive wedge. Now, try using those strategies -- with some of the excitement (pathos) about why the article is important -- to close your document.  You can revise later but let's get in there and play ball!

Next paragraph that is very easy to work in concerns establishing the ethos of your first (and perhaps last) author.  Huzzah, we can do this (did with Davis and with either Moore or Hocking). In an author-ethos paragraph (within the first three paragraphs/on the ramp of the cognitive wedge),

• give expertise/specialization and 
• both the PhD/MD or other degree-granting institution AND the current institutional affiliation.

Caution: Do not focus overmuch on undergraduate study.  Note:  PhD are earned, rather than obtained. Sample-->

Kaspari earned a PhD in pharmacognition from the University of Illinois.  He leads an interdisciplinary team at Wexler Institute of Plant Based Technology, which is part of the University of California at Berkeley Plant Science Department.

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.

Tonight PLEASE complete your ER REVIEWING TASK. Help each other move the knowledge and document forward. Be afraid. Very afraid. Comply!

Chilly Monday.  Halloween is Thursday.  Will start grading your coffee cup memos today.  Been reading them, with such pleasure as I prep my responding outline.  

I will post a this week's ER WRITING TASK early Tuesday AM: to ELMS mail and to your ELMS calendar.  You cannot complete this task without having an article.  You MUST HAVE AN ARTICLE NOW (from ealier: copy/download to track your reading)! These shapes guide our work. Can you see the cognitive wedge at the stem end of each fruit?  

What is a research article, anyway?  We will work through this 39 slide Google Presentation.  I am reposting some material from earlier that I provided for context.  I urge you to skim read these links.  You will gain some knowledge that will help you in other classes, in laboratory settings, and your professional future.

Getting clear on technical, scientific prose (in contrast to literature): Let's look at this recent article in PloS One about writing scientific prose (ten step format). Here is a PloS follow-up about writing your first research article. 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.

Writing resources are also reading resources! Here is the open acess "bible" of writing (and reading) scientific prose:  Mayfield Guide. Now, let's look/review at the basic parts of the IMRAD article using this guide. BTW, this book is hosted by MIT.  I follow the MIT ethical practice of teaching openly, so that knowledge is available to all and not just tuition paying students.

As given earlier, a flow-diagram to help you. Open in a new link. Save in a draft document! The lemon and pear document shapes appear here, too.

Happy Monday.  Here is a novel concept for the coffee cup problem by Sardi Design for an Italian coffee company, Lavazza. Is this for real or just an idea meant to shake up our thinking a bit?

Tonight, you have an ER REVIEWING TASK due. A few of you have a Google doc work around to use.  Please be on time for each other.  I will open a parking lot for the to-be-graded coffee cup memo likely early Tuesday AM. You will have a week, as per practice for the rain garden memo.  Be on time for each other.  Take the week for yourself as needed to turn in the memo for a grade. Make sense?

TLDR for next topic: Use the Oxford comma.  Just do it!  Here is explication of this writing craft punctuation choice, with examples-->

To my parents, Ayn Rand and God.

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

To my parents, Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart.

In a newspaper account of a documentary about Merle Haggard:

Among those interviewed were his two ex-wives, Kris Kristofferson (died last month) and Robert Duvall.

These two preceding examples are from Theresa Hayden, helpfully in a Wikipedia entry. Here is another doosie (courtesy Hayden) 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. Let's look at the Sweet Betsy from Pike (ballad history web exhibt) way to think about the Oxford comma and other options (standard way to teach this in the 60s, 70s; likely regional, as in US west, like Montana).*

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. Caution: F-bomb in the chorus.

*Mb comments in slight rant about imperfection of Wikipedia as the all-perfect knowledge-pollooza. 

Now, you need short research article for the next assignment!  ASAP. We will speak in class about what works.  Tips:

• topic you care about personally (delight-directed, personal motivation)
• from a class you are taking now (practical, study/write = knowledge uptake)
• from a lab/PI/post doc you know (participate in lab culture; ask researcher)
• from previous position or class (you already know material)
• as part of personal research (for senior thesis, etc.)
• to prep for interviews (grad school; medical school)
  • Care to adopt this "shaman" article? First come/first served.

Good morning, fine Terp-Sci Wri students.

DUE TONIGHT!  Monday's ER REVIEWING TASK.  Help each other out by being on time for each other.  Friday's ER WRITING TASK is draft 3 of the memo.  Next week? Parking lot opens for my grading of the memo.  Then, we move on to the last assignment: One-article close review.  Preview by flow chart linked here, in our celery green color now familar to you.

Let's have a lesson on writing craft that is a sub-category: document design. Document design covers a range of sub-sub topics but here, our focus is on formatting the words upon the page into "chunks" that are governed by styles guides, including MLA and APA. Here is block quote (PARA 5, the LCA paragraph) from my dissertation-->

In Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, ecologist Robin Wall Kimmerer notes:

Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.  Kimmerer (2015)

-------

At the end of the document, here is what is my very last citation in my 300+ bibliography-->

Kimmerer, R. W. (2015). Braiding sweetgrass. Milkweed Editions.

Note, this is too short for a hanging indent. Always be learning. Here is what one looks like for a longer paper by RWK. Recall that the hanging indent in a long bibliography helps a reader find a desired citation because the last name sits out in a "panhandle."  (I did a screen shot of this reference below, using large font to focus on the "shape" of the hanging indent.)

Now, here is a visual metaphor to remember the look of a hanging indent. 

(Think: Oklahoma!).

How to do these indents? In Scribbr, this short article will help you in both MS Word and in Google Docs.

Shall we focus on some additional details within the coffee cup memo?

1. Common knowledge is still a topic of uncertainty for many of you. Hint: common knowledge determination is hard and varies by audience/context/purpose. This Scribbr short article will help you. 
   1. PARA 4: At the level of detail in this writing scenario (short recommendation report in memo for work), you do
      1. NOT have to use formal references for the mention of climate change problem scope (IPCC is your most authoritative reference, not paywalled, and is perfect for the referral link, CURATED, naturally.) OR the mention of the ocean/aquatic plastic problem emerging documentation (Algalita Foundation or Charles Moore Research Institute are authoritative, not paywalled, and are perfect for the referral link.).
      2. NEED to reference formally the Moore peer reviewed article or the Hocking peer reviewed article in your evaluation paragraph. 
   2. Please note, that referral links give you the opportunity to "cover your behind" (CYA) about plagiarism concerns.  So, you should be psychologically comforted by this informal reference technique.
2. Acknowledging the other frame/green cup in the recommendation at the end of the memo.  You can do this in a number of ways, beginning with the sample sentences I have given you.  Another way to manage this is to use referral links to unpaywalled sources about the other problem and the research.  For example, you could
   1. TEAM STYRO: Send the reader to a Moore open access link.  Build Moore's reputation by a brief sentence about their ethos.  OR
   2. TEAM PAPER: Send the reader to a Hocking open access link (harder). Build Hocking's reputation by a brief sentence about their ethos.
   3. OPTION:  you could remind about incommensurality, defined in Week 6.
   4. OPTION: you could note that social behavior is at the heart of this problem because people pretty much know that a re-usuable option (after using many times to outweigh the energy and pollution associated with glass, ceramic, and metal production).
3. Confusion about where definition stops and analysis begins: Roughly, PARA 5, the LCA paragraph is the pivot point from description that is necessary to set up the problem resolution.

 Now, topical reflection on how logos, pathos, and ethos overlap in a real example (20 second YourTube clis)-->