Popular Research Science: How does the author use language and media to get his audience excited about the article/content?
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/star-birth-sparked-at-the-galaxys-edge/
The author of the article “Star Birth Sparked at the Galaxy’s Edge” does a good job of keeping the audience engaged with use of language much more so than media. There is a single picture given in the article, and while it shows the Magellanic cloud and how it looks in the sky, it is of such low resolution that it is hard to get any good idea of what is being looked at. Most of the interest is kept by the writing of the article, which uses a lot of expressive and simple terms to describe the interstellar processes being covered so that a general audience will find the article more entertaining, or when the author does provide specific details it is often unnecessary to the article and only added to benefit the credibility of the piece. One example: “This gas, named the Magellanic Stream, consists mostly of neutral hydrogen atoms, which broadcast radio waves that are 21 centimeters long.” While there are several technical details given in the sentence that are true, the author gives no explanation as to what these facts mean or how they influence the story, and as such they are pointless in this context. The author also uses overly expressive terms: “… which has enhanced its already significant grandeur by grabbing gas from its two most flamboyant satellites and sculpting it into new starts, a process our galaxy must have exploited numerous times in ancient epochs as it grew into a giant.” The entire final paragraph offers several overly descriptive terms that, when thought of in an astronomical context, are used incorrectly or don’t even make sense. The term ancient doesn’t do the 13.2 billion year age of the galaxy justice, and it isn’t possible for a cloud of gas to be behaving in a way to attract attention. It was still an interesting article to read that offers good information to the general public, but for anyone who already has some background knowledge in the topic the writing reads as somewhat superfluous.
Writing for Blogs: What was your initial impression of each blog, and why?
http://whybecausescience.com/2014/04/10/oral-hell-and-oral-health/
The first blog is quite engaging to read. It offers detailed information mixed in with both entertaining pictures that separate the paragraphs as well as funny anecdotes and quips that provide good analogies between oral health care and general life. Although it does not offer sources for any of the information given in the article, the way it is written gives it a sense of authority on the subject such that I find myself willing to accept everything being said. I think part of this has to do with the material; oral hygiene is so engrained in most children growing up in the U.S. that none of the oral hygiene material written is new to the reader, so we are willing to accept hearing it again from a second source, especially one as well written and humorous as this blog.
http://blog.sethroberts.net/category/personal-science/page/2/
The second blog is… interesting. Compared to the first blog, where the information is provided in a factual tone without any personal bias, the second blog is written as completely factual while being entirely from a personal bias. There are numerous logical fallacies present in the post, which significantly degrade the credibility of any point that is trying to be made. “I doubt it’s a placebo effect because the sleep improvement has happened whether I expect it or not.” If the author is going to sleep conducting an experiment that he expects will improve his sleep, he’s most likely going to think it improves his sleep no matter what happens. The author is assumes that a single action, for instance eating a spoonful of honey before going to bed, causes him to sleep better, when he even admits at least 6 other variables that he was aware of had changed from the night before. He also only performs these tests for two or three days, far too little time to determine any actual repeatability in the data. Upon looking into the author, it turns out he has a Ph.D. in psychology from a university in Beijing, which explains his ability to make his arguments sound convincing to the public that buys it, but also explains the lack of true science behind it.
Popular Writing: Since the article was written for the educated public, how successful was the author in conveying the scientific topic and debate while keeping you interested throughout the article?
http://www.popsci.com/article/science/can-artificial-meat-save-world
The author does a good job of keeping the reader interested through the article, but it does end up reading rather long. However, for the publication (Popular Science) this length of article is the norm so the expected readers will be used to it. The author provides good information about the topic, though most of the piece is written as a story of his experience visiting the plants and talking with the scientists. Having it written as a story makes the article feel slightly less credible, but for the expected audience it also seems appropriate. Having a piece written with more specific information would get to the point of turning away readers due to the over detail.
Bloggers of the Future 