Online Class 5/6/15

What did you think about yesterday’s digital Peer/Reader Review sesh? Better/worse/same as the “old school” hard copy one? Please explain!
I thought that the digital peer review session was better than hard copy review sessions because there was more space to comment.  We also didn't have to deal with passing papers back and forth.
So, in the end, how’d your WP2 paper go? What were you happy with? What weren’t you? Why? Be specific! (Remember: this is fodder for your end-of-quarter metacognitive reflection)
I thought that my WP2 went well.  I don't think that my rough draft was very good, mainly because I was having trouble with its structure, but then I got it together for the final draft.  I was having a little trouble trying to tie in the course readings with the writing project, but I think I did a good job with the tie ins that I did do.  Overall, I though that I did a decent job.
Which 2 or 3 comments that you received yesterday were the most helpful for you? Why?
One comment that I relieved was that my thesis statement wasn't very clear, so I tweaked it a bit to make it more clear.  Another comment was that I should analyze the moves more, so I did that.
List 5-10 genres that a younger audience (younger than you) typically reads/writes. Try to get specific—ie, “Adventure Novels – 6th graders.

Child learning to read-ABC book

5th grader-Fantasy novel

Junior High Student-Video game description

2nd Grader-Children's book

Highschooler-Tweet

List 5-10 genres that an older audience (older than you) typically reads/writes. Try to get specific—ie, “a LinkedIn profile – recent college graduates.”

Adult-Local Newspaper

Retired Man-Golf Magazine

Old medical patient-Medical Brochure

Someone who doesn't us the internet-Phone Book

Middle aged woman-Romance Novel

PB3A

Observed Properties of Exoplanets: Masses, Orbits, and Metallicities for Kids!

            We all live on the planet Earth.  And we have a really hot and bright sun that we revolve around.  There are also seven other planets that revolve around the sun just like us.  There are large ones, small ones, hot ones, cold ones, and even ones made out of gas.

            Next time you look up at the night sky, notice how there are many bright dots.  Even too may to count!  Each one of those bright dots is another sun like our own.  They are so small because they are very far away.  Much farther than our own sun.  There are big suns, small suns, dense suns, red suns, and even blue suns.

            Many of these far suns have planets just like our sun.  There are large planets, small planets, hot planets, cold planets, gas planets, and even planets similar to our own.

            Since these planets orbit far suns, they are also really far away.  Since they are so far away they are really hard to see.  They are so hard to see that we need to use telescopes because we can’t see them with our naked eyes.  Trying to see these planets is like trying to see grains of sand that are all the way across town!

            The people that look for these planets are called astronomers.  Astronomers want to figure out many things about these planets.  They want to know how heavy they are, how fast the go around their far sun, how close to their far sun they are, what they are made of, and even if there are things living on them.

            Astronomers have many complicated ways of finding these things out about the planets that orbit the far stars.  They can measure how hard the planets pull on the far sun they revolve around.  They can measure how much light they block from their far sun when they go in front of it.  And they can even measure what kind of light the planets absorb.

            Astronomers do this so they can learn more about the universe that we live in, and also to see if any of these planets could have living things on them like our planet Earth.  Maybe one day, you could be an Astronomer too!

Observed Properties of Exoplanets: Masses, Orbits, and Metallicities for Adults.

            Astronomers are interested in learning more about the planets that orbit stars.  They want to know things such as their mass, composition, and information about their orbits.  Astronomers have various methods of doing this.  They can measure the slight gravitational wobbles of the stars that the planets orbit.  They can also measure the slight dimming of the stars when they planet passes in front of it.  They can even measure the absorption lines of the planets.

            Astronomers graph this data and try to find trends in planets in order to better understand things such as how planets form.  All this information helps advance the knowledge of the human race regarding our place in the universe.

WP #2 Rough Draft

Marcus Dodge

Zack de Piero

Writing 2

 3 May 2015

Genetically Modified Organisms

Throughout history, the human population has increased.  One big problem with this growth has been being able to feed everybody.  Farmers from both past and present have had to increase yields without increasing costs too much.  On top of all this, farmers also have to conscious of the environment these days. In order to achieve all this, society has turned to Genetically Modified Organisms, or GMO’s.  GMO’s are crops such as corn or soy which have had their DNA altered in order to express desirable traits such as growing bigger or even developing resistance to certain types of pests.  This sudden increase in GMO’s has not been immune to considerable backlash though.  Companies such as Green Peace have launched campaigns against biotechnology companies such as Monsanto, and the discussion about the safety of GMO’s has turned into a much-publicized ordeal.  However, whether or not GMO’s are dangerous is not the subject of this paper.  Instead, this paper is focused on analyzing a few examples from the plethora of research that has been done on this controversial new technique.  Two scientific papers and one mainstream media article will be examined to show that each form of literature is equally important in delivering information to people in order to better understand GMO’s.

At first glance, it is apparent that the scholarly papers and the mainstream media article are structured very differently.  The scholarly papers have multiple titled sections.  Both scholarly papers have an introduction, conclusion, and references as well as information in the middle describing the research being carried out and results of that research.  They also both contain figures and graphs that help explain the results of the research.  All of this helps to present the advanced research being done clearly and efficiently.  However, the mainstream media article is quite different from the scholarly texts.  Overall, the media article is much more basic than the scholarly articles.  It is short and to the point.  It is structured in a sort of bullet point format in that it has five points that it concisely discusses.  The brevity of the article makes it easy to read and understand.

Something that is readily apparent when glancing at the articles is the different language that is used.  The scholarly articles use much more advanced language and terminology that is unique to the subject that they are discussing.  For example, one of the scholarly articles explains, “Immunoassay technologies with antibodies are ideal for qualitative and quantitative detection of many types of proteins in complex matrices when the target analyte is known.”  This type of language does not make much sense to everyday people, but to a biological scientist it is crystal clear.  The mainstream media article uses everyday language and assumes that the readers know just about nothing about GMO’s.

            All of the conventions and formatting of the articles discussed so far can be explained by the audience that they are intended for.  The two scholarly articles are intended for people already knowledgeable about GMO’s, while the mainstream media article is intended for everyday people.  The subjects of the articles can show this.  One of the scholarly articles is meant for biologists because it explains how to detect if certain foods are genetically modified or not.  This article uses jargon that is specific to the study of biology.  It also assumes that the people reading the article already know many of the techniques for sequencing DNA.  Due to both of theses reasons, the article would not make much sense to everyday people.  The other scholarly article is about the public’s perception on GMO’s and how it affects their buying habits.  The article is fairly straightforward until it uses complicated equations to try to model the economic impacts of GMO’s.  This wouldn’t be too hard to understand for economics, but yet again, everyday people would quickly get confused.  Finally, the mainstream media article is simply information about GMO’s.  Scientists already familiar with GMO’s would quickly get bored, but it is a great informational article for everyday people.

Even though the scholarly and mainstream media articles are quite different, they are equally useful in their own ways.  The scholarly articles provide evidence from gathered facts about GMO’s.  The biological article explains how to detect if foods are genetically modified in a way that only biologists could understand.  The article is useless to most people but it is very informative to a biologist.  The scholarly article about the economics is also useless to everyday people but it provides valuable information to economics.  The mainstream media article also has its own place.  It is a piece of valuable information to everyday consumers but not to scientists.  One might argue that since the mainstream media article has a much larger audience, it would be more useful.  This however, is not the case because without the scientific articles, the mainstream media article would have no information to back its claims.  The scientific articles also depend on the mainstream media article because the results of the research being conducted wouldn’t be relevant unless everyday people knew something about them.  The scientific articles also have value to a few other types of people and companies other than scientists.  For example, a food company or restaurant chain might want to know the publics perception of GMO’s to be able to decide whether or not they think that genetically modifying their product would be worthwhile.

            Overall, each article has its purpose in society.  The scholarly articles provide information to experts in their fields, while the mainstream media uses that information and presents it in a way more suitable for the public.