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Oops, science is POWERFUL!
ENGL 390, 390H, and (sometimes) 398V Class Journal
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Week 3 Day 1 Knitting up from last week; preview of memo assignment
Looping/strategic reduncy:
- What is a text?
- Reading strategies, including in a podcast or YouTube video
- Mb's visual strategies of triangles and circles to review/learn special language of rhetoric (basic field concerning
- how to think
- how to analyze information
- how to communicate, including writing.
- how to analyze information
- how to think
Nuts and bolts advice on overall writing strategies from Weeks 1 and 2 summarized in this Google Doc, in table format. Thinking task for Wednesday: Do you see overlap between the "lists" showcased in this document? Related thinking task: Is a table in a document a visual?
Overall writing strategies sometimes reveal specific writing craft lessons. By now, you should be pretty clear about how to recognize passive v. active voice in a text and begin to see why and when you can choose to write in active voice more often than you do. One "gain" in using active voice is that the sentences crafted thusly are often shorter. Shorter sentences is one way to achieve concision in your writing. Concision is a hallmark of strong, audience-centered writing.
Let's look at sentence-level writing craft options in these short Google doc handouts (new to you):
And, on to paragraphs (short MS Word handouts) that we will take up starting Wednesday.
Paragraph Types/Definitions: think Architectures
Paragraph Types by purpose, from the field as in real paragraph (longer doc)
Preview: we will learn about memos* also on Wednesday.
in professional settings memos tend to be of three types:
- tasking memo
- informational memo
- short report memo, with proposal or recommendation type being the most common
Documents tend to have one of three jobs (how/what to DO, what to KNOW, what to DO that is BIG) with some overlap. Review these slides to think about these types fo documents.
Final housekeeping details, from last week:
- Why the Siamese cat video? (Why not! Many of you posted cat pix.)
- What kind of cat co-authored the serious physics paper?
- Fridays will including some comic relief to close out the week and start the weekend.
- Of course, we acknowledge religious observances upcoming!
- Do not buy Eli Review yet but if you want you can check out the student-centered videso on their website.
*Our first two assignments will take the form of memos. The first one will be a short infromational memo. The second will be a short recommendation report/memo.
Marybeth Shea
Wednesday and on with the sentence analysis work. I will revisit the links of Monday that focus on sentences with additional examples that are more science focused with these resources-->
- Duke University web exhibit on passive voice in science/scientific writing
- My short Google slide set on active v passive (used in consultation with fully-baked scientists)
- Web exhibit from Nature's Scitable pages (good resource) on past, present, and future tense
Preview of Friday is that I will present the attributes of the first memo assignment that we write together in drafts over about three week. Basically, we write the same memo, with the content being rain gardens, bioretention, and low impact development.
Please look at this two-slide resource that prevents stasis theory, which is is a powerful rhetorical frame for dissecting complexity to both understand and communicate about a topic. Focus on this part of the visual for now-->
Notes to connect today to Monday:
- Verbs are key to understanding tense about time/power of short, well-chosen verb (avoid long verby strings)
- Choosing present tense when information continues across time is a powerful way to signal disciplinary knowledge
- The theory of evolution is (not vvolution was) + Buffy wears garlic necklaces (not wore)
- Look for these writing craft choices in your research articles and science texts (mentor text while you learn!)
Marybeth Shea
Happy Friday. We are heading into hoodie and sweater weather! I welcome these days and I expect many of you do, too. Next week we will look at the attributes of paragraphs (check out the two handouts posted earlier this week. The longer document includes examples of paragraphs that havea "job" or role in the larger document. 
We will consider topic sentences that open paragraphs and announce the key content.We will also look at the transition sentence position at the end of paragraphs. Transitions can help acheive flow for readers. Now, to the theory I briefly introduced on Wednesday.
Stasis theory and the rain garden memo
The structure and type of paragraphs you will write follow Hermanagoras' stasis theory (very much a system of analysis and action, like your scientific method steps):
- Stasis 1: Definition (what is a rain garden, briefly, by two functions)
- Stasis 2: Classification (what type of technology is this? Hint: low impact development and storm water management)
- Description (Illustrative; give detail on the layers of soil and the type of plants)
- include two examples; consider the ones on campus
- Where is stasis 3? TBD: hint -- practical causality
- Description (Illustrative; give detail on the layers of soil and the type of plants)
- Stasis 4: Evaluation (is this good or bad? Hint: Use Dr. A. Davis' research as you do not have authority to evaluate based on your research expertise)
Preview: I would think you need about one source per these four paras: classifying, illustrating, evaluating. Use (author, date) citation from APA guidelines. Include a works cited page also.
Audience scenario for this memo: Here is Jane, our boss. She asked for the memo at the end of our last staff meeting.
irst up! What is a memo?
By 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.
Option: you can prepare YOUR understanding of content by reading Wikipedia entries on rain gardens, bioretention, and low impact development. We will talk about the limited ethos of Wikipedia but the great utility of this crowd sourced platform to learn key terms and leap into an ocean of knowledge with a good life vest on. A local professional source would be the website of the Low Impact Development Center.
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Week 2 Day 1 (short week)
Happy Wednesday to you (THOUGH THIS IS A MONDAY POST). We will continue the focus on how to read scientific and science literature. You can go back to week one and skim a bit. Here I am reposting the Friday resources I asked you to focus on as prep for this week's work-->
- Short slide set (Google) on Audience?Context/Purpose.
- Task for you! Introduction slides by Wednesday AM
- Preview of next week: Reading Strategies (Google Doc), one-paer with links that are optional)
- Question: Do you think of hypertext links as a citation and trust building strategy? I do.
Here are a few ways to relate these resources with other content from last week. First, think on the essential quality of writing for an audience, rather than for you. Week 1's "texts" for skimming included this Adam Kucharski. Substack* short piece of advice. Look at his audience-friendly format of bullet items (13). Note his concise presentation of these strategies. He also folds in the advice of George Orwell, also. I place two of Kucharski's ideas here:
Make your reader care about what they’re reading. Like a good story, that typically means outlining a clear problem, with the promise of a later resolution.
The analysis wasn’t done by some anonymous entity. You did the analysis. So avoid the passive voice if possible. (See also: ‘a decision was made’ rather than ‘we made the decision’ when it comes to responsibility-dodging in leadership messages.)
Gaven Yamey gives the same advice concerning voice (Brits tend to say tense) in a tweet I screen-capped for you in the same entry last week. BTW, Yamey was commenting on AK's recent article, including a link. Using hypertext contains a rhetorical move of ethos. Choosing links in our communication is a clear case of audience accommodation and courtesy.
Today (or when you read this), then, you have a first lesson or tip at the sentence-level for audience-centered writing.
Kucharski notes also the centrality of reading to writing. As you read articles in your field for other classes, try to see these pieces as not only essential knowledge vehicles but as mentoring texts for you to improve your scientific writing skills. I want you to achieve efficiencies between all your classes. Why? Professional writing classes are a place of synthesis of technical knowledge with communication skills.
Next up: OPTIONAL READING (listening, really) that will help you read more effectively the science articles you are studying now. We will look at this Peter Attia podcast The Drive "How to Read Scientific Literature" later in this class but many of you may want this practical knowledge know. In class, we will talk about how to "skim" podcasts, which usually requires a podcast aggregator like Apple or Spotify or the now-defunct Stitcher. I also have a Google doc guide about the special statistics terms you need to understand and apply as you read IMRAD scientific literatures. More on IMRAD on Wednesday.
Thom Haller, veteran writing teaching at UMD.
Marybeth Shea
WEDNESDAY, for real! One way I teach is borrowed from Aristotle and others. People can remember things when we cluster or chunk them in small numbers like three. You will see this pattern in my teaching. For example, I gave you three resources last week to skim, linked above in this week's readings as a courtesy to you, busy readers (my primary audience all semester in this class).
This pattern of three is borrowed from Aristotle (in Western systems), especially like the three proofs or qualities of information:
- logos, pathos, ethos
- (now, by me) audience, context, purpose
- (strategy for reading) linked above)
- (pre-read, means three+ or nearly four strategies)
- Skim
- Parse
- Read, Review, Cross-reference (Petter Attia's piece linked above guides you)
- Parse
I stacked these verbs (note that they are action commands to you) with document design to emphasize that this action pattern is a hierarchy. This stacking and indent is a document design pattern that is visual. Visual strategies help people learn and recall information.
If you want more guidance on how this class works, you can look at this "helper" link (from my website) to useful web sources I gathered for you. We really do not need a text as the world is truly available to us!
Dutch illustrator Thjis Geritz
Bonus culture video about three. This may help you remember how important counting out is to cognition and memory. The Wikipedia entry about this series is informative. Wow. She linked to Wikipedia. What kind of source is that?
Next up: Three slide set resources about Aristotle's logos, pathos, and ethos.
Set 1: Aristotle's LPE (you have seen this!)
Set 2: Relationships and Audience
Set 3: Booth's Two Rhetorical Triangles for Audience Analysis
Visual communication hint: triangles are a good symbol to work with ideas that have three elements.
MbS comment TBD briefly in class:
- strategic redundancy
- looping (preview, view, review)
- curate links to support level of reading
Marybeth Shea
Happy Friday! Let me knit up from a few ideas already discussed (looping and strategic redundancy).
First, how to skim-read podcasts (a type of text). Most podcast platforms have a speed option so you can listen at time and one-half. Helps. You can also fast forward in 15 second chunks. Not all podcasts and YourTube videos include time stamps with content "chunks" but increasingly, you will have this options. I love podcasts for walking and biking. Two birds with one stone, as the old saying goes.
The next idea concerns another set of recommendations about writing. Raul Pacheco-Vega (international scholar about waste streams and human social systems) praises the approach of William Zinsser. Pachego-Vega is a deeply generous scholar and professor who shares his critical thinking and the related writing process. We will look at some of his exhibits today. I time this mini-presentation now because most of you carry heavy reading burdens. You can be more efficient about this work. Reading and writing are related!
I mentioned the strategy of mentor texts. Think of your reading as opportunities to collect sample texts that you can model from. You can also seek chunks of texts at the level of a section or even paragraphs to support your writing practice. You can keep a digital folder of these items in Google docs. Recommend!
For physics students, I offer up this classic technical article as a mentor text. You will see also that the format reflects a practice standard of using two columns in tiny font. Oh my eyes! We will talk briefly about this 1975 piece in class. This APS link presents the article. One hallmark of most physics, math, and related disciplines is the strategic use of concision in scientific writing.
Be sure to know about Willard, one of the co authors. We will talk briefly about the ethos of Willard's Wikepedia entry compared to this 2023 entry hosted by the Los Alamos National Laboratory, a federal science research entity.
For next week, skim these resources. Happy weekend to you. Be sure to rest amid the studying. East some good food, too.
- Set 4: Pentad or Burke's audience analysis (with Shakespeare!)
- Active-passive voice definition slides with examples
Skim this html discussion of active v. passive/third person v first person discussion about laboratory write-ups. This resource is from a 2023 workshop held by Norfolk State University Writing Center. Bet you have some of these to do this semester. You will learn more about writing if I situate the learning within document types you are working with now.
--
Friday typically means a quick lesson on visual communication. We have two:
First, this clip of "We are Siamese" from Lady and the Tramp.*
Second, this August. 29, 2023 404 very scary "creation" of a generative AI using both text and visuals and the "ethos" of a long dead scientist, in one case.. Another "scientist" is totally made up (a hallucination, in AI parlance) Here is a clip-->
Week 1 Fall 23 ENGL390H (we started in ELMS via announcements)
Here is our first post within this platform. As a courtesy, I will place our first three announcements here, to show you how we use (read) this "text."-->
Aug 22 at 12:36pm
Marybeth Shea
ANNOUNCEMENT 2
Read (skimming works) this Adam Kucharski. Substack* short piece of advice. for people writing science knowledge for real audiences. Here, the focus is on scientific writing vs science writing. We will discuss the differences -- and overlap -- of these two types of science communication (sci comm). Indeed, the class focuses on these two types of writing all semester long.
*You will need to subscribe to his writing feed but this is free. By the way, what IS Substack anyway? Think of all the writing and communication platforms or "spaces" the internet offers writers and readers. Substack is one of them: part newsletter feed, part linked author pages, part blogging genre. part long-form social media...
Sci comm is a HUGE practical space. One area I particularly love is visual sci comm. Enjoy this clip from Twitter->
Find her Science Pusheen series here..
See you next week.
Marybeth Shea
Marybeth Shea
Happy Friday! Enjoy the long weekend. Perhaps some outdoor pool time? With sunscreen, off course. I like the mineral based ones, aka with zinc oxide or similar formations.
Three resources for you to skim. We are (re)learning the technical language of rhetoric for thinking and writing.
- Short slide set (Google) on Audience?Context/Purpose.
- Task for you! Introduction slides by Wednesday AM
- Preview of next week: Reading Strategies (Google Doc), one-paer with links that are optional)
- Question: Do you think of hypertext links as a citation and trust buidling strategy? I do.
Week 15: Done, sort of :)
I want to talk about polish (not Polish!; capitalization matters!) option for all. Think about the logos of numbers at the beginning and ending of your document. This fits with the stats/numbers option of the seven opening moves. Read this short html exhibit from an experienced editor.
Now, a craft lesson regarding how we format numbers in writing: as numerals or as words. You may appreciate having this writing-correctness resource by Mignon Fogerty, (her YouTube channel) aka Grammar Girl. Here is her episode/article "How to Write Numbers."
What does this mean for your article review? Here are few samples+patterns-->
This new nanoscale device offers opportunities for non-hospital based monitoring of their kidney disease status. Approximately 3.7 million US adults are diagnosed with stage one kidney disease in any year, making the case for a huge need for this device.
As insect populations plummet globally (estimated loss of species since 2000 exceeds 34 thousand) among them are known -- and unknown -- pollinators. Knowing more about pollinators can assist farmers and agriculture policymakers in ensuring that the 2.3 trillion dollar industry in the US that feeds people continues robustly.
The above examples are good. However, they can be improved by short referral language. Consider these tow examples for ethos and detail-->
MEH: In the US, ten of the largest metropolitan areas comprise nearly 54% of the total population.
Aristotle APPROVED: According to the United States Census Bureau, 2020, the ten largest metropolitan areas comprised nearly 54% of the total U.S. population.
DETAILS:
TONIGHT: Both the ATLANTA and BOULDER train ticket holders have a Review Task in Eli Review. Please do this ASAP. Help each other, she says again.
- For ATLANTA, this is your last required Eli Review engagement work for yourself and for others. Thank you for your service.
- For BOULDER, this is your second-to-last required Eli Review engagement work for yourself and for others. Thank you for your continuing service.
Both TRAINS will have an option for an addition Write/Peer Collaborate, details to be placed on your ELMS Calendar.
I will open up the ATLANTA PARKING LOT no later than Thursday (May 11). You have a week. Please stay in touch with me if you will take longer.
I will open up the BOULDER PARKING LOT, circa Wednesday or Thursday (May 16, 17).
Hey, here is our "Boulder to Birmingham" train anthem, from Emmylou Harris (co-written with Bill Danoff)-->
Both Harris and Danoff have roots in DC/MD/VA. Bill Danoff wrote "Afternoon Delight" and sang this hit with the Starland Vocal Band-->
Bill Danoff also wrote the classic "Take me Home, Country Roads", made famous by "Rocky Mountain High" John Denver-->
Week 14 MAY! Train theme continues + variations, conventions
Gladys Knight and the Pips! An Atlanta group of classic R&B and pop fusion that deserve their longevity. Here is Garth Brooks honoring Ms. Knight at the 2022 Kennedy Center Honors program. You can see her in the opening verse: glorious red dress on a balcony seat. (I made the video smaller as a design technique to subtly underscore that she is the larger luminary and his work falls under her haio.)
Tomorrow, I will post a train video that is connected to the Boulder people.
Today, I will walk us through this checklist/guidance document you can work from as you prepare to pull into the Main Train Station for your trip. Why do I post the link again? Anytime we can be courteous to busy readers, we are building our ethos as an ethical thinker/writer/speaker. Your time is valuable and I want to both honor that AND have you feel at some level that you are being respected.
Go forth little Terps and do the same, ok? Perhaps this is the most important lesson of the class. Or, you can learn pips moves for your next wedding reception -->
Does the nesting of these videos by size and relative importance help you think about YOUR definition work?
- essential definitions (aka Gladys' original work with her beloved Pips) FIRST
- helpful and interesting follow-up (aka Garth's honor of her with his soul work upon a country spine) NEXT
- do you need to nest small ones or reminders of 1 and 2 just noted within your body paras/points/Cool Things?
Marybeth Shea
Happy Wednesday! Here is a link to a rich and practical explication of ABT framework within science by Keisha Barh, a marine biologist. Caution: 67 page PDF. I think you should save this for your real-world writing that matters to you. In a way, you have writing that propels your career forward. :)
See how your ABT statement can organize your thinking and writing for cognitive flow (both you and your readers).
Now, you can look to see if you chime bells in your review, based on phrases (loud bell!!!!!) and concepts (Subtle belll !!) that appear in your ABT early on.
More on the power of narrative structure (ABT is one such structure). Long axis from Head (LOGOS), through Heart (PATHOS), and down through the GUT (ETHOS) to, well, the gonads+pelvic floor.
And yes, we hear/see from Randy Olson again. Two qualities to contrast are:
- Narrative structure, ABT, follows a horizontal axis arrow (times arrow, actually)
- Rational->irrational structure -- head, heart, guts, gonads/sex organs-- follows a vertical axis, where the action is from top down.
Five minutes of exciting Randy, with an Australian scientist/interview:
Let's re-inforce our other cogntive strategy within narrative structures and this is the bin theory of people's ability to uptake and work with pieces of information on the fly, as in, when reading/encounting complexity the first time.
Recall the “power of three, four, or seven” of George Miller (1956) -- see links in your Reading Grid! -- BUT also look at this 2012 Science Daily summary of “four is magical” ; bottom line (THEREFORE)?
Three or four, plus perhaps subclusters of related ideas for a total of seven is a good strategy for audience cognition and memory.
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Statistics (tests) |
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General line of inquiry (purpose) |
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Analysis of research question(s) |
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Analysis of hypothesis for testing |
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Study design (new or from field) |
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Null hypothesis |