Biology Scholars Program: Transitions 2014-2015

1. Biology Scholars Program: Transitions 2014-2015 Marcy Peteroy-Kelly, Pace University: Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education Jodie Krontiris-Litowitz, Youngstown State University: Advances in Physiology Education Elisa Stone, University of California, Berkeley: CBE – Life Sciences Education

2. Overview and Goals • Agenda – How is the residency organized? • Critical friend/facilitator teams • Activities, consultations for feedback, writing time • Concurrent sessions for networking • What do you want to accomplish during this institute?

3. Session 1: Identify Writing Goals and Work Plan for the Institute

4. What is, What Works, How and Why Does it Work, and What’s Possible? • In general, we ask the following questions when we review a manuscript: • Is your study novel? • Is everything aligned? • Were the correct statistical tests used to analyze the data? • Are the conclusions supported by the data?

5. Activity: • Answer the following questionson your own (Time: approx. 5 minutes) • What is your research question? • What is your rationale for asking that question? • Does the question address a significant problem? • Share your answers with another scholar (not your critical friend, Time: approx. 5 minutes each). • Share your answers with your critical friend (Time: approx. 5 minutes each).

6. Draft Manuscript Review Guidelines • Critiquing science experiments • The 50/5 paradigm • Guidelines for reviewing manuscripts • ‘The Sandwich’: +/-/+ • Clarification questions vs Probing questions ‘Please explain…’ vs ‘I wonder if…/I noticed that…’ • Process check: ‘How are you thinking about your paper now?’

7. Draft Manuscript Review For the next hour (2:15-3:15), meet with your critical friend and facilitator to discuss your manuscripts. The following rooms have been designated for your teams to use for work during the Institute: Marcy’s team: Blue Room Jodie’s team: Room 233 Elisa’s team: Room 104 Your first break will begin at 3:15 in the Blue Room.

8. Individual Writing Time Use this time to outline your plans for your next steps in drafting your manuscript and identifying your needs based upon the conversations you had with your critical friend and facilitator. Time: 3:30-4:30 Be prepared to discuss your plans and needs with your teams at 4:30. You will have a break at 5:00.

9. Session 2: Network with Facilitators and Scholars AND Homework!!!! Session 2: At 5:15, we will join the Research Residency Facilitators and Scholars for introductions and discussions about your SoTL work. The goal of the evening sessions are to begin to establish networking relationships. Homework: Each critical friend team will receive a manuscript written by their facilitator. Please read and critically review the manuscript and be prepared to summarize the manuscript and your review with your fellow scholars tomorrow. Breakfast will be served at 8:00 tomorrow morning in the Blue Room.

10. Thursday, July 24, 2014

11. Writing/Reflection Time • Reflect on your data and the statistical tools you used to analyze your data in the context of the Data Analysis talk and refine any troublesome sections. • Christine Pribbenow will be available for consultation. • Time: 10:45-12:30 • Lunch will begin at 12:30.

12. Session 4: Appreciate the Journey of the Manuscript Preparation Process

13. Publish & FlourishOriginal Presentation by Dr. Tara Gray

14. A Twelve Step Program (p. 1) • Writing is difficult • Regardless of what you write • Lifetime project • Even good writers receive criticism • This paper is… • “Very poorly done.” • “Very badly prepared.” • “Plagued by myriad problems.” • “So badly written that few persons will have the patience to try to make sense of it.” • Steps counter the difficulty • Tailor steps to suit your needs

15. Managing Time Pages written or revised per year First group (attended workshops but chose to continue writing occasionally, in big blocks of time) 17 Second group (attended workshops and agreed to write daily, and record it) 64 Third group (attended workshops and agreed to write daily, record it, and be held accountable for writing daily) 157 Daily Writing, Record Keeping, and Accountability: The Effect on Productivity (Boice 1989:609)

16. Why doesn’t every scholar keep records? • Too rudimentary • What to include • How to keep record • Use a spreadsheet, sticky notes, or a formal log (p. 3)

17. Share your records weekly with a Sponsor or Buddy • Sponsor: non-reciprocal • Buddy: reciprocal • Choose someone who believes in daily writing and will hold your feet to the fire! • Who will you choose? • Colleague, fellow Transitions Scholar, facilitator, Teaching & Writing center on campus • When should you report? • Daily for 30 days • Weekly thereafter

18. Revising • Organize around key sentences • Key sentences are like topic sentences • Announce topic simply, with little detail, without trying to prove the point • Tell what the rest of the paragraph is about • Key sentences differ from topic sentences in that they need not be the first sentence

19. Let’s Practice (p.5-6) Example 1. Try thinking of paragraphs as having two parts: the issue and the discussion. The issue is a “short introductory section of the paragraph, or overture if you will,” which includes a transition and announces the topic. The discussion is the longer portion of the paragraph. The discussion “explains, elaborates, supports, qualifies, argues for what the writer stated in the issue. The issue promises; the discussion delivers. . . . If you write a passage that does not seem to hang together, seems uncentered or out of focus, you may have made a promise but didn’t deliver, or you may have delivered on promises you didn’t make (Williams and Colomb, 1990:92).

20. Example 1.Try thinking of paragraphs as having two parts: the issue and the discussion. The issue is a “short introductory section of the paragraph, or overture if you will,” which includes a transition and announces the topic. The discussion is the longer portion of the paragraph. The discussion “explains, elaborates, supports, qualifies, argues for what the writer stated in the issue. The issue promises; the discussion delivers. . . . If you write a passage that does not seem to hang together, seems uncentered or out of focus, you may have made a promise but didn’t deliver, or you may have delivered on promises you didn’t make (Williams and Colomb, 1990:92).

21. Example 2. “We learn rules for actions better when those rules are structured, whether we learn by practicing them, by watching a teacher demonstrate them, or by listening to a teacher explain them. But do we learn better from a demonstration or an explanation? We are likely to learn more when we watch a demonstration if our language skills are so weak that we cannot understand words easily, or if the teacher cannot verbalize the rules. We are also likely to learn more from watching a demonstration when we must quickly coordinate intricate actions such as learning to ride a bicycle, but the explanation for them is too cumbersome. Finally, we are likely to learn more from a demonstration if the action is difficult or unfamiliar and the teacher lectures about it at length. On the other hand, we will learn an action better from an explanation if we can deftly translate explanations into actions and then store the information” (Williams and Colomb 1990:87).

22. Example 2. “We learn rules for actions better when those rules are structured, whether we learn by practicing them, by watching a teacher demonstrate them, or by listening to a teacher explain them. But do we learn better from a demonstration or an explanation? We are likely to learn more when we watch a demonstration if our language skills are so weak that we cannot understand words easily, or if the teacher cannot verbalize the rules. We are also likely to learn more from watching a demonstration when we must quickly coordinate intricate actions such as learning to ride a bicycle, but the explanation for them is too cumbersome. Finally, we are likely to learn more from a demonstration if the action is difficult or unfamiliar and the teacher lectures about it at length. On the other hand, we will learn an action better from an explanation if we can deftly translate explanations into actions and then store the information” (Williams and Colomb 1990:87).

23. Every section of your paper should have a key sentence (Intro, Methods, Results, Discussion) • Use key sentences as an outline for review • Use your word processor to hide all text except headings and key sentences (p. 7-8) • Then view or print your outline

24. Read your list. Ask yourself how the key sentences could better communicate the purpose (thesis) to the audience Read your list AGAIN. Ask yourself how the key sentences could be better organized (more logical/coherent)

25. Other uses • Start your writing sessions daily • Write abstracts • Grade stacks of papers • Work with thesis or dissertation students

26. Get Help Share early drafts with non-experts and later drafts with experts Learn how to listen Respond to each specific comment

27. Text and Academic Authors • TAA is a non-profit, interdisciplinary professional organization that: • Advocates for academic authors and excellence in teaching materials • Offers one-year gift memberships to workshop participants • Provides traveling workshops • Provides monthly e-mail column by Dr. Tara Gray

28. Polish & Let Go • Make sure to read your prose out loud • Select appropriate journals: • Read your bibliography to find target journals • Read up on journal’s scope and intended audience • Pick a section you’d like to submit to and read previously published papers • Ask experts and Experts • Contact journal editors directly! • See p. 9 for how to query

29. Kick it out the door and make ’em say “No.” • Three things interfere with submitting: • Pride • Perfectionism • Fear of rejection

30. In education journals • 15% of first-time submissions are accepted with revisions • 75% of R & Rs are accepted with revisions (Henson 1999:134) • So, celebrate every R&R!

31. Activity: Journal Journeys Goal: Facilitators share one of their journeys in publishing a SoTL manuscript from start to finish. Session 1 (2-2:30): Jigsaw with Journal Readings: Get into groups of three (each group should include one member from each critical friend team). Each paper should be summarized to the group, in turn. Session 2 (2:30-3): Reviewers’ Comments: Critical friend teams receives the journal reviewers’ comments for the paper they reviewed. Read the comments and discuss. The facilitators will not be present for this discussion. Session 3 (3-3:30): Facilitator’s Journey: Each critical friend team will be rejoined by their facilitator so that the facilitator can complete the story of their journey to publishing the paper. Session 4 (3:30-3:45): Jigsaw with Journal Readings 2: Discuss anything you learned from the facilitator’s journeys with your original “Jigsaw” group to close out the session.

32. Consultations with Facilitators • Work with facilitators of your choosing to discuss sections of your paper that you are having difficulty with. • The facilitators present will include: • Marcy Peteroy-Kelly, Pace University: Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education • Jodie Krontiris-Litowitz, Youngstown State University: Advances in Physiology Education • Elisa Stone, University of California, Berkeley: CBE – Life Sciences Education • Stephen Nold, University of Wisconsin-Stout • Time: 3:45-4:30

33. Evening Activities Breakfast will be served at 8:00 am in the Blue Room.

34. Friday, July 25, 2014

35. Developing Searchable TitlesOriginal Presentation By: Dr. Beronda Montgomery, Michigan State UniversityPresented By: Marcy Peteroy-Kelly

36. Overview What makes a good title and a good abstract? Key elements Tips for writing

37. Purpose of the Title/Abstract • Title/abstract summarizes your work They should be more than a general summary. They should convey the thesis of you work and give insight into the major findings. • Fine-tuned for your audience • First step in attracting a potential reader Allows the reader to judge whether it would serve his or her purposes to read the entire manuscript

38. General Tips: Title and Abstract • Parts of your paper most people will see First (and sometimes, only) parts of a paper that can be viewed by everyone unless paper is ‘open access’ • Should be specific and concise Should be specific enough to describe the contents of the paper, highlighting the novelty/relevance and the major findings • Should be distinct Try to make titles distinct enough from other similar works that readers can discern impact and novelty of your work from the start • Key elements should be included in both Use keywords for indexing – facilitates the paper making it to your target audience • Best way to get people interested People judge by the title whether to read the abstract The reading of the abstract will influence whether the entire paper will be read

39. Tips for Writing a Title • Keep it short • Address main point or content of the study AND be specific Title should be specific enough to describe the subject matter, contents of the paper, and perhaps to allow a reader to ascertain you hypothesis or given insight into major results/conclusions • Use specific, descriptive words that strongly support the content of your manuscript • Check for correct syntax (word order/sentence structure)

40. Tips for Writing a Title Continued • Keep in mind 3 elements – emphasis, impact and keywords • Keep the title focused on the most important point(s) or finding(s) that you want readers to remember. It is OK to give away the ‘end of the story’ as long as you do so in a way that makes the reader want to read to know the details. • Indicate what is novel or innovative about your work directly in the title • Be specific about relationships For example, use “reduced” or “increases” instead of “influences” or “impacts”

41. Titles: Be Specific Bacterial Responses to Stress VERSUS Oxidative Stress Response of Synechocystis sp PCC 6893 due to UV-B Exposure

42. Titles: Poor, Progress, Better Poor: Mouse Courtship Behavior Progress: The Effects of Estrogen on the Nose-Twitch Courtship Behavior in Mice Why? Key words identify a specific behavior; a modifying agent, and the experimental organism Better: Estrogen Stimulates Intensity of the Nose-Twitch Courtship Behavior in Mice Why? In addition to above, this title contains key result http://www.biosciencewriters.com/Writing-Strong-Titles-for-Research-Manuscripts.aspx

43. Generating Titles Brainstorm and write down as many titles as you can think of in a few minutes Ask other to read and suggest titles Compose and revise to arrive at a title that catches the eye AND conveys the thesis of your work in one formulation.

44. Abstracts • Self-contained summary of work • Emphasizes key results and significance • Succinct, clear and accurate Follow defined word limit of guidelines to authors

45. Abstract Tips Use active voice Start drafting the abstract by choosing your best lines from the manuscript Be logical in structuring your abstract References usually excluded Review and revise

46. Parts of an Abstract Background Hypothesis Course studied/subjects of study Methods Results Conclusions

47. Background Approximately 1-2 sentences Introduces general topic Introduces importance of topic from the very beginning – it is your job to highlight the relevance

48. Hypothesis 2 sentences maximum Describes the question being investigated or purpose of the investigation State hypothesis succinctly and clearly

49. Course studied/Subjects of Study Introduce course(s), program(s) that were studied Describe research subjects

50. Methods Approximately 2 sentences Introduce general methods used