Relevant Fun for Today

May 17, 2012

May 15, 2012

Your Reactions to the Lab Report “Story” Assignment?

• Did you express your personality?• Did you take a risk?• What was hard?

– How and why?– What were the toughest parts?– Easy parts?

• Was it fun?• Was it a useful exercise?

– Did it “stretch” your writing skills?– Is there a way for me to tailor the assignment to make it more useful?

• Did you learn anything?• Last thoughts…

Word of the Day:Compliment vs. Complement

• Who can define these words?

Definitions: Compliment vs. Complement

• Compliment: An expression of praise, commendation, or admiration: A sincere compliment boosts one's morale.

• Complement: something that completes or makes perfect: A good wine is a complement to a good meal. (e.g., yin and yang)

Source: www.dictionary.com

Many Compliments on Your Lab Report “Stories”

• Use of selective, telling detail– She seemed to be one of those students that show up only on testing days. I

don't recall seeing her in class. (Sense of wonder, curiosity, maybe a little danger…)

– This had already seemed like an awesome class. But we now had the ability to call the shots? (Complete change in class dynamic)

– Lab coats with elastic bands at the wrist vs. those without (The coats almost become characters themselves)

• Character development– Central character working through a challenge (conflict)– Characters present in your lab for “color” (Jessica’s TA)

• Dialog (note present verb tense)– “Uh……oops,” I say.

“You’re the second person today to do that,” the TA says from behind me. “Don’t worry, just rinse it off real quick in the wash.”

– Jessica, can you briefly tell what happened in this lab?

More Compliments• Humor

– “Where’s the heat sealer?” I ask. “To your right,” says the TA. He points to my left, and I stand there confused until my lab mate shows me where to go. Had I walked left and turned right I would have hit it. I make a mental note of how the TA gives directions.

• Analogy– One side of the image has a small streaking tail, reminiscent of a

shooting star or comet tail.– The image blurs at the edges like in old photos.

• Always ask yourself: Is this particular detail going to resonate with your audience?

• Using the notion of “chapters” to create a sense of story

More Compliments• Alliteration

– Repetition of sounds across a phrase, often used in poetry– Example: She needs to sleep her sickness into submission.

• Personification, anthropomorphism– Example: Two photogates wait to measure the time it takes

one racquetball to pass between them.• Repeating idea (working alone)

– “I got my period!,” I exclaimed. I looked around, realizing what I had just said and was grateful that I was alone.

– The story ends with: It’s a good thing I worked on this alone.

More Compliments

• “Book-ending” technique– Title: Calculating Moments of Inertia on a String-

and-Broom Budget

– End of the story mentions the tools needed to run the experiment: a broom, boxes, and fishing line

• Present tense verb for immediacy

Nice Use of Present Tense

Once my plastic bag is sealed shut, I leave it to sit on the rocking tray for the next 40 minutes. Instead of leaving to take lunch, I force the TA to listen to me talk about my week. I ask him clarifying questions on previous lab assignments and everything I can think to ask about grad school. Grad school has been on my mind a lot lately. I need to start studying for the GREs in the summer and submit all of my applications in the fall.

The Opposite Way to Start: From Specific Detail to General Context

The data was complete. We successfully made more than 80 measurements, all within a precision of 0.02 seconds. My lab partner, a second-year structural engineering student, and I were measuring how time varies with the thickness of a number of racquetballs. Each racquetball has some margin of error, which makes the ball either heavier or lighter. These errors are what we call “manufacturing” errors. They are important because they can help us gain insight into how a slight change in mass can change the moment of inertia of each racquetball we measure. [The beginning of the next paragraph moves us back to the immediacy of the lab:] My lab partner brings all the materials to the table. …

This is the approach used by modern-day journalism (newspapers) to begin articles (as opposed to the who, what, where, why, when, how approach that the profession used to use – in the very first sentence!). Notice the short, dramatic sentence at the beginning. It gets your attention. It makes you think the writer’s completely in control, esp. because of the numerical detail. It seems very exact. The first two sentences together make you think everything is figured out because it’s so matter-of-factly presented. But the story ends up being all about difficulties understanding the data and how the writer had to figure them out. So this is a very interesting false lead -- using appropriate language to indicate the false lead – which is a wonderful technique for creative story telling.

However: Always Suggestions for Improvement

• Pay attention to all assignment requirements – commenting on your story – how you rewrote the real details and why

• Descriptive title – this helps focus the reader– Calculating Moments of Inertia on a String-and-Broom Budget

• Serious topic with a quirky detail

• Connection between sentences (for clarity)– Yesterday we isolated a protein by running it through an electrophoresis

chamber. A mixture of proteins moves through a rectangular gel. – We took the gel and transferred the protein bands to a nitrocellulose

membrane. This membrane looks like an unlined index card.– To determine the moments of inertia of a complex object, one can use the

pendulum method. [Using this method,] two lines are attached to the object…

More Suggestions• No explanation of technical terms – E.g., Gaussian Curve, wide bin range

• No linking of technical term with acronym (e.g., Standard Operating Procedure)– Suggestion: At first occurrence: “Standard

Operating Procedure (SOP),” then use SOP later in the article

• Use of acronyms later without having listed them after the full term at first occurrence– Or use of acronyms without having explained

them previously (e.g., CCD)

More Suggestions• Inconsistent verb tense - present is more immediate

and shorter!– I disregard my partner’s quizzical looks and began to

fiercely write out the error analysis. • Passive voice when you could have used active– Use “you” to avoid this problem• Example: Once the lines are in position, the object is

swung [you swing the object]. • Example: The teaching assistants don’t give us more

space for all errors to be analyzed [to analyze the errors].

More Suggestions• Singular/plural inconsistency within a sentence– No one has their own.– After all those measurements, I can analyze how well it

fits…– The word “group” can be problematic in this context.

• Because of plural/singular problems with the associated verb• Would you use “group” as a singular or plural?

• Numbers • Zero - nine (write out as full words)• 10+ (use digits)

• Unnecessary words: in order to, clearly (so many others!)• Vague words like “this,” “it,” “they” – it’s often unclear what

they refer to

More Suggestions• Multiple sentences that say the same thing and can be

combined/shortened– We have had several hour-long conversations with our TAs

who sit in the back of the class, near our bench, to supervise the lab. During long periods of waiting for talking about proteins to incubate or gels to run, we often sit and chat with them.

– I’d rephrase to shorten: We’ve had several hour-long conversations with our TAs who sit in the back of the class, near our bench, to supervise the lab, talking about proteins to incubate or gels to run.• Move from general sitting around to specifics of conversation, not

losing any information.• Reduce word count (44 to 32 words) and make it easier to

understand.

More Suggestions• Indicating one thing when you mean the exact

opposite because of a mix of formality/informalityEveryone knows why getting the moments of inertia is important. I mean come on, where would we be without knowing such important information? Without that knowledge, planes would never have taken off the ground, men would not have landed on the moon, and the future of humanity well… there would be no future for humanity. My team and I had been working to create a miniature model of the Lunar Lander Research Vehicle (LLRV) as part of our design project. To create the control logic to fly it, we had to determine important information about the properties of the LLRV, which included finding the moments of inertia.

Be Careful with Colloquial Usage• Colloquial usage (boldface I previous slide): Use it

ironically or to make fun of a serious topic, esp. in written language• Here it seems to indicate the opposite of what I

think the writer intends – It seems to make fun of the topic

• It’s a conflicting mix of styles, which confuses the reader whether to take this seriously or not

Quick Note on Verbs(Trans: The Best Way to Learn about English Grammar

Is to Study Another Language)

• Infinitive: to create (the preferred, simplest format in writing)• Present tense: I create, you create, he/she creates• Past tense: I created• Past participle: I have created• Useful to describe something you did repeatedly over a

period of time• Future past participle: I will have created (imagining into the

future)• Subjunctive: If I were to create, if I created…• Condition contrary to fact

• Gerund: I am creating• This puts the reader completely in the present – right now!

Verb Editing Exercise

I analyze my data. Finally, after all those measurements, I can analyze how well it fits into the predicted Gaussian model and data. I study my analysis and find that 90% of my data is incorrect. Suddenly, my face turns hot and my mouth tenses. How could this be? Where did I go wrong? I could not figure it out, until I embarrassedly reveal my problem to my lab partner. My uncertainty is incorrect, she tells me. I could not fix it, unless I went back home and analyzed my equation for my standard deviation.