MbShea@PWP@English@UMCP

Today we continue thinking about coffee cups.  Your first memo defined a concept for your boss.  Now, she wants a problem-solution memo about the type of coffee cup we use in our firm. 

Let's start by reading this article from Seattle:  Coffee Cup Recycling Brims with Obstacles.

Jane wants a coffee cup policy for the office that is "green."  OK, that is the context for your invention (deliberate research, with attention to complexity and credibility of information).  Here is an arrangement (paragraphs):

POLITE OPENING, with your recommendation that previews your final policy paragraph (BLUF of the POLICY STASIS)

CONJECTURE PARAGRAPH (S) with whiffs/previews of fuller causal-effect analysis (in this way, we are also using cognitive wedge strategy)

Problem description (our office situation, with quantifiers)

Environmental problems (energy efficiency ->climate change OR persistence of plastic in ocean -> food chain disruption), then, reveal your pre-analytical bias of which problem you weight more.

DEFINITION-->CAUSE/EFFECT information 

Coffee cup types (how many?  Can we do this in one paragraph or do we need one per coffee cup type? Use counting technique of two or three)

Decision criteria method (HINT:  Life cycle analysis, and define this; use an EPA source) HERE, this definition helps us move to the VALUE paragraphs

VALUE (help identify harms and benefits -- you can leave out the cost of economics of paper v. plastic)

Martin Hocking's work on life cycle analysis of paper v. styrofoam 

Charles Moore's work on size of ocean garbage patches

POLICY/ RECOMMENDATION

Science/Research support (remind about evidence discussed above in VALUING PARAGRAPHS)

Qualification (concede reasonableness of the other position)

Concrete examples (2)

Sentences that can help you as topic sentences or transition sentences (or short paragraphs) between (longer) paragraphs

Any analysis of coffee cup choice requires use of life cycle analysis.

Life cycle analysis -- also known as cradle-to-grave -- helps capture the entire environmental effect from origen and imputs through use and, importantly, to disposal.

In my analysis, I weight [name environmental problem] more heavily than [the other problem].

Life cycle analysis can help us analyze this difficult question about coffee cup sustainability

We have two choices in coffee cups: paper or plastic (styrofoam).

Martin Hocking conducted the first -- and to date only -- peer-reviewed analysis of the energy embodied in coffee cup choices.

Charles Moore is among the first to alert us to the huge problem of persistent ocean plastic.

....more on Friday. Whew.  This.is.hard!  Can you draft some short paragraphs?  Peer review on Friday, October 7.  Final version due on Monday, October 10.

This memo is really a short recommendation report.  Here are a few techniques and definitions will use, in addition the sentence and paragraph elements:

• preview of memo contents
• BLUF or bottom line up front in key paragraphs
• meta discourse
• revealing of bias
  • weighting of environmental problem (choose climate change or ocean plastic and recyclying/landfill problem aka solid waste disposal)
• revealing of method (use life cycle assessment/analysis)
• definitions:
  • embodied energy
  • fate
  • recycling limits of paper and plastic
  • landfill problems
  • "escape" into watershed and oceans
  • microplastic formation
  • sustainability footprints (carbon footprint/plastic residue)

Did you find Martin Hocking's work?  What about Charles Moore?

Let's think about all the tools we now hold, to improve clarity for the reader.  By the way, science journal editors/reviewers think about these tools also.  Here is one.  Consider this writing guide (long PDF) from the Centers for Disease Control.  

Off all the tools we have to date, nominalization awareness is the most difficult.  Yet, sensitivity to this language can help you improve technical communication.  Here is a document (from UVA)  that connects nominalizations to active/passive voice.

Researchers do care about nominalizations and how they arise in language use.  Skim this analysis.  Many of the nominalization samples are in bold. However, you likely do not want to study nominalizations.  You simply want to build better sentences.  See this OWL Purdue exhibit that includes a handy reference table. You can also take the sentence clarity quizzes at the end of this web exhibit.

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Up next:  a problem-solution memo for Jane. Which disposable hot beverage cup choice is more sustainable?  Hint: think about the linked problems of energy/resource inputs and the disposal or "sink" problem. Think: depletion and pollution.  Here is what UMD professor emeritus Herman Daly says:

Did you rework some nominializations?  Here we go:

• Checklist!
• Topic sentences/transitions sentences 
  • S-V early, let detail trail
  • S-V together (the Lego Principle; something fun here, approaching the zombie approach)
  • NO ITs in the document, period. Why?  Practicing clarity with pronoun references.
• No there is/there are AND its is the subject position.  Empty subject guide here.
• Discussion guide in class here, for some samples/elements of rain garden revision.
• Signal phrasing to make clear what information in a paragraph comes from the author-date parenthetical citation. Do not ASSUME that a parenthetical cite at the end of the paragraph covers the entire paragraph.  Read this.
  • According to the Biorention Manual of Prince George's county.....
  • The "bible" of rain garden design is the Bioretention Manual (Prince George's Country, MD). This guide from Fairfax County, VA is a short summary of that work.....According to this summary....
  • Signal phrasing can also be accomplished by the ethos presentation of Davis in the beginning of the evaluation/research reporting paragraph.

We will pick up the handouts from the last post.  I did introduct the technique of using active voice in the "Buffy" handout. We also looked at keeping subjects-verbs together and placing them early one.

Here is a good discussion on these ideas including active voice 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.

Principle 1 is new to you.  This focus concerns nominalizations.  Read this New York Times article, which calls nominazations "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 -- is a series about the art and craft of writing. 

https://youtu.be/dNlkHtMgcPQ

Now, go back and read the first part of the Duke exhibit.  More zombie-motif ways to learn:  active v. passive

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Another video take, sans voice over.  Which do you prefer?

In the second video, the inventor of this tool is named.  I love that!

And, this.  

Where is my source? What do you think of hypertext as a source?