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 Stringand-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/informality
Everyone 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.