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Oops, science is POWERFUL!
ENGL 390, 390H, and (sometimes) 398V Class Journal
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Week 3: stasis theory (five categories), complexity, and rain garden memo
Monday, again!
Here is a complex preview of Assignment 1: short definitional memo. Lots here but read as an overview. We will drill down into details all week.
Stasis 1: Conjecture What is a rain garden?
The structure and type of paragraphs you will write follow Aristotle's stasis theory in this short slide presentation (very much a system of analysis and action, like your scientific method steps):
- Stasis 2: Definition (what is a rain garden, briefly, by two functions)
- Stasis 2a: Classification (what type of technology is this? Hint: low impact development and storm water management)
- Stasis 2b: Description (Illustrative; give detail on the layers of soil and the type of plants)
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- include two examples; consider the ones on campus
- Where is stasis 3? TBD: hint -- practical causality
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- Where is Stasis 3 concerning causality? Is dispersed within form and function that is a cogntive frame that binds all of the memo together. TBD. Preview--how does the rain garden work?
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- Stasis 4: Evaluation (is this good or bad? Use Dr. Davis' research as you do not have authority to evaluate based on your expertise)
I would think you need about one source per these paras: classifying, illustrating, evaluating. We will discuss but:
- The first paragraphs will use thoughtfully curated links as hypertext citations sometimes called user-active annotations.; yet
- The last paragraph -- Evaluation paragraph that makes a claim using expertise as evidence with use (author, date) citation from APA guidelines. Include a works cited section in this memo, also.
Now, a COGNITIVE FRAME for this memo-->
Audience scenario for this memo: Here is Jane, our boss. She asked for the memo at the end of our last staff meeting (we are pretending, here). Hint: use your rhetorical triangle of Audience/Context/Purpose
irst up! What is a memo?
A memo is a genre or document type that readers+writers use for cognitive efficiencyBy the way, the OWL website at Purdue is a fabulous resource for writing. Memos also have a standard format: See the image to the left. Also, look at the email heading in your software. This electronic message is based on the memo format.
Bonus question: what is the difference, traditionally, between a memo and a letter?
Now, WRITING CRAFT mini lesson-->
Topic Sentences: A list of qualities for you to strive for
- Usually a short direct sentence (think announcement)
- Signals the topic in the paragraph (think preview)
- Hooks the reader by 1) raising a question or 2) provoking thought
- Can be placed anywhere, but early on in the paragraph is the best default strategy for most professional documents; in other words, at the beginning of the paragraph
- Contains an element of transition from the previous paragraph
Note: topic sentences can be implied in tightly coherent prose (for now, leave this subtle technique to the professionals!)
Content area: read online for about fifteen minutes about rain gardens, bioretention, low impact development. Note how different Google is now for searching. TBD more on Wednesday.
Visual about stasis theory from slide set linked above o linger on-->
Hierarchy of directional stasis theory steps
Linked under this clip is the Purdue OWL web exhibit on stasis theory. Worth a look at the trusted (high ethos) source that is a true community service to all writers and especially students.
Marybeth Shea
CRAFT LESSON TODAY: Models of topic sentences that helps you also see the arrangment pattern from stasis theory. Note: topic sentences can be implied in tightly coherent prose (for now, leave this subtle technique to the professionals!)
Let's look at examples of topic sentences useful in the rain garden memo (free for you to use!):
Rain gardens, or bioretention ponds, are a kind of low impact development. Low impact development....
Rain gardens have two components: layers of percolation material and carefully chosen plants.
Rain gardens protect the local environment by absorbing water run-off from impervious surfaces and by sequestering pollutants.
Dr. Allen Davis studies rain garden effectiveness. Davis, a civil engineering professor, has been studying bioretention for more than twenty years.
Let's also think about sentences generally. General advice to you? Write shorter sentences than those you are familiar with in literature and many of your textbooks.
Now, let's think about sentences in these short Google docs:
And, on to paragraphs (read these this week; fuller exploration next week. hint: sentences form paragraphs):
Paragraph Definition: think Architectures
Paragraphs with a Purpose: field guide to samples
More on stasis approaches (optional but I will show some of these in class):
Stasis and research (Owl Purdue, by colleague A.B.)
Stasis and dinosaur debate (abstract at ERIC)
My take on stasis with environmental scientists (you have seen this, on Monday).
Marybeth Shea
Engineer and author Janelle Shane uses CHATGPT to make "Candy Hearts"
By noon today, I will post to ELMS via mail and on the calendar, a link to your first Eli Review test Writing Prompt. Complete by Sunday noon; then, I will open a link to an Eli Review Review Prompt. You need to complete the Review Prompt by Monday at 11:45. We will talk about this prompt on Monday in class. If you have the gear, i.e. lap or desktop, you can complete the Review Prompt in class.
Content: Concerns rain garden content necessary for Assignment 1, the rain garden memo.
My goal/Your goal: Try out Eli Review in a low stakes set of two related tasks.
Why the Candy Hearts information? Well, tis Valentine's Day upcoming. See the linked web exhibit explainer just given. Seriously, I cannot tell if the original manufactorer is back or if the liscence was sold. However back to CHAGPT, this is a visual use of the generative AI. Questions for pondering:
- does humor help quell fear?
- did you laugh, which is a pathos experience, actually?
- did you know that generative AI has more uses than just for text and search engine presentation? (now, you do).
Did you review the one page sentence handouts of this week? Do so. Did you preview the linked paragraph ideas? Do so, especially the one-pager on architecture. Hint: this suggests that paragraphs have shapes and types, which they do. I want to also open the idea that paragraphs have jobs, too: Some jobs?
- compare/contrast
- define briefly (overview)
- categorize definitions (explication of definition complexity)
- illustrate (paint a picture)
- Evidence (supports a claim)
See you on Monday in the class meet link. More AI messages from another training session by Janelle Shane-->
Not for younger audiences, right? Who IS the audience for Candy Hearts anyway?
Week 2: class culture and some previews
Happy Monday! The Chiefs and the '9ers headed to the Superb Owls event. Puppy Bowl never disappoints.
Today, we will look at these resources, so that you are more confident about where we are going-->UPDATED LINKS 10:45 AM
- These two slide sets
- Set 2: Audience Analysis by Relationships (commentary on Set 1 frame we looked at last week)
- Set 3: Booth's two Triangles
- A visit to Eli Review (you DID watch the short video, right?) where I will show you selected pages from last semester. My goal here is to show you that in the Eli Review Writing Prompt, I gather and link the teaching resources you will need to complete that assignment. Strategic redundancy is an audience-friendly writing technique that you can imitate.
- What is a mentor text and why should you care?
- Think example. Students always request writing examples, especially exemplars.
- Look at the whole via the frame of audience-centered work. Then,
- Look at the writing craft choices that make this test work. Note them and imitate selected ones for your work.
- DO NOT COPY THE MENTOR TEXT WHOLE CLOTH.
- How many assignments this semester? Three assignments each with several required draft/peer revision iterations. Within these three assignment processes, we will learn
- cognitive and critical thinking frames, as well as
- meta discourse
- counting out
- strategic redundancy
- definition work before major content and within major content
- curated hypertext links
- cognitive wedge
- writing craft choices like
- voice
- paragraph sizing
- transitions between paragraphs
- topic sentence strategies
- colon v. semi colon
- AND MORE, including how to cite properly for each context. Hint: referral links are a type of semi-formation citation. I use links in this teaching platform, for your convenience to GIVE CREDIT. Pusheen is an example.
- cognitive and critical thinking frames, as well as
Knitting up from last week. Here is my favorite Science Pusheen just now. (Is a large image and you cick to see entirely WHEN you wish. FIXED on Friday,!Most on their phones will wait until a desktop moment.)
Kelly Stanford, Illustrator. Sometimes writing efforts, though good, are rejected! :(Previewing Wednesday? We will look at the five canons in this slide set from my website section "Visual Learning"--> "Slides."
TASK: we need a groupMe!
Mea culpa comment: we will look at the hobbled two search engines in the navigate bar and note that AI is changing search engines at lightning pace.
Marybeth Shea
Tis Wednesday!
We will loop back briefly to repeat some key critical thinking ideas from the slide sets. Triangles are your friends.
We will look at the five canons of Aristotle (optional link to short homeschooling web exhibit), combined with writing process models. This eight-slide set links to a Padlet, which I would like you to look at.
Pause: three short craft lessons in the two-sentence paragraph just above-->
curated links are reader friendly (hypertext is fabulous tool)
spelling numbers out that are single digits (one-through-nine; 10!)
hyphens can help clarify what is being modifiedeight-slide set
fast-sailing ship or fast sailing ship
Bonus! We will look together at a Google search about hyphenation and ships!
Bonus 2! We will look at my Google search widget on the SS class journal
Pause: one ethos question, which is a critical thinking frame; Why did Mb send us to a k-12 home schooling site?
Now, on to the cognitive wedge (also a triangle). That link takes you to a Google doc, with photo-jpgs from me to teach online. I used to draw cognitive wedges on white board and before that? Chalk boards, some green and others black. This idea, of the wedge, is mine. Should patent or copyright this. Hah.
Friday preview: Inquiry question for you. What do doll houses have to do with thinking through true crime complexity. Answer to be posted on Friday morning. Class is NOT mandatory but I do want you to read the post and think. Think. I will be at the class link for those who have questions. I can also start to work my way through the ADA letters. Make sure that you send those to me through the Support Office ASAP.
Now, history video for fun. What is the Cutty Sark (UK Greenwhich Museum) (and I do not mean whisky whiskey, which one is correct?). This short video has NO voice over but does use captioning. All videos can be thought of as a text, with this type really embodying that idea. Hint: closed captions help videos be more accessible.
Class recessional: Sound is on. At 53 seconds, a cutty sark reference is made. One of the best bass lines, ever, right?
Marybeth Shea
Happy Friday! I will be avaialbe for questions or even hello -->
- 9-9:50
- 11-11:50.
From Wednesday, am pulling forward this Padlet (educational web presentation tool) about writing process models. Preview below, which when clicked, takes you to the larger view. Padlets are best on laptop/desktops where the long horizonal access helps you see detail. One of the visuals should look familiar to you as a classroom chart from about grade two through high school. Indeed, the "splash" image shows a clip of that clasic wall chart. I want you to look at the models that show recursivity. Writing requres recusive work to write, check, think, share, to revise into a better document suited to audience context and purpose.
You do not need to click into the activities. You may, if you wish, think about them.
Now to the inquiry question: what do dollhouses have to do with crime solving. This Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) hosts this web exhibit about Frances Glessner Lee's "Nutshell" models. This Atlas Obscura article host many large images showing the level of detail in these crime scene recreations. Generally, her scale is 1/12, which is the standard for most dollhouses.
What is the Baltimore connection? The physical objects -- dioramas, room scenes, models, etc. -- are now housed in the Baltimore Medical Examiner Office. The public cannot typically visit though some tours are possible. Here is a Flickr set of of 40 photographs that some might enjoy. Here is one, where the question would be did she fall or was she pushed?
What is the point? I try to show visualization techniques, especially on Fridays. I hope you will enjoy, even though this one is a bit macabre.
For Monday? We will start thinking about memo one and the content area of rain gardens, a type of low impact development pioneered in Prince George's County and at the University of Maryland. As you walk around campus you could notice the many marked and even unmarked rain gardens we enjoy.
Crtical thinking? Perhaps the diaramas of death can help you think about the five canons of
- Invention building the scene by researching details
- Arrangement arranging objects according to the information that help detectives
- Style adapting 1/12 dollhouse techinquest (odd charm is created!)
- Memory TBD Monday briefly
- Delivery a nutshell of the act
Welcome to Spring 2024: Week 1 (Wed, Fri)
We will primarily use this platform as our class space. I will post entries as a combination of what to read and what we spoke about in class.
By Monday, January 29, this should be the primary place for us to engage. I will use ELMS for student email as well as the ELMS calendar to prompt you on assignments.
Ideas we will discuss this first week including:
- critical thinking frames
- writing craft skills and choices
- audience-centered writing
- strategic redundancy
- peer revision / drafting
- labor grading
Tools will we use include
- GoogleMeet, compared to Zoom
- Squarespace and this class journal
- Eli Review (you will buy a subscription that is about 20 dollars; Not until week 2)
- Padlet
More on Friday. Most Fridays, I offer a little lesson on science visualization. Enjoy this clip from Twitter->
Find her Science Pusheen series here. Hope this makes you happier. Did you find your field? Or one of the classes you are now taking represented here?
Marybeth Shea
Happy Friday. Ice cream at the Terp shop, anyone? I would.
Today, we demonstrate a few things about how the course works. But first, we loop back (this is a teaching/learning strategy) and
- pick up things not fully explored, as well as
- review things that are complex or important (strategic redundancy).
Counting out is a good way to remember things. Here, looping back has two critical thinking/remembering aspects. Why the characters from Dr. Suess?
New items for thought-->
We will look at some slides (MbS slides linked on SS (nickname for Squarespace)that pick up on the logos/ pathos/ethos rhetorical triangle from classical rhetoric. Go Aristotle! We will look these slides next week, too. Expect to learn about-->
- Audience/Context/Purpose (another triangle from Aristotle).
- Booth's integration of Logos/Pathos/Ethos and Audience/Context/Purpose triangles.
- Burke's use of dramatism in thinking about how to address a rhetorical situation (Shakespeare makes a brief appearance)
- The five canons -- not cannons -- of rhetoric.
- Stasis theory, or how to divide and conquor complexity.
Knitting up (another way to say looping back), let's chat -->
- Labor grading respects the time you must invest in reading. Reading makes good writing possible in so many ways. I give you a grade for doing this reading. Your effort and labor. matter to me.
- Document design is your friend for reading efficiency and recall of idease.
- This Class Journal is a mentor text for you to imitate and adapt for your uses.
Reading expectation for Monday: Please read this reading stratgies guide. The Google doc is layered, with links. Explore those links. You can skim this document due to document design as well as my teaching goal for most our reading: learn the special languages of thinking and writing. We DO NOT HAVE QUIZES to ensure that you reading. Instead, I assume you will read. And, i give you labor grades for the effort.
Week 15: sliding into the break (after some finals bumps!)
Good morning. Last day vibes, here. One part wistful and most parts grateful for all y'all.
Three resources you have seen before that I will look at for the most common lapses in the final submission-->
- Checklist (includes the celery-colored flow chart
- Reading grid (consult YOURS that you work with (you HAVE ONE, right?)
- That cognitive wedge (large baggy image from last week) that represents labor in thinking (both reading and writing)
Paragraphs that need work by many? These last paragraphs that we have been considered. Remember, there is no writing ever without rewriting.
- Closing paragraph
- You do not need a symphonic chord closure or magician's ta dah. Try
- Recommendation for further reads (curate link including to an abstract of research article is good)
- Use of your ABT statement even if you already used this set of AND/BUT/THEREFORE ideas earlier.
- Application, time to useful application, prediction, caution, policy note.
- You do not need a symphonic chord closure or magician's ta dah. Try
- Stats/logos of number paragraph (pick one)
- Use first person to show that this paragraph includes YOUR OBSERVATION, even if you also use the reflective prose of the researchers
- Use Manchester U Phrasebank for help with this sort of science critical thinking within prose
- General critical analysis of research paper (pick one)
Good news! CRISPR (Nature editorial, 11/23) approved for sickle cell therapy, in addition to a second FDA-approved option. Looks like cure or near cure is in the wings. Huzzah! May all who need this lifesaving, life changing, pain-ameliorating therapy have real access (costs now approach 1M). STEM is for human flourishing.
TONIGHT: ER Review Task DUE for both Atlanta and Boulder Trains.
People ask me about extra credit options. I have an idea and involves curated pictures (Google slides, natch) of what we talk about in class. Email me/needs to happen quickly.
Will hold digital office hours on Wednesday and Friday, 9-9:50 and 11-11:50.
May the rest of the month be low friction on the way down. And, stick the landing. Cheering for you.
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Week 14: one week left; critique; statistics/number logos critical thinking
Last week! Lions and tigers and bears, O my!
SKIM READING ONLY these complex topics linked (more on this in class).
Review/self-check: does your document look like a lemon? Does the reader slide off through your critique into a few, closely related conclusory ideas?
Does your document look more like a pear? Here, the reader moves through your critique into several caveats about conclusions, complexity about conclusions, policy context etc.
Hint: most people will rely on the lemon shape.
Now, onto the hardest analysis piece: evaluating the statistics used to vet the arguments made about data inference. Statistics overview in class this week. I urge you to talk about statistics/logos critical thinking with your science and math professors. To warm up, the ManU Phrasebank includes a "Describe quantities" section. Then, check out the "Reporting results" section, which will help your read your paper's use of statistics or number logos.
You will get better in the future about this critical thinking as you mature as a scientist: Promise! For example, in my field of ecology and environmental science, we are in a quiet riot over frequentist, mutivariate, and Bayesian statistics. This was 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 Wednesday, noting the type of statistics tool/logos of numbers (web exhibit with short definitions) used. Look these up in some way to have a working definition for yourself. Common tools or tests from student papers over the last 15 years include:
- p-values
- confidence intervals
- Student's t test (and corrections)
- analysis of variance (ANOVA); one-tail, two-tail
- power
- sample size
- type of study/limits -- observational study, case note, double-blind
I recommend using the link above to warm up your brain with a short working definition (remember this critical analysis tool from the rain garden memo?) and then go to Wikipedia or even a text book to read about your selected term(s) for more detail.
The pre-reading activity will help you enter into the complexity. Cognitive wedge is also your thinking friend.
I simply want you to know about this area within science articles, even if you do not understand now the statistics. You would not be alone among scientists, if you don't. I don't, in many cases. However, I want you to leave this class with an understanding of this important piece of critical thinking for your field.
One key idea I can wax on about, though, is cautions about the (very limited) definition of significance testing and p-values. For fun, enjoy this comic.
More generally, your critical analysis can comment on findings, your ideas or your close reading the author critique. The ManU phrasebank is really helpful. Here are a few selections that I copy/paste here for you. From the "Being critical" section, see these categories-->
Introducing problems and limitations: theory or argument
Introducing problems and limitations: method or practice
Using evaluative adjectives to comment on research
Introducing general criticism
Introducing the critical stance of particular writers
Practical note on dividing your critique: use separate paragraphs for specific discussion on stats/logos of numbers vetting from your more general critique. For this class, you can pick one limiation to comment on, even though in real life, you would look at more than one weakness. In someways, to focus on one represents a short presentation at a conference. In a seminar setting, you would present more than one weakness. Again, the ManU Phrasebank is so helpful. From "Discussing findings"-->
Advising cautious interpretation of the findings
Another source of uncertainty is …
A note of caution is due here since …
These findings may be somewhat limited by …
These findings cannot be extrapolated to all patients.
These data must be interpreted with caution because …
It could be argued that the positive results were due to …
These results therefore need to be interpreted with caution.
In observational studies, there is a potential for bias from …
It is important to bear in mind the possible bias in these responses.
Although exclusion of X did not …, these results should be interpreted with caution.
However, with a small sample size, caution must be applied, as the findings might not be …
| It is possible that these results | are due to … are limited to … do not represent … have been confounded by … were influenced by the lack of … may underestimate the role of … are biased, given the self-reported nature of … may not be reproducible on a wide scale across … |
Marybeth Shea
Hello to Wednesday. About the statistics thinking we consider, please know that I want to introduce ideas to you that you can consider and refine over the next ten years. One goal is for you to know that even statistics is a place of complex knowledge and procedures that relies on human, expert judgement. Here is a good web article about p-values from Editage. The article is arranged in a list of six points to think critically about this statistical test, the wise application, and how to interpret what p-values mean. This interpretation includes the limits of p-value thinking. Here is my preview definition of the ideas in this piece (cognitive wedge!).
- Using a p-value test can mean that your data set does not fit the related statistical model; this means that the poor values might me you picked the wrong test for your study design. Fix? Consult a statistician in the design phase.
- (I would place this key definition FIRST.) P-values do not measure the probability that the studied hypothesis is true (though thinking this is helpful), or the probability that the data were produced by random chance alone. Instead, p-values really look at the null hypothesis utility. In class, we will talk a bit about scale of vision. At high altitude, we can think of p-values and this testing in this way. However, technically, we have the step of accepting or rejecting the null hypothesis.
- Human judgement matters more than p-values. P-values are part of an exacting critical analysis. Scientific conclusions, by researches and readers, as well as business and/or policy decisions should not be based solely on desired aka low p-values.
- Ethics matter! Proper, robust, and intellectually responsive inference-making requires full reporting and transparency. P-hacking manages to slip through because researchers are not fully honest in their full data set choices and the timing of those choices.
- Statistics help us make meaning. Meaningfulness is not assured by significance testing. A p-value rooted in significance testing does not signal or confirm the importance of a result. Related: a p-value does not measure the size of an effect (For the implications of this huge limitation,see No. 6-->).
- By itself, a p-value does not adequately nor responsibly measure evidence quality; likewise, a p-value can not confirm the intellectual integrity of a study design, supporting model/theory or even the research hypothesis.
Let's talk about power. Many of us look at sample size and conclude the robustness of a finding based in part onn a larger sample size. What is large any way? Depends on research context and even a discipline. You want to ask in the future after you look at sample size this question. How does power work here? Did the researchers even report this important statistical quality? Retuning to Editage, this short piece on statistical power (three minute YouTube explainer by a biostatistian) will help you.
Bottom line: I want you to think about these ideas. Write in the way that you can. I will NOT assess the content for you. Hint: if you plan to use this piece as a writing sample for grad school, either take the stats analysis paragraph out or consult with a mentor in your field.
Train Atlanta? Train Birmingham? Check your ELMS calendar and make your choice. As in a real train, you cannot change trains while in transit.
Marybeth Shea
Happy Friday. I hope you have a change to walk about or bike about (my fave transport) and even drive to see holiday lights. Diwali, Hanukah, and Christmas all share the use of lights to help us (Northern Hemisphere) as the days grow short and nights grow long. Midwinter on the December Solstice (night of Dec 20/sliding into Dec. 21) is the low point of the distribution and then we pivot and climb back out of the darkness toward longer days.
Did you see what I did there? I introduced a data/math assessment of December light+dark volumns. Hah! So did Dan Bridges, software developer. Enjoy his slider visualization and this just-linked Fred Marlton about how sliders work. Both short web exhibits include code so that you can see their wizardry and perhaps adapt for your uses.
--
Come visit today if you wonder about how to do your stats/logos of numbers paragraph and your more general analysis paragraph(s).
- 9-9-50
- 11-11:50
I have a rough short google doc explainer with some phrases concerning ANOVA use. Thanks to JS, for this request. I am happy to make more and share here as well as send to the requesting student. At the end of this explainer, I link to these places that might help some students in this work-->
How to Report Two-Way ANOVA Results (With Examples)
How to Report t-Test Results (With Examples)
How to Report Chi-Square Results (With Examples)
How to Report Pearson’s Correlation (With Examples)
How to Report Regression Results (With Examples)
The source of these above links is Statology, a consulting group that shares knowledge as way to build cllient relationships with people needing stats support. Note: the language here reflects how a researcher can write about their use of tests as they report results, draw inferences, and defend their conclusions in an article. You can use this writing as mentor sentences and phrases for how you can comment using their writing. Use first person voice to make clear when you are speaking, even if you invoke your researchers. Then, you can shift to third person.
OWL is also helpful for you as you read about statistics and write about this important aspect of science research reporting.
- WRITING WITH STATISTICS
- Quick Tips On Writing with Statistics
- Descriptive Statistics
- Writing with Descriptive Statistics
- Basic Inferential Statistics: Theory and Application
- Writing with Inferential Statistics
- Statistics and Visuals
- Key Terms
More on p-values at Khan Academy. Here is one- (7-minutes video plus time-divided guide)->
DO NOT FORGET THE ASSIGNMENTS TONIGHT FOR BOTH TRAIN Atlanta and TRAIN Boulder! You have ER Writing Task links in your ELMS calendar and in a class email to all of you, within ELMS.