To: Foundations of Science Class

From: Ezra Shahn

Re: First Essay

Date: September 15, 1998

With regard to the first essay, there is both good news and not so good news. The only bad news is that some of you did not hand in any first draft for us to grade. The good news is that most of the first drafts that we saw were first drafts, and with a modest amount of work they can likely be improved to be quite good. Indeed, in many respects they showed a fairly good grasp of the details of the assignment. The not so good news is that there are many comments relating to repeated problems. My response to these will be the subject of this note. Because I am responding to a whole class's papers, it is unlikely, if not impossible that all of these comments could refer to any one person's paper. Nevertheless, you might all benefit from reading what I have to say, realizing that if you didn't trip into one of these common pitfalls this time, you might in the future. In any case, as you read this you should pay close attention only where you feel the shoe is fitting, or more to the point, where it is pinching.

To begin, there are a number of comments dealing with essay writing in general rather than with the specific topic of Essay I. The first of these is, read the assignment carefully. Too many of you seemed to jump in with only a casual thought to what the essay was to be about, or how it was to be structured. In fact, the assignment was a verbal outline, and if you had attended to each of the several parts in turn you would have done better, and possibly with less difficulty. Related to this was the fact that many of you omitted titles. Make sure that your essays have titles. This tells both the reader and you what you are writing about, and if you have any doubt, you can ask yourself, "Does this point, or this paragraph, add to the story promised in the title?" In this essay, the goals were for you (a) to understand what phenomena were, (b) to distinguish among three types of phenomena in general, (c) to identify some examples, and (d) to describe some of these. (The assignment told you specifically which types of phenomena to examine, and how many of each should be identified and described. Note: identification requires more than just naming.) The assignment did not ask, nor did it want, you to try to explain or account for any of these, either in ancient terms or in modern terms. Nor did we want you to spend lots of time recounting what are essentially personal experiences, regardless of how interesting they may be or how well you write about them. Nor did we want you to display your modern scientific vocabulary. The reason for the assignment was for you to explore (possible) roots of science in the sense that the subject matter of all science (both ancient - early - and modern) is phenomena that many people can share. At the same time, we are pleased to see that many of you do have reasonable and reasonably sophisticated ideas about the nature of science and how it developed. We hope that as the course proceeds these ideas will grow, and fully expect that in subsequent essays you will find the opportunity to develop them.

Mechanically, there are two requests: please leave enough room for comments (i.e., don't single space your papers, and leave reasonable margins), and please use a fresh ribbon. Stretching the use of a ribbon in some cases is almost as good as not using any in the first place. Of course, we are grateful for your using mechanical printers, and if you are just starting on the use of word processors I am sure you will find that they greatly assist you, especially when it comes time to revise.

At a different level of complexity, but one that makes reading essays difficult, is the frequent confusion of the singular and plural forms of the word phenomenon (sing; phenomena is the plural. In no case is there an "s".). The confusion comes when this is used with a verb form that doesn't agree. This isn't just a matter of grammar; it's a matter of whether the reader can tell what you, the writer, are saying, or does he or she have to guess. Indeed, this is the major reason why the graders noted errors in grammar, punctuation or spelling; these errors can lead to confusion, and thus they greatly hinder communication, which is the thrust of writing. This is why we ask you to write sentences (which are supposed to be complete thoughts), and link them into paragraphs (which deal with related sentences). When there is inadequate attention to paragraph structure -- let alone sentence structure -- the reader is at a loss to know what your intention as the writer is. In a real first draft this may be permissible. But by the time you show your work to someone else, it should reflect your considered thoughts. One way to help get things organized is to outline your thoughts; in this case the outline was already provided for you, but the details had to be provided. If you don't outline as a habit, and you find you have trouble getting organized, you might want to try it. In its simplest form, outlining involves merely listing, in order, the points you want to make. For longer papers, each major point should be subdivided into several minor points, and each of these might be the subject of further subdivision. A rich outline can be filled out if each point, or sub-point, is elaborated with a short paragraph, or a sentence or two.

Our comments on your papers are not meant to be a copy editing of your writing. We do not try to note every error of spelling, misplaced comma, run-on sentence, sentence fragment, or misconception. Thus, simply revising by correcting each of the points we've flagged may not be enough to improve your grade to the level that you want. Rather, we try to give some general reaction, and note some specific points that lead to our conclusions. In this paper, one of the major misconceptions dealt with the interpretation of "craft-based phenomena." What was intended was a consideration of those phenomena that had been, and still may be, exploited in developing some craft. Thus, metallurgy, the craft involved in purifying and working metals from ores, exploits the phenomenon of change of form from ore (rock) to metal resulting from heating the ore in the presence of wood or charcoal or straw. This phenomenon can be described without being explained; indeed it was the basis of extracting metals from ores for many centuries without anyone having a clue as to what was happening. The same thing can be said of the crafts of medicine, agriculture, perfumery, glass making, architecture, etc. Naming the crafts does not identify the related phenomena -- what happens in their practice that might be the subject of further study; that would be part of your job. (That is, you should describe what happens.) Note that, because you do not have to explain it, this only requires enough familiarity with one of these examples (or any other that you can think of) to find a phenomenon that you might describe. This is the case with periodic and episodic phenomena as well; in this essay, describe, don't try to explain. This does not mean that the job is easy; in many ways it is more difficult, but here we are asking you to use your own powers of observation and narration, and not to rely on what you may have been told by someone else.

The other frequent error was confusing a crafted product with a craft-based phenomenon. A Greek vase is not the same as the process (phenomenon) of clay hardening and changing quality when it is fired. In your revisions, make sure that this error is corrected. In a similar sense, a method of measuring quantitatively a particular phenomenon is not the same thing as the phenomenon. Thus, measuring the length of a year by any technique is not the same as noting that the height of the sun in the sky, or the occurrence of helical rising of a star, has a period of one year. As another example, beware of using man-made constructs (such as hours and leap years) in discussing periodic phenomena; they cannot really be observed; rather, they are defined. Yet another error that has occurred several times in the past referred to the mortal dangers of high tides. So far as I could tell, there was a confusion between high tides (which occur twice a day in most parts of the world, which are benign, and which may be the only times when ships can leave certain ports) and tidal waves (which are occasional consequences of sub-oceanic earthquakes, and are not in general related to tides).

As a last word, we expect that these essays reflect your thoughts, expressed in your words. They are not meant to be summaries of the text, or of the lectures, or library research papers. Of course, they are related to both lecture and text material, but the essays should be able to stand by themselves, and be motivated by the assignment without specific reference to text or lecture. If you find you have to, or do, refer to some other source, this should be noted in a standard form, and any extensive quotes should be set off with "", in the usual way.

Sophia has volunteered to meet with you on Thursday from 11:00 to 12:00, and Cherann has agreed to meet at this time as well as 2:00 to 3:00; we will open the lab for this. If you can make it, it should be very helpful.

Best of luck on your revisions.