Carter Preserve Personal Experience4/23/2018 When I first visited the Francis C. Carter Memorial Preserve in Charlestown Rhode Island on April 1st 2018, I was taken about by the sheer size of it. Charlestown just so happens to be a town I am very familiar with, and somewhere I used to visit every weekend throughout my childhood. But somehow I had completely overlooked this massive, and beautiful, preserve not 20 minutes from my grandmothers house.
Without knowing exactly which entrance I had arrived at at the time, although there were more than enough posted signs telling me this, I simply grabbed a map went off on my way. The loop I ended up taking consisted of the Grassland Loop, Grassland Connector, and Narragansett Loop trails. This gave me a good look at all the different kinds of ecosystems resent within the preserve, and really gave me a good idea at what it had to offer visitors. When I went to visit the preserve, New England was in the middle of experiencing four intense storms back to back. Even with that in mind, the trails were in pristine condition. Throughout my hike I think I only ran into two or three down trees, and even these were of no issue and could easily be stepped over. The loop I walked took about 45 minutes to an hour to complete, at a nice stroll, and was not overly physically tasking. That being said, I am more than confident that no matter what activity level you are looking for, you can find it at the Carter Preserve. While the trails that delve deeper into the woods can become more of a “hiking” experience, those that run along the grasslands as well as run parallel to the Pawtucket River are much more level and easy for people of all ages. I personally feel that this ability to have various hiking experiences, is something that the Carter Preserve facilitates very well. With a multitude of different trails to explore with at least four different ecosystems, there is always something new to find or experience when going to the preserve.
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Final Project, First Draft4/12/2018 Please find Rhetorical Introduction and First Drafts at:
https://avamastrostefano.weebly.com/blog/nature-conservancy-first-draft Minor Assignment 104/8/2018 In “The March for Science Can’t Figure Out How to Handle Diversity” by Zuleyka Zevello, inspects how an organization who strive to keep science in the spot light, can still run into issues when it comes to diversity. A movement like March For Science, at first, appears to be a group who value science as a key part of our society, but through various mis-steps ends up being the focus in a diversity driven debate.
When considering how this case relates back to issues relevant to this course, a few things come to mind, but once in particular I want to touch on. I believe that the most important thing to learn from this case, that is also relevant to our course, is to always keep audience in mind when writing for the sciences. It quickly became apparent in the article that the March For Science group forgot that their organization was meant to reach people in all walks of life and began “reproducing gender stereotypes of science as part of its promotion of the march” (Zevello). While it should be obvious that stereotyping of any kind is never appropriate, it seems especially unadvised when trying to reach a broad audience. Through this, they immediately lose a group of people that could have potentially helped rocket their movement to the forefront of media. But instead, by negatively stereotyping this group they immediately lose their support, as well as anybody’s that do not agree with their expressed views. In relation to our class, we have talked about how science writing has such a niche audience already that it is imperative to retain any readers that you can. This is a topic that has often been touched upon as we discussed our final projects, given that many of them are meant to be read or used by the general public directly. With this in mind, many of our final projects have to be tailored to be understood and appreciated by all different groups of people. For example, for my final project specifically, I have to attempt to make my site description appealing to anybody who would want to visit the preserve. This could be anyone from hikers to runners to people with young children just looking for a place to take a walk. When thinking in this way it becomes imperative that I do not section off any of these groups and make them feel unwanted or incapable of visiting the preserve, as we have learned can easily be done through “The March for Science Can’t Figure Out How to Handle Diversity”. Minor Assignment 94/1/2018 In “Discourse Coalitions, Science Blogs, and the Global Debate Over Climate Change,” Graham Smart attempts to make sense out of the mess that is the debate over climate change. He does this by looking into the three different discourse coalitions that are most prevalent in this topic: Advocates, Skeptics, and Eco-Optimists. To give some quick background information, advocates are those that believe climate change is happening and is caused by human generated green house gases, skeptics are those that do not believe climate change is occurring, and eco-optimists are those that accept global warming is occurring, but it is a natural occurrence that will correct itself with time. With these three groups in mind, Smart begins to look at how the communicate their ideas, and how they interact with one another. He eventually introduces the idea of science blogs, and how they are used by the different groups. He demonstrates how blogs are often used as a medium where people with different ideas can argue with each other. A practice that, while reminiscent of the Greek forums where people could express their thoughts and disagreements, felt more petty than beneficial, and Smart comes to a very similar conclusion.
He concludes his thoughts by saying “the study shows that although each of the three discourse coalitions offer its pubic version of climate-science knowledge, these versions are incommensurate, with the consequence that individuals are denied the possibility of developing, through dialogue, greater scientific understanding” (174). Essentially, he’s arguing that by the different discourse coalitions focusing more on the debate than presenting facts, the public loses the ability to form opinions of their own. Especially when it comes to a topic like climate change that affects all of us, it is a shame when scientists are more focused on being right than helping the public generate informed opinions. While Smart’s work was an interesting look into how different groups of people interact, and how this affects the public, I do not believe that it is too relevant to my final project. I have come to this conclusion because I am not writing about anything too “fact based” that could be refuted by another individual. My final project focuses more on why a person should visit a certain preserve, not presenting them with a bunch of facts that they must accept as true or false. Minor Assignment 83/25/2018 The piece of science writing that I chose to analyze was the article for the Yellow Island Nature Preserve on the Washington State Nature Preserve website. I chose this article because it is a good example of the type of writing that I will have to emulate for my final project. While the article is rather short, (my guess would be about 300 words), it is packed with information. Each and every sentence in the article appears to have a purpose and it lacks any filler whatsoever. I'm addition to this, it employs some of the techniques that Montgomery outlines in chapter 19 “Science writing and science talks: communicating with and for the public.”
The first of these techniques used was ensuring that the first sentence or opening paragraph grabs the readers attention right off the bat. The first sentence of the article was “Summer is the perfect time to go visit the gem of the San Juan Islands – The Yellow Island Preserve!” This sentence does a few things to grab the readers attention right away. First is the use of descriptions. Calling the Yellow Island Preserve “the gem of the San Juan Islands” immediately peaks the readers interest in this location by making it stand out against any other possible preserves they are looking at. Second is the use of punctuation. Ending the sentence with an exclamation point not only makes the preserve seem exciting, but it also shows that whoever write this article must also really like the preserve, giving it some validity as a good spot. The second technique that I thought they use really well, was the use of simple language. The author, for the most part, avoided using the scientific terms for the pants and animals they discussed. This helps to engage with the reader, because they have an easier time understanding exactly what the author is talking about. While the audience may still not know exactly what animals the author is talking about, using the name “harlequin duck” allows for the reader to immediately know it’s a duck versus having to wade through the Latin of a scientific name. Use of simple language is a particularly important technique to use when writing for a gerenal audience, and is absolutely one that I am hoping to employ when writing for my final project. While an interesting or flashy into is also good for grabbing attention, if you lsoe the reader immediately after that with bogged down jargon, then what was the point of the intro. Especially for my final project in which I will be wiritng for a very broad audience, use of simple words will be on the top of my list. http://www.washingtonnature.org/yellowisland Minor Assignment 73/21/2018 The article that I chose to read was “Why Do octopuses remind Us So Much of Ourselves” by Olivia Judson, published on the National Geographic website. In the article, Judson begins by narrating her experiences going face to face with different kinds of octopuses. The first one she introduces is the coconut octopus (Amphiotopus marginatus). She details how this octopus uses different kinds of shells, or coconut husks (as the name suggests), as hiding places. She then describes the feeling of looking into the octopuses eyes and feeling it stare right back at her. This type of personal story however only makes up a fraction of the article as a whole. Once the side story comes to a close the article becomes much more scientific as she dives into talking about how octopuses camouflage as well as how their nervous system works. Despite the change in focus, she continues to use writing techniques ans strategies similar to those that Montgomery outlines in chapter five of “The Chicago Guide to Communicating Science”.
The technique that she uses most often, and my personal favorite of the bunch, was the use of questions. She often introduces new topics with rhetorical questions, which stimulate readers interest, that she then immediately answers, giving satisfaction to readers anticipation. I have always found this technique a useful to help the reader feel engaged in the text, and draw them into the authors world a little. Especially when writing about topics such as the underwater environment, an area of study most people do understand greatly, the more you can increase the interest of the reader the better. Judson also implements the use of transitions extremely well. Between each of her more scientific sections, she introduces another personal story of her dives that relate well to the upcoming section. These transitions work on multiple levels. They allow the reader some time to relax from the more strenuous sections, as well as subconsciously priming them for what they will be reading about next. Both of these techniques I find work extremely well when writing for a generalized audience. They particularly help readers become engaged in topics that they otherwise aren’t typically thinking of. Due to this, I am hoping to implement both of these techniques in my final project to help bridge the gap between the scientific aspect of the nature conservancy and the more public friendly features. Minor Assignment 63/19/2018 Sam Kean, in his book Caesar's Last Breath: Decoding the Secrets of the Air Around Us, focuses on the creation of our atmosphere, and how it became the way it is today. He introduces this idea by stating that we have had many versions of our atmosphere throughout history. He then begins to present the different gases which have had a critical role in forming our atmosphere.
Although Kean is writing about a scientific topic, his audience does not seem to be the scientific community. This is evident by the fact that he often references basic level chemistry, instead of graduate or even college level content that many of people wouldn’t understand. Topics like the breaking of bonds and transition of electrons, that can be very intricate if you want them to be, are simplified down to one or two sentence explanations. This approach works well because his goals are not to teach anyone chemistry, but instead to supply them with the overarching view of our planets history in relation to the formation and dissipation of different atmospheres. He also adds a wealth of interesting historical stories that each relate to the gas he is currently discussing. Whether it be Nitrogen or Oxygen, each gas has a story along with it that allows people a deeper look into the history of gas and how it affects our planet. Personally, I particularly like the addition of historical stories in his book. It allows the audience to have breaks between the more scientific "textbook" sections, and makes the book an overall easier and more interesting read. There is a potential to add this technique to our final project, in that we can add our own personal stories in the site descriptions we write. This could help anyone reading the site to have a more personal look into what the different locations have to offer, instead of just the typical scientific information. I currently do not have any questions for Kean while he is here, but I would be interested to see his talk and hear what he has to say. In the current state of my preliminary analysis, I was hoping to structure it based on the standard IMRAD paper. I was thinking that using this set up would make my paper more accessible to people within the scientific discourse community for which I was writing. Given that grant proposals are something that most people within this discipline have written, or will have to write at some point, I was thinking that this analysis could work as a way to show them what the most valuable rhetorical techniques are to include in a proposal. In alignment with this, I was hoping that going through the process of analyzing multiple grant proposals would give myself invaluable insight into the genre for when I will eventually need to write one myself.
I made the decision to analyze grant proposals early on in the process, but exactly what within that genre flipped around a few times. I initially wanted to compare the rhetorical techniques between two grant proposals, one for new research and one for known, or previously done, research. This initially seemed difficult to do because it would involve the need to find specific grant proposals that fit this specification, so I switched my focus to comparing the techniques used between successful and failed proposals. While searching for two proposals that fit this second set of specifications, I quickly realized that, in fact, my original idea was easier to accomplish, and found two proposals that were written for the same grant, a year apart, one for a new project and one for a project continuation. Questions/Concerns:
Minor Assignment 52/11/2018 A particularly interesting section of Bazerman’s “Patents as Speech Acts and Legal Object” is his analysis of “The typification of patent forms”. In this section he not only discusses the typification of the standard patent form, but he also discusses the history of the patent form. He dives deep into where and when each section of the form originated and why it did so. For example, he discusses the need for pictures and models by saying, “a drawing might be attached. Until 1881 a model was required, but afterward was to be supplied only on request” (11). This connection to the past and the evolution of the patent form helps to give interesting context about the genre and how/why it changed throughout the years.
This type of historical analysis, I believe, could be interesting to use in my own rhetorical analysis. Perhaps not diving so far into the past but instead within the realms of possibly me interviewees experience. For example, some questions I could ask to add context to my analysis could be: “How has the standardized form of the Grant Proposal changed throughout your research career?” or “In what way would you might want it to change in the future?”. I think these sorts of questions could help shed some light on the discourse communities opinion on the genre, giving some valuable context on the overall writing style. My original idea for my first major assignment was to compare the different kinds of language and persuasive techniques used in grant proposals for pre-examined fields versus grant proposals for unexplored/uncommon topics. After discussing this idea in class and having more time to mull it over, I think it would make more sense to simply analyze grant proposals on a whole and what rhetoric they use. Possibly this comparison could now be analyzing the difference in rhetoric between grant proposals that succeed and those that have failed. I believe that this comparison would be easier to manage, as well as easier to find examples from each side. Minor Assignment 42/6/2018 Given the main purpose of the first major assignment being “To uncover how the functions and features of particular genres shape scientific discourse within a particular activity system or discourse community,” I think I may have settled on what I want to investigate. With my first major assignment, I think I want to investigate the grant proposal genre. The process by which professors and researchers propose for grants has always been somewhat of a mystery to me. To whom are they applying from grants from, and how do they write an effective proposal. Taking it one step further though, if possible, I want to look into the grant proposal process for someone who is a pioneer in their field. Given that a lot of current research is based off of previous research papers and ideas, how would someone apply for a grant for a project that has no previous literature to base their ideas off of? Do they still follow the typification, also defined as “the process of moving to standardized forms of utterance that are recognized as carrying out certain actions,” of the genre, as Bazerman put it (316).
To achieve what I am looking to do in this project, I think I will need to do a few things. First, I believe it will be important to study how “typical” grant proposals are written, to get a base line. Once this is done I will be able to move on and begin looking at grant proposals written for more obscure/un-based (due to lack of better terms) research projects. The difference I am expecting to find is a relation between the amount of explanation needed in the proposal and the “newness” of the research ideas. For example, an established idea will need less explanation than a new one. Finally, I hope to interview a faculty member one campus whose research interests live in the more unresearched area of marine biology. I hope with this insight I will be able to draw more conclusions from my investigations by having an insider’s perspective on the topic. One question/concern I do have however is, are grant proposals an accessible form of literature to the public? And if not, is there a way I will still be able to accomplish my goals? AuthorSophomore Marine Biology Major, Roger Williams University Archives
April 2018
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The purpose of these blogs were to serve as a mode to turn in minor assignments for my Professional Writing Class. Many are responses to reading we did, and a couple are first drafts of various major assignments. |