MbShea@PWP@English@UMCP

on a complex subject.  We will talk about how using stasis approaches, primarily CONJECTURE and DEFINITION, with touches of CAUSE/EFFECT and a bit larger focus on VALUE.  We will not make a policy proposal.

We will also use the Given-New approach, to organize the memo with a cognitive wedge shape.  One source on this is 

Kent, Thomas L. "Paragraph Production and the Given-New Contract." The Journal of Business Communication 21.4 (1984): 45-66. 

Some details to consider (but the richness of today is in class discussion):

• Opening paragraph presents the conjecture problem:  urban storm water run off poses two environmental problems, excess water (flooding, erosion), and pollution carried/deposited in the storm water, with serious watershed and down stream implications. NO SOURCE NEEDED as the is COMMON KNOWLEDGE; then, one sentence definition of rain gardens (bioretention mention) as an environmental management technique that addresses these two linked problems (TRANSITION INTO)
• Rain garden classification paragraph: "locates" rain gardens/bioremediation as a low impact development technique, a kind of sustainable environmental management approach.  Offer some details and history (L.C. and P.G. County).  SOURCE NEEDED! and this is not common knowledge.
• Rain garden illustration paragraph (additional detail about form and function; layers and plants, to remediate linked problems of run off and pollution); NOTE: this is one of your longer paragraphs, which needs a SOURCE.
• Are rain gardens good or bad?  Use Davis's work to evaluate in a summary paragraph.  SOURCE NEEDED.

How about some topic sentences to use in your memo? Note:  topic sentences can be implied in tightly coherent prose (for now, leave this subtle technique to the professionals!)

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. 

Note:  the Low Impact Development Center website is an authoritative site, which you can use as cited source.

Preview of Monday:  two local examples to include as links, but curated. Which paragraph would you want to place these two items?  What "fits" but also what about the shape I am asking you to use?  Recall: Cognitive wedge of given-new approach. We want the thin edge to enter the reader's brain first.  Less painful. More effective.

Finally, two lessons on conventions and spelling: a lot v. alot

 I give you Hyperbole and a Half's take on this.

Now, the Oxford Comma.  Use it.  Why?  This punctuation convention fits with the precision and accuracy needs of science communication.  To remember this, consider that Vampire Weekend says (sings): (CAUTION: DIRTY WORD ALERT)

Here we go with our first assignment:  DUE IN DRAFT ON WEDNESDAY, one week from today, February 11, for peer review and consultation. Final copy, due in hard copy on FRIDAY, February 13th.

At work, you need to write a brief memo (a type of document or genre, with a specific arrangement) about what a rain garden is. We will discuss the audience, context, and purpose for this writing assigment in class.

Here is a structure -- what Aristotle would call arrangement -- for your memo, where each indented item represents a paragraph:

Introduce rain gardens very briefly, based on conjecture, the first stasis

Define rain gardens (definition paragraph, the second stasis)

Categorize rain gardens as a kind of low impact development (categorizing paragraph, which is an act of expanded definition)

Document the effectiveness of rain gardens (logos-proof paragraph with ethos of citation authority; this action is a type of valuing act -- the fourth stasis)

Illustrate what a rain garden looks like and how this garden works. (More on this Friday, after you have read about them.  Here, the description is, again, part of an extended definition act, yet requires information from the third stasis -- cause and effect.

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Source documents for you, which is an act of invention, a kind of audience-context-purpose driven research.

EPA Case study

UMD Davis, et al study

You can also use a Google-as-expert approach, as well as look at the Wikipedia entry. Next, try the UMD website, as well as search (back to Google) on "Prince George's County" with the term "rain garden."  

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For Friday and next week, we need to think about sentences.  

Sentences: Let's look at these handouts.
Sentence patterns: basic
Lean Predicates (the Buffy handout)

In addition to the "proofs" of logos, pathos, ehtis, classical rhetoric gives us also five "canons" nicely summarized here.

What is the bottom line in all these terms, elements, factors, -- indeed -- variables in rhetorical analysis?

AUDIENCE! Let's look at some ways to think about audience in these approaches.

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Good summary of 12-year study on MMR and MMR-V vaccine safety.

Another informative, lay-audience pitched science new site is IFLS.

Did you see logos, pathos, and ethos in The Atlantic piece?  Start using logos, pathos, and ethos approaches to analyze what you read.

Now, to stasis theory (a close companion to the scientific method).  The version I am using comes primarily from Fahnestock and Secor.* You can read this use of stasis theory in the sciences. I am a co-author. Does stasis theory matter?  Yes.  Here are a couple of examples:

• In museum studies.
• For those of you who care about dinosaurs, here is more about stasis theory used to analyze arguments about dinosaurs (remember the bird/not-a-bird days?).
• In business analysis (behind a paywall now) but here is the cite:
  • “Stasis Theory as a Strategy for Workplace Teaming and Decision Making.” Journal of Technical Writing and Communication 38.4 (2008): 363-385. Nominated for the 2009 NCTE Scientific and Technical Communication Award. Single author. Peer-reviewed publication.

The five questions of stasis theory can be visualised by "binning" -- an idea that is used in cognition studies and in linguistics. 

1. First stasis: what is going on?  Do we have a problem?  
2. Second stasis: what do we need to know by definitions and descriptions to understand our conjecture in the first stasis.
3. Third stasis: what causes do we see? What are the relationships?  Do we have theory or practical causality to help understand what drivers of action or condition we describe in the first stasis of conjecture and the second stasis of definitions/descriptions?
4. Fourth stasis: what is good and what is bad?  Can we evaluate for harm, for benefit, for neutrality, for not knowing if we can see harm or benefit? Hint:  think eVALUATION action.
5. Fifth stasis: Given what we now know, from working through the stases questions, with particular attention to the determination of harm, benefit, or lack of knowledge, what ought we do now?

• vaccines and Disney case of measles outbreak
• diabetes management and diagnosis diagnosis (likely for Monday).

*Fahnestock, Jeanne, and Marie Secor. “The Staseis in Scientific and Literary Argument.” Written Communication. (October 1988): 427–43.

What stasis or stases can you see in this bit of visual science communication? Who is the audience for this? What is the context?  Purpose?

Chilly out.  Are you on Facebook?  Terpweather and Capital Weather Gang are my go-to places for local weather information. 

A round up of science news sources on the web:

• Science Daily
• Real Clear Science
• Physics.org

Logos/Pathos/Ethos

Start by skimming this Atlantic article (can you see the claim, the support, and the analysis?): subject Joy!

TAKE-AWAYS:  for today, get a feel for logos/pathos/ethos within science and social contexts; consider genre/document type and publication platforms.  For Friday, prepare for introduction to stasis theory.

PEDAGOGY NOTE: I want you to quickly get a feel for our rhetorical vocabulary and the language of composition.  Why?  This is how we analyze thinking and writing, of other and of ourselves.  We also, with this class posting will talk about reading.  Yes, reading.  You have been formed largely with reading in response to literature.  We need to read differently, for non fiction writing, for learning, and for professional contexts.  See this brief overview at OWL Purdue.