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Oops, science is POWERFUL!
ENGL 390, 390H, and (sometimes) 398V Class Journal
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Entries by Marybeth Shea (1076)
Week 12: (picking up from previous links; reading/thinking)
;)
All the linked material in the first part of this post you have seen before (hope you have been reading all along). I want to revisit them to highlight items.
- Opening (see the seven strategies (Google doc based on RICE University's CAIN project)
- We will look at the last part of the document and see a link to Manchester University's Academic phrasebank
- How to read science! Reposting entire paragraph so we can peek into this process-->
- Let's look at this recent article in PloS One about writing scientific prose. 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. Peek into the strategies of technical readers.
- First author conventions: reposting the paragraph-->
- If you cannot find a first author author bio, focus on the last author. Let's review the conventions on order in authors. 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.
- I will add some thoughts on when you cannot find an author (science is international; different conventions on maintaining lab pages, university or institutional profiles, and even cultural differences/language)
- Three is a magic number! Reposting (and is in your reading grid) --> Recall the “power of three, four, or seven” of George Miller (1956) BUT also look at this 2012 Science Daily summary of “four is magical” ; bottom line? Three or four, plus perhaps subclusters of related ideas for a total of seven is a good strategy for audience cognition and memory.
New stuff! Remember stasis theory? Let's look at stasis 2, description/definition; stasis 3 concerns causal analysis (the heart of science). This short guide (Google doc, two pages with good links) focuses on how to recognize stasis 2 and stasis 3 in what you read, as well as prep to write these stases in YOUR documents.
I do not think we looked fully at Burke's Pentad (slides, starting with 12)about understanding audience, context, purpose. We will review on Wed, also. Why? We need to think about context and readers as agents who act upon information in documents.
Marybeth Shea
Wednesday and sunny!
Copy/Pasting Friday night's ER Writing Task. Numbers matter here.
This Eli Review Task uses the power of numbers to grow clear on the BEGINNING paragraphs and MIDDLE take-away points of Assignment 3. To recap the usuals now (leave your name out for privacy):
Ask for the help you need! (you may want to bold your questions NEXT TO THE PARTS YOU PRESENT).
Include your article citation at the TOP of your post (APA).
Now, to beginnings. For a working order-->
-
- Refine your first paragraph of your BEGINNING. Draft this opening paragraph, with one or more of the Seven Types of Openings.
- Tighten your ABT statement. Then, you have two (perhaps three) options on where to place this central contextual information. First, many students find that they use the ABT statement just after the ethos paragraph. The strategy is that you introduce the first author ethos; then, to transition to your body paragraphs; why? the ABT is the perfect context to set up why they did this study. The second option is to place the ABT paragraph just before or after your definition work. The thinking here is that definition work (stasis 2) include descriptions of context. Consider if this is a strategy you want to try.
- Variation (third option): And, think if you want to use one (of the seven) opening with the ABT statement. Can work beautifully.
- Include in this opening set of relatively short paragraphs the (perhaps revised) ethos paragraph of your first author. Feels good to have a paragraph that is pretty much done, right?
NEW TASK (still beginning of document):
From your ABT work, think on/list the short definitions/descriptions you plan to include in your final document. You may have other definitions your wish to includes. Note: try bullets for this work. You have many choices here: aim to at least list the ideas a reader needs to understand the main takeaways.
NEW TASK: the MIDDLE of your document:
Try out your three or four points of "interestingness" that will form your body paragraphs (fat portion of lemon or pear).
Thoughts on the body paragraph ideas (bullets are fine):
You have a series of points emerging, right, from your reading/captured on the reading grid? Your goal is to place three (or four) body points in the center of the lemon shape.
Practical note: Other points that you care about can be worked into beginnings and even can be noted at the end -- forming part of your closing. Option for you to share: asking others to help with the interestingness of opening and closing points can be really helpful. Draft readers stand in for real readers.
ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS: If you have a methods point, be sure to identify as such; plan to ultimately place a methods point either first or last in the body points. Variation: Some of you will want to place the methods point in the definition paragraph.
To help you, here is the celery famous flow chart. Sample slide set of ABT statements.
When an 80s pop one-hit wonder (3 + 4 = 7) helps you remember bin theory of short term memory. Tommy TuTone's "867-5309/Jenny"; Start with this Wikipedia page for the song. Searching on Spotify will give you covers. Is catchy tune, or what the Germans call an "ear worm."
Marybeth Shea
Friday, which is Good Friday for Roman and Orthodox traditions and starts the wrap up of Passover week. Take care and I hope you haave time with family and friends; plus food, the enjoable foods of these seasons.
I will be here: 
- 9:-9:50
- 11-11:50
If you have not heard from me about your Coffee Cup Memo (Assignment 2), please email me. I want to catch up, whether this is on my end or your end.
Let's clear the decks for you to focus on Assignment 3.
Speacking of Assignment 3, you have an ER WRITING TASK DUE THIS EVENING. Please complete. I will open up the ER REVIEWING TASK on Saturday, midday. We will shift to composing prose to support the complex middle aka the three or four body paragraphs; we will also work on analysis and critique of this work/findings/implications; then, we consider how to think and write about statistics.
Might we enjoy some spring music? On Spotify, search on "Blossom Dearie." Just enjoy but you may appreciate these:
Does her voice sound familiar? She sings in this Schoolhouse Rock video that is more winter than spring but is extra fun for math, science people:
Week 11: what shape will your review document take?
Monday! (link IS THERE!)
You have an ER Reviewing task due this evening. Help each other move forward. If you missed Friday's ER Writing Task, please read the email I sent via ELMS mail. Respond and you can do the awkward but helpful work around.
If you looked at all the resources last week, you saw a lemon on one of the slides. Why? Well, documents have shapes!
Here is the Research article slide set (Google Presentation) we looked at last week. We will also go back and look briefly at K. Barr's presentation on how ABT statements fit with research article sections.
By now, you have likely skimmed your article or -- at least -- the abstract. You may have also looked at the suggested reading grid given last week, too. Marked in purple, you may recall that you will work with three or four takeaways from this research article. In other words: Seek three or four points that you could use to place in the center portion of a:
- lemon-shaped document
- pear-shaped document
Naming of parts: Documents have beginnings, middles, and ends. For this work, think LEMON-shaped. Here is a good way to arrange your analysis:
Beginning: 1-3 paragraphs that prepare the reader to understand and trust the center portion of your analysis (three or four body paragraphs). Use a cognitive wedge strategy aka "lemon nipple." Think:
- Opening (see the seven strategies (Google doc based on RICE University's CAIN project -- you can combine them.)
- Version of an ABT statement
- Ethos of lead author (like Davis and/or Hocking, Moore)
- Definitions/descriptions or backgrounds, which is largely common knowledge.
Middle: 3-4 body paragraphs. Start with one paragraph per point BUT you may need to divide complex material into two shorter but connected (by transition) paragraph. These are your larger paragraphs. You MAY need to nest small definitions -- use the appositive technique -- near the material.
End: Taper off, with some useful information or thoughts for closing. For example, brief critique (this is hard and will NOT count against your work grade-wise), applications, further line of inquiry, implications for society. And, many find that the same ABT statement or a new one is another good way to close. Remember how you restate the thesis in five-paragraph essay or ECR?
Marybeth Shea
Toward tonight's ER Writing Task, due on Friday, I want to focus on "bookending" the open and close of your work. The seven strategies can help (posted on Monday). Think in bullets or lists of possible content/strategies for the opening and close of Assignment 3.
Let's look at how audience drives content in openings. First up? News article openings are good for the lay audience. Why? Several content strategies:
- highly visual
- interesting case
- hook with tidbit of interesting information
- topic (timely)
Next, documents that serve expert of technical readers (your article and your review): For technical audiences, open with
- review of logos (detail of costs, population size, enormity of problem)
- controversy
- new application or breaking news
Common to lay and expert audiences: We hook the reader at the beginning. Being successful here relies on thinking about our readers. Science and technical readers are not leisure readers (writing from high school)! Let's look at this recent article in PloS One about writing scientific prose. 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. Peek into the strategies of technical readers.
Craft comment on these referral links: you can loook if you want. Sometimes, the referral links, combined with curation, build trust even if your reader DOES NOT CLICK. Choose your own adventure is the metaphor.
How does the order of a technical research document reflect audience needs? Arrangement matters in the IMRAD article. Here is one "bible" of writing (and reading) scientific prose: Mayfield Guide (open access courtesy of MIT). Now, let's look/review at the basic parts of the IMRAD article using these elements from Mayfield. (Take-away? Your opening will be different from the IMRAD opening but looking at these links will help you improve as a reader (Google grid, posted last week):
- 3.4.1 Introduction
- 3.4.1.1 Problem Statement (ABT statements are MARVELOUS for this work)
- 3.4.1.2 Purpose
- 3.4.1.3 Scope
Now, to the three or four paragraphs I ask you to think about in the beginning of YOUR review work: In-class, brief discussion about the ETHOS paragraph (an easy paragraph to write/supports your trust in the first authors work/and serves your audience).
- If you cannot find a first author author bio, focus on the last author. Let's review the conventions on order in authors. 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.
- You can also rely on the process of peer review and the journal ethos. One way is to consider the journal's impact factor. This is a crude tool and is like a baseball bat driving a safety pin into fabric.
- You can look at citations BUT consider the boundaries between scientific publisher ecosystems.
- Look up article in PubMed (a National Library of Medicine project, part of NIH).
- For tech/data sci pieces, you can explore the GitHub and/or Stack Exchange activity.
- Try the last name at Science Daily or Phys.org.
Writing craft lesson on article titles and journal names. Italics surround article titles, while journal titles are italicized. as carrying the ethos of peer review. USE ITALICS! Do NOT put the long title of this article in your paragraph.) Let's discuss these two samples, familiar to you from last week-->
Kaspari s work on traditional, plant-based pigments in Romania, "A ethnographic field study approach to farmer accounts of their Morello cherry arboculture: the difference in local cherry liquors begins with horticultural sections stemming from the late middle ages." This research article appears in the Journal of Food Science. Her 2010 ethnographic study is based on interviews with 250 families in ten villages.
In a 2010 study on Morello (sour cherry tree) cultivars, ethnographic researcher Kaspari found a number of genetic subtypes, some in use for hundreds of years. Appearing in the Journal of Food Science (July, 2012), this ethnographic analysis …..
Pause: How does the above work in your article review? This paragraph PIVOTS to your three or four body points! The craft lesson concerns transition from the beginning to the middle. Transitions support cognitive flow for your reader.
How are beginnings and ends related? The strategies can be used in both sections. Hint: you can also shoehorn in other points you want to make. From chatting with students, most students find that they have -- typically -- seven points they want to make. You can slip one in at the beginning and and perhaps two (closely related) at the end, as well as showcase/describe your three or four body points.
Clipping from your reading guide: science-supported use of three, four, perhaps seven points.
Recall the “power of three, four, or seven” of George Miller (1956) BUT also look at this 2012 Science Daily summary of “four is magical” ; bottom line?
Three or four, plus perhaps subclusters of related ideas for a total of seven is a good strategy for audience cognition and memory.
Marybeth Shea
Will be here to chat/confer-->
- 9-9:50
- 11-11:50
Get your ER Writing Task done. Please. Prioritize that over the Parking Lot Writing Task for Assignment 2.
For those in holidays this week and next. Do you best, around your observances and family time. You can catch up the following week, should this be your Passover (Sunset 4/11-4/19); Roman and Orthodox Easter this year synch up (Thursday 4/14-4/20, with some keeping Easter Monday, especially here in the DC African American community). We can work around this. I appreciate a heads up, so I can create a work-around that meets your holiday needs. For others, please complete the Writing and Reviewing Tasks on time. You help each other.
For Assignment 2, I still appreciate an email heads up so I can respond quickly. I try to be student-centered; nice if you are teacher-centered in this. Why? We both win.
Two updates from AI thinking, the first being positive and the second, more dark. First up, AI can parse emojis, emoticons and similar image sets. Recent work at the University of Maryland in both Comp Sci and the College of Information is summarized here. Faculty and graduate student researchers work with the University of Arizona’s School of Information. The basic procedure used a series of careful ChatGPT challenge tasks involving emojis. Many of the tasks were designed to assess three emotion cases:
- the positive,
- negative or
- neutral sentiment
of a tweet based on whether emojis were present. Findings? Analysis of the output dataset showed that ChatGPT includes the meaning of emoji when evaluating emotion or sentiment. This key finding comes from co-author Wei Ai, assistant professor in the College of Information. Wei also holds an appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies.
Check out the article and look at the quick discussion about irony. ChatGPT detects irony. Irony is powerful, rhetorically. We tend to not use irony in writing or spoken communication in science. However, within science we use a lot of irony to poke fun at ourselves, fields, and methods. Scientists are way funny. And, scientists STUDY if they are funny! Three links with logos that help build the ethos of the publication venue. Try all three!
Now for the second comment (darker). I read a few articles this about AI generated images recently. Emerging scholarship suggests that these algorithm may harbor a negativity bias. What is meant is that images generated can include a negative or dark quality. For example, muted color sets, frowns on characters, and even disturbing content. One article comes from the UMD Comp Sci department; here is an 4/'25 open Access Maryland Today short piece.
To research biases in image generation models, Cody Buntain, an assistant professor in the University of Maryland’s College of Information and part of the Institute for Trustworthy AI in Law & Society (TRAILS), teamed up with Maneet Mehta, a senior at Reservoir High School in Howard County, Md., who reached out to him last summer to learn about his work on ethical AI.
The duo employed the DiffusionDB dataset, which contains 14 million images generated by Stable Diffusion, a deep-learning, text-to-image AI model. They then used advanced machine learning techniques and a hybrid captioning approach to identify emotions in AI-generated images and compare them to those in corresponding text prompts.
The researchers discovered that even when prompts lean toward positive emotion, such as joy or excitement, the images generated from these prompts tend to evoke fear as the dominant emotion.
Week 10: Assignment 3, the close one-article review
Warm and likely a spring storm today.
Let's start with some due dates:
- Tonight! Last ER Reviewing Task for the coffee cup memo. GET IN THERE.
- Friday, I open up the coffee cup parking lot and you have one week.
- Friday, I will also open up a short assignment for your article review, Assignment 3
- You will need the abstract of your desired piece.
- Number 3 means you have an article now or will have one by Friday. Must be peer reviewed article of your choice. For comp sci/data sci students, please email me because your field publishes differently than many expert disciplines.
- I will fill out the April to May ELMS calendar for Assignment 3. And, debut two ways to complete:
- Train A to complete early (close to the last day of class)
- Train B to complete midway through finals.
Now, on to more work thinking about transitions between paragraphs and even document sections. We have two metaphors for this. First up? muffin tin.
In the muffin tin metaphor, we chunk information into the tins, which is natural and good. We divide complex information to conquer the complexity. Doing this heaving cognitive lifting is necessary for analysis and even uses of the information. However, muffin tin "scoops" of information are largely the type of information that is joined by the conjunctive and. We have yet to introduction the powerful (also wakes up reader cognition) conjunctives of but (however) and or (contrast or choices or options). We have yet to introduce the power of therefore, where we create meaning and actions based on meaning. See the video below from Randy Olson.
One of Aristotle's canons for writing is ARRANGEMENT. The order and "chunking" of information matters very much for reader cognition and receptivity to what you write.
Now, the (Lego) train metaphor, where the cars are different, helping us think about and, but, or, and toward the end (caboose) of therefore.
Now, to the exciting and somewhat potty-mouthed Randy Olson, marine biologist, filmmaker, and science communication evangelist. (NOTE: Video fixed at 3:20, Monday)
Randy's work is the and, but, therefore framework, which we call ABT.
Let's think a bit about peer reviewed research articles and link this topic to ABT statements/framework:
- This google slide set about the research article.
- Keep a running grid on your reading. Copy this google doc to your drive. Reading IS essential to writing. Again, this is part of my case for labor grades. ABT statement is previewed here.
Marybeth Shea
Happy Wednesday.
We will pick up links from Monday to
- consider the most common type of science/tech article
- hear more from Randy Olson the potty-mouth guru of science writing
- look at examples of ABT statements
- NEW to you: slide set of ten samples from a workshop at UMCP with Olson (environment discipline) PLUS a set of medical humanities ABT workshoping in a Google Doc.
- Keisha Barr, with Randy Olson, on the "narrative gym" frame of ABT and IMRAD work (7 sldies, highly visual)
Marybeth Shea
Friday! Necessary rain, so my plant scientist/gardener heart rejoices.
Will be here, as per usual,
- 9-9:50
- 11-11:50.
(mini lesson: when do you use numbers and when do you use bullets? Numbers help with order matters.)
You have TWO -- count 'em, two -- ER Writing Tasks now live and "due tonight. Here is how to think about what is due for realz and what is due over a week (hint: parking lot metaphor):
- ER WRITING TASK for prewriting Assignment 3, the close review of your selected article
- ER WRITING TASK for a parking lot approach for Assignment 2, for a grade.
(Mini lesson: order matters or can matter in bullets. Note that I put your PRIORITY ER WRITING TASK first in the bulleted order; this suggests that this task takes priority over the "parking lot" task.)
Song of the day (what is the greener disposable hot beverage cup?):
More Kermit in our lives and way less (let's just say no amount is health for children and other living things) Pepe the frog.
Week 9! (8 was spring break): coffee cup nearly done; one article close review up next
Morning, returning Terps.
You have an Eli Review Reviewing Task due this evening. Help each other out! ASAP.
Let's gather up resources to chat about today and Wednesday. You have seen these before in this journal and as reposts in Eli Review Writing Task/Reviewing Tast prompts.
- Lime-green flow chart
- coffee cup round-up document (focused on free phrases, sentences, perhaps a bit of a paragraph or two; AKA mentoring text to propel writing forward).
- Here is a dummy text exhibit in Google docs using lorum ipsum about the coffee cup memo pattern.
NEW: Here are questions from last year in an interactive google doc.
Today, I will reflect on several topics/conundrums about wrapping this assignment up. We can also ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS, too.
Mb topics:
- PARA 2 local and global problem description (stasis two of definition WITH the logos of numbers.
- PARA 1 (reveals frame, sets up for the punt paragraph of PARA 4 (a node paragraph)
- PARA 5 category of problem approach: life cycle analysis/cradle-to-grave (stasis two of definition; EPA is the accepted authority here, though the ethos is rapidly being diminished just now)
- PARA 7 restates your recommendation in PARA 1; then acknowledges the reasonableness of the other frame
Options (PARAS 7 and 8):
- offer a combined solution
- caution graciously about the limits of this framing and -- indeed -- the question
- suggest that the team research more carefully what others (including, perhaps the EU and the Netherlands) are doing.
- Offer to track the emerging health problems with microplastics, with focus on local watershed
- Note the incommensurability problem here
Now a few words about Assignment 3 and what sort of technical article you need from your field. Select an article to review I noted this in the syllabus. Details: Find a research results article published in a peer reviewed journal. You will read, analyze, and review this piece in the manner of a journal club. We imagine that at Leaf it to Us, we share knowledge with each other across our disciplines every Friday. We share an in-depth write up of the article after we present. We can assume that all will read/skim the article. However, the heavy intellectual lifting is on the presenter. Hints on how/where to find an article:
- are you reading an article for a class now? Select that and you learn for both classes (efficiency),
- did you read last semester for a class? Select one of those articles (cognitive),
- are you deeply interested in a topic and want to explore (interestingness).
Please have an article in mind by Friday.
Marybeth Shea
Wednesday, all day. Half way through the week. We will continue to chat about the documents/content posted for Monday. Two small items here:
- You do NOT need to address specifically some of the nuanced aspects of this problematic context. You can simply follow the simplicity (relative!) of the lime-green flow chart. I give the others options because bright minds naturally linger on these other aspects. What I offer -- to those who want this -- ways to quickly and respectfully address them.
- two-prong solution (lift up cause of reusuables
- comment on how both problems require attention, simultaneously
- characterize the human but false "move" to figure out the worse problem (mention incommensurability, if you like)
- offer to lead a team to think more deeply on this work
- writing craft reminder: I do not want you to use empty subjects, namely there is/there are and it is/was
- related: do not use it in this document at all
- We will chat about the uselessness of it in so many exacting contexts (all of professional communication)
Marybeth Shea
AM POSTING ON THURSDAY!
Happy Friday. You have an Eli Review WRITING TASK due this evening. Be on time; this is your LAST chance to enter a place to give and recieve feedback.
I will open a Parking Lot in Eli Review, as a WRITING TASK, to submit your Assignment 2 for a grade. You have a week to turn in.
Drop by between
- 9-9:50 OR
- 11-11:50
To chat.
Resources for you as we wrap up the Coffee Cup Memo aka Assignment 2.
- Lime-green flow chart;
- coffee cup round-up document (focused on free phrases, sentences, perhaps a bit of a paragraph or two; AKA mentoring text to propel writing forward);
- Here is a dummy text exhibit in Google docs using lorum ipsum about the coffee cup memo pattern;
- questions from last year in an interactive google doc; and
- Checklist for Assignment 2, the coffee cup memo.
- NEW: 8 minute voice over/video walking you through items 1-5, which I discussed with you on Monday and Wednesday. This synthesis video covers that material for you in a new modality. Hope this helps you (I used Screencastify).
See you Friday, should you wish to visit me. Let me know if this new option of synthesis video helps you.
Week 7: coffee cup, spring break and letting document rest a bit
Good morning in the new time regime of Spring Forward.
Cognitive frame that is really hard but totally important to human beings who must work through complexity. incommensurability. Here is long entry from the Stanford Library of Philosophy (online). TLDR?
- Some concepts, methods, frames, social problems as well as policy decisions cannot be compared directly. Why? They lack a common measure. Some of the is math-focused but qualitative factors can be part of incommensurability, too.
- Consider apples and oranges, that old metaphor.
Why are we talking about incommensurability? Simply put: this memo is really hard to think about because our first instinct is figure out WHICH environmental problem is worse and then recommend a cup choice that addresses this problem. Makes sense in the mind. Yet, the world is not in our mind. The world is wild and complex and resists analysis all the time. This means the confusion and frustration you feel is human.
Knowing that some problems resist common measure helps us make sense of the non sensible world.
Side trip in philosophy of how science works: Have you heard of paradigm shift to describe how scientists build knowledge (claim and counter claim. Thomas Kuhn, philosopher of science, claims science process reveals that some discussions/arguments about competing paradigms fails to "make complete contact with each other’s views." This means (apples and oranges) that those in the "conversation" are always talking at least slightly at cross-purposes.
Kuhn calls the collective causes of this communication failures incommensurability. Here are some examples:
- the Newtonian physics paradigm is incommensurable with its Cartesian and Aristotelian predecessors in physics;
- Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier’s paradigm is incommensurable with that of Joseph Priestley’s in chemistry; and
- God's action as designer conflicts with Darwin's central understanding of evolution condenses into natural selection.
UPDATE today at 9:33 AM. After quick conversation with JK, I edited these passages to make sure that
the frame fits the cup.
Thank you, JK.
For us, we cannot compare directly the gravity of climate change with the fate of aquatic plastic. Therefore, in our memo we must lead with these sorts of framing statements:
In my analysis of hot beverage cups and environmental footprint, I weight climate change more heavily than ocean plastic. Therefore, this frame is a central assumption in this short problem-solution report. I recommend Styrofoam cups for their lower energy profile that that of paper cups.
You can also hint at how you will address this problem with qualifications in your recommendation at the end of this short memo.
Later in this short recommendation memo, I will address this conceptual framing limitation and speak briefly about how framing this problem as one of ocean plastic leads to another recommendation: paper cuups.
Comment on the above: If you chose this frame, you are TEAM STYROFOAM. In contrast, It you weight aquatic plastic as the central frame (TEAM PAPER), then your sentences look like this:
In my analysis of hot beverage cups and environmental footprint, I weight the fate of ocean plastic more heavily than climate change; this frame is a central assumption in my short problem-solution report in favor of paper cups.
Later in this short report, I will address this conceptual framing limitation and speak briefly about how framing this problem as one of climate change would lead to Styrofoam cups as the more environmentally sensitive cup,
Writing craft/collaboration note: you may use these sentences in your work as is or modify them as you wish. Remember that most workplace writing is collaborative. And, I am a coach-style supervisor. Additional comment: mentor texts are a good way to learn. A sentence is a text, therefore a mentoring passage. We learn by imitation of good models.
Coffee, tea, hot chocolate culture varies. Also added between the 9am and 11am sections? A visual about hot beverage culture, meaning that what if we drank hot beverages sitting down, with a ritual, and perhaps company rather than clutching a "venti". What kind of cup would Murial use?
Marybeth Shea
Wednesday! The lovely weather continues. We have a grab bag of skills that will help you with the next draft (iteration) of your coffee cup memo. First up, let's think of achieving "flow" or cohesion in your memo. You want the reader to experience a unified, well-staged (arrangement). Because this memo leaps across a highly complex topic, we need flow to help our reader make the leaps with us. The overarching writing skill is the skillful use of transitions.
Find your LCA paragraph (PARA 5 in flow chart) that defines/describes this environmental technique (EPA source). Think of this paragraph as your PIVOT point in the memo. You are moving from description to set up the problem to analysis. LCA is the primary technique. How do you go from this pivot paragraph to the research of Moore (TEAM PAPER) or the research of Hocking (TEAM STYRO)? -->
Having defined LCA, let's look now at Martin Hocking's work on . . . (or, insert Charles Moore)
As you can see, Hocking's work is, essentially, an LCA on disposable hot beverage cups.
Moore's work focused primarily on the end phase of the LCA. Here, the key idea noted earlier about how "leaky" both disposal and recycling systems are. Essentially, we do not landfill and recycle near as much of both cup materials that we think; hence, we experience now a critical volume of aquatic plastic.
You can use these transitional passages as you begin the hardest paragraphs yet: summarizing the work of the researcher's peer reviewed analysis.
Establishing ethos of the researcher (early in PARA 6, which is a node para):
Moore, an oceanographer and now advocate regarding the problem of aquatic plastic, published in [X} journal, with several co-authors. This [YEAR] research article is one of the first descriptions of the extent of this emerging ecological and health problem.
Hocking published two experimental analyses comparing the energetics of paper and Styrofoam cups. published in the early 90s, Hocking's work is -- to date -- the only rigorous peer-reviewed analysis. Hocking, a materials chemist who died not long ago.....
When referral links are a punt: You need to develop a brief paragraph (PARA 4, also a node para) about the environmental problem you weight, using one or two logos of numbers to establish the seriousness of the problem. Here is language that might use or adapt-->
Climate change is widely understood by scientists to pose an existential threat....Estimates of temperature increases....Should you need more information on climate change and energy efficiency, see this helpful and brief and authoritative summary at [lin] which summarizes the science-based work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). CAUTION about size of PDF.
My short analysis (short analysis, first-cut look, quick-and-dirty examination), relies of the frame of aquatic plastic. Interestingly, the same scientist whose work I will summarize is also the scientist who discovred this problem. You can read about this work briefly at [link] and [link] Both of these non profit groups were founded by Moore. The volume of plastic in one large Pacific garbage paper approaches the size of Texa....
Why do I call this punting? You are not diverting your prose or the reader's attention to a full treatment of climate change nor aquatic plastic. You give a numbers-based detail or two, then let Jane go to authoritative sources if she needs to. Punt! With courtesy for the reader.
I use punt since more people are familiar with this idea. However, I prefer the baseball action of bunt. Brief definition video for your enjoyment, staring Mickey Mantle.
Marybeth Shea
Here
- 9-9:50
- 11-11:50
I IMPLORE you to get this latest round of ER Writing Task IN TONIGHT. Yet, I do have a work around as an absolute firm edge of deadline at Sunday Noon. Then, I make a new ER Reviewing Task and open this over the break for THOSE WHO WANT TO WORK thusly.
Take care in time of rest and relaxation.
Might I caution you about St. Patrick's day? The fun can go quickly into fearsome troubles. I do enjoy many types of adult beverages but am always shocked at the excell on a saint's day, the one of my country of origin. Newer research shows that St. Patrick's day for some is the gateway to binge drinking, a very serious problem for individuals, people who love them, and society writ large.
For fun -- after the sober PSA above -- read about AI and new paint colors. Janelle Shane combined color databases from paint companies along with names; then, she asked the "magic machine" to offer new paint colors with names. Imagine that you are at a surreal Home Depot paint chip display. Fun times. Lots of greens to contemplate.
If you come to class today, I will show you my Janelle Shane "Sudden Pine" tee-shirt. All the cool nerds either have one or want one or admire the swag.
