Visual Storytelling

“I love the big scale and immediate impact of posters. They’re my favourite things to design.”
― Paula Scher

I’m new to academics. Researching academic posters  brought me back to my elementary or high school science fair projects. When I  spent some time researching how to make an effective visual presentation I was somewhat perplexed at the poor formatting and presentations by the experts. Much like the video of Marina Kostina who spoke on giving killer presentations while presenting a pretty plain and boring video, most of what’s out there is not unique or compelling enough to grab the audience’s attention.

Despite the underwhelming lack of novelty and creativity, here are a few interesting things I learned through my research:

• Your poster should be a short story that describes major points and arouse readers interest
• This is  not a written culmination of years of research- less is more so use a simple format
• Know who your audience is, it maybe workers in your area of expertise,  a competitor or people entirely outside of your field
• If you’re using charts make them simple and effective
• Your copy should answer why? what am I adding ?what did I find? what do I recommend?
• Titles should be large and easily read
• Don’t make readers guess the flow- point it put visually, either left to right or top to bottom
• Have a catchy title
• Make the names of authors and their affiliations  clearly visible
• Choose a simple aesthetic and easy-to-read font. Recommended sizes are:
  •  title – 85 point
  • the authors – 56 point
  • subheadings – 36 point
  • body – 24 point
  • captions – 18 point
• Images and graphs tell the story better than words
• Make sure images have high enough resolution
• If you were fortunate enough to have funding make sure you mention these people on the poster
• Choose colors that are easy to read and beware of backgrounds that are visually distracting
• Edit carefully
• It’s a great idea to have mini handouts accompanying your poster- something that your audience can take away

Here are two I found online from my field:

I must have high standards as even these two leave much to be desired. I will need to practice creating and giving more captivating presentations as I continue this education.

 

 

References:

Berkeley (website) http://hsp.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/ScientificPosters.pdf

NYU Libraries How to Create a Research Poster https://guides.nyu.edu/posters

 

 

Not Everything That Can Be Counted Counts

To communicate effectively, you must state your facts in a simple, concise and interesting manner. In my field, presentations are often a keynote speech or Ted talk styled presentation. They can also be a report or thesis, and even a book.

When presenting:

• Know your audience
• Keep jargon out of presentations. If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it deeply.
• Tell the audience what you will teach/explain/explore. Present. Wrap up by reminding them what you taught/explained/explored.
• A picture is worth 1000 words.
• Getting your audience involved keeps them engaged.
• Ask the audience to participate by explaining their Aha Moments or leaving you with a question that was sparked by your presentation.
• You can easily communicate concepts that are difficult to grasp through the intelligent use of professionally produced visuals. If using visuals, the should support your talk, not give it for you.

One of the articles I read was Microsoft’s CEO wants ET method of presentation, not PowerPoint. It was an excerpt from an interview with Stephen Ballmer the chief executive of Microsoft and it was printed in the New York Times in May 2009. The article discussed how Microsoft meetings had really changed.

Old School

• you come with an original idea in the format of a slide deck or a presentation
• the presentation is delivered
• you end by walking the listener through the exploration, the discovery, and your conclusion.

The problem with this method of presentation is that any team wants to please the leader so they often support the leader’s conclusion regardless of their opinion. It’s a leading way of presenting information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Paradigm

• send the deck or material in advance to everyone in the meeting without conclusions
• team is required to bring four questions to the meeting

Edward Taft values simplicity. He insists on simple designs for presentations that maximize reasoning time and decrease time spent decoding. In the article I read about PowerPoint presentations it is quite obvious that there’s not much he likes about them. Another example of creative meetings without PowerPoint comes from  Amazon. Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s CEO, requires all meetings to start with a study hall where a report is read together and then discussed. There is a ban on PowerPoint with a goal of critical thinking.

One of the keys to being a great presenter is being awed by your topic. In this Ted talk Martin Seligman, the founding father of positive psychology, is riveting because of his love for his work.

Finally,  this prezi on positive education is jam packed with useful information delivered simply in an engaging way. I could take this prezi, made by Jon Humphries, and give an engaging talk successfully as he has made it simple and clear.

The way you use graphics to support your data depends on what you are selling or showing. In this PDF data visualization is broken down to it’s simplest form. This is another intersection of  our writing course and our interdisciplinary studies. It is no longer enough to provide data or be a thorough researcher, the shift in academia means you also need to market yourself, present in a visually effective way, and be an engaging and confident speaker.

For professional reports, I wanted to use something that I would use in day to day business, however I rarely give a physical report to anyone. Instead I have included an infographic and a worksheet I have used with grade 5 students.

References

Forbes (2016) https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradauerbach/2016/02/09/edward-r-tufte-beautiful-evidence-and-visual-explanations/#1d1529bd31ba

Tuft, E (2017) website https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/

 

I’ve Heard the Withdrawal Method is Ineffective

I fell deep down the research rabbit hole when studying the ethics of decolonizing psychology research. According to Cushman (pg. 3)

 “Our current arrangement of power and privilege create many victims in the course of everyday life. But if our ways of understanding these attacks rob us of our ability to conceive of ourselves as persons who can join together into groups that can work to stop the emptiness, violence, and abuses of our era, then our theories are unhelpful. No, then our theories add to the oppression.”

The first step is ensuring terminology is universally understood. I defined decolonization as the resistance or undoing of the forces of colonialism that allow continued subjugation and/or exploitation of a people’s minds, bodies, and community. The dictionary defines in a slightly different way:

 

One connection is I made here is understanding versus knowing as it pertains to research. Think of fainting. You can be taught what happens when you faint. It can be described as tunnel vision with the ringing in your ears and a lightness of head followed by a temporary loss of consciousness. With this information you might understand fainting is however until you have actually fainted yourself you don’t have knowledge of fainting. You don’t know what it feels like to faint. It is impossible to be in someone else’s shoes we cannot know what it feels like to be in a subordinated population if that was not the group we were born into. And the reverse is also true, when a subordinated population feels the researcher is dominant the results will be skewed.

This affects research in a multitude of ways. There are many potential biases that can occur.

In addition to paying attention to these biases,  researchers also need to be careful to know that quality of their sources. With the access to information available in 2017, the skill is no longer finding information, the skill is discerning between fact and opinion. Researchers need to ask the question in the best setting, worded clearly, and listen without bias.

An interdisciplinary perspective is a tool to avoid bias.  According to Repko

• Interdisciplinary research is heuristic: interdisciplinary researchers are “discoverers” who engage concepts, issues, or problems individually or collectively “by introducing multiple decision points or steps…using experimentation or trial and error” to achieve integrated understanding (Repko 2008, 138).
• Interdisciplinary research is iterative: the research process involves “repetition of a sequence of operations yielding results successively closer to the desired outcome” (Repko 2008, 139).
• Interdisciplinary research is reflexive: throughout the research process, interdisciplinary researchers are “self-conscious or self-aware of disciplinary or personal bias that may influence one’s work” (Repko 2008, 139).

References-

Cushman, P. (1995). Constructing the self, constructing America: A cultural history of psychotherapy. Boston, MA: Da Capo Press

Farlex (2017) The Free Dictionary https://www.thefreedictionary.com/decolonising

Groenewald, T. (2012) Giving the Captive Mind Voice retrieved from web 11/21/2017 http://www.psychsoma.co.za/qualitative_inquiry_growt/postcolonial-research-paradigm/

Hayaze, N. (2017) Liberation Psychology in Action retrieved from web 11/21/2017 http://nozomihayase.com/methodology/decolonizing-ps

Repko, Allen F. Interdisciplinary Research: Process and Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2008.

Ruinous Empathy and Other Coaching Mistakes I Have Made

photo- Pereira 2017

Feedback. I actually enjoy getting it. I love any opportunity to learn what I don’t know. Luke and I had chosen articles from  one another’s blogs to edit. That said, we each found the other’s articles pretty awesome without editing which makes  the coaching more challenging.

When I write I usually have an editor so one big takeaway for me involved refreshing the skill of editing my own work rather than handing it to someone else to edit.

I also enjoyed the freedom being able to take Luke’s feedback or to ignore it. Usually, with my editor, ignoring feedback is not an option. Luke’s suggestions were strong for tightening up my blog and I appreciate them greatly. I would recommend doing feedback the way that he and I did it with a written version that we discussed over Skype. Something can be lost in translation by email. Written word leaves a lot to the interpretation of the reader.

One mistake I have made in the past is having ruinous empathy. I feel so badly about how the recipient will receive my feedback that  I end up not really giving it. Another feedback pitfall is the “shit sandwich”. This old-school method instructs you to  tell them something good, give them your critique, tell them something else good. This can be really overused and often the one receiving feedback misses the feedback entirely. If giving or receiving feedback is challenging for you , I recommend listening to the podcast Radical Candor.

Pereira 2107 http://www.lukepereira.com/inds300/coaching/

Bibliographic Organization for Neophytes

This photo came from the best blog post ever on our assignment for this week. Reflecting on my writing process I am fascinated to note that even though I write professionally the scope of my work is small. I have never needed an annotated bibliography and before I became passionate about positive psychology I could not imagine that I ever would.

This kind of organizational writing is not my strength.  I learned that this type of exploration is useful when delving deeply into a topic. I had a few “aha moments” that surprised me.

Here’s my first crack at it.

Bibliography

Brunwasser, S. M., Gillham, J. E., & Kim, E. S. (2009). A meta-analytic review of the Penn Resiliency Program’s effect on depressive symptoms. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 77(6), 1042.

This highly-cited meta-analysis studies the effect of the Penn Resiliency Program on symptoms of depression. The analysis was completed for the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology by a team of medical experts from the department of medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The intended audience are other psychology experts and suggestions were made for future studies on this topic. Conclusions supported the research done thus far by the UPenn team of researchers led by Dr. Martin Seligman and endorse his findings on the efficacy of this intervention.

Kristjánsson, K. (2012). Positive psychology and positive education: Old wine in new bottles?. Educational psychologist, 47(2), 86-105.

Kristjan Kristjansson is a professor at the School of Education at the University of Iceland. His journal article in Educational Psychologist, a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published which is considered one of the top five educational journals. It plays devil’s advocate to the studies applauding Penn Resiliency Program. Kristjansson questions if positive psychology is new, if it is effective, and points out its conceptual controversies. Exploring this article, the one negative article, allows fair weight given to both the supporters and the detractors of positive psychology.

Norrish, J. M., Williams, P., O’Connor, M., & Robinson, J. (2013). An applied framework for positive education. International Journal of Wellbeing, 3(2).

 Positive Education seeks to combine principles of Positive Psychology with best-practice teaching and with educational paradigms to promote optimal development and flourishing in the school setting. Interest in Positive Education continues to grow in line with increasing recognition of the important role played by schools in fostering well-being, and the link between well-being and academic success. This paper analyzes the first attempt at intervention using positive education at the Geelong Grammar School. The paper is by Dr. Jacki Norrish who has a PhD in Wellbeing and id a family practitioner in Melbourne and was published in the International Journal of Wellbeing whose audience includes both wellness professionals from medical and complimentary healthcare fields.

Oades, L. G., Robinson, P., & Green, S. (2011). Positive education: Creating flourishing students, staff and schools. InPsych: The Bulletin of the Australian Psychological Society Ltd, 33(2), 16.

InPsych is the Australian Psychological Society’s news magazine for members and associated industry professionals and its audience includes psychologists, health professionals, as well as key private and public sector decision makers and industry stakeholders. The article is written by a team led by the University of Melbourne’s Director of the Centre for Positive Psychology. It explores the field of ‘positive education’ and demonstrates how applied positive psychology can use evidence-based coaching to inform and assist schools to develop and maintain the optimal functioning of students and staff by decreasing anxiety and increasing well-being and happiness.

Proctor, C., Tsukayama, E., Wood, A. M., Maltby, J., Eades, J. F., & Linley, P. A. (2011). Strengths gym: The impact of a character strengths-based intervention on the life satisfaction and well-being of adolescents. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 6(5), 377-388.

Strengths Gym is a positive psychology strengths-based intervention designed to improve the life satisfaction and well-being of teens. This study, led by Dr. Carmel Proctor from the Positive Psychology Research Center in Guernsey UK, found that compared to control, students who participated in the Strengths Gym learning program experienced significant increase in life satisfaction. This article can be used to contrast the Penn Resiliency Training Program which, until now, has been the standalone intervention of positive education. The intended audience are educators and peers in the positive psychology field of positive education.

Seligman, M. E., Ernstb, R. M., Gillhamc, J., Reivicha, K., & Linkinsd, M. (2009). Positive education: Positive psychology and classroom interventions. Oxford Review of Education, 35(3), 293-311.

Dr. Martin Seligman, leader of this research team, is the virtual father of positive psychology and therefore it’s a subfield positive education. The Oxford Review of Education being the top publication for educators worldwide.  This article is written for educators, discussing the benefits of using positive education as an intervention and proactive preventative measure for depressive disorders and foundational stabilizer in emotional well-being of adolescents. Its findings set the stage for all other articles included in this paper. Delivery of this work positively impacts all aspects of life both in and out of an educational setting.

Thing, D. F. Y., Naimie, Z., Siraj, S., ElHadad, G., & Nadarajan, R. (2015, February). The importance of positive psychology in education: How does it make a difference?. In Interdisciplinary Behavior and Social Sciences: Proceedings of the 3rd International Congress on Interdisciplinary Behavior and Social Science 2014 (ICIBSoS 2014), 1–2 November 2014, Bali, Indonesia. (p. 283). CRC Press.

This publication is part of the condensed proceedings from the 3rd International Congress on Interdisciplinary Behavior and Social Science in 2014. It is relevant as it looks through an interdisciplinary lens. It is written by a team from the University of Malaysia who are not from the field of psychology. It is written for attendees and other academics with interest in the conference. It condenses findings from UPenn and their team’s experience at Geelong Grammar School.

Waters, L. (2011). A review of school-based positive psychology interventions. The Educational and Developmental Psychologist, 28(2), 75-90.

This article reviews school-based interventions designed to foster student wellbeing and academic performance by following a positive psychology approach designed to cultivate positive emotions, resilience and positive character strengths. The author, Lea Waters, is a psychologist, researcher, consultant, author and public speaker specializing in positive psychology and positive education which means her opinions may be biased. The publication is peer-reviewed and makes a substantial contribution to the knowledge and practice of education and developmental psychology. The article is highly cited.

White, M. A. (2013). Positive education at Geelong grammar school.

Written by Matthew White from the Melbourne Graduate School of Education and published as a scholarly research review by Oxford Handbooks as a Handbook to Happiness this article defines positive education, explains positive education at Geelong Grammar School, and discusses scope and sequence as well as six pillars of positive education. It also explains resiliency through creativity and gratitude. The format is a step by step implementation including suggested follow up.

Williams, P. (2011). Pathways to positive education at Geelong Grammar School. Integrating positive psychology and appreciative inquiry. AI Practitioner, 13(2), 8-13.

This article by Paige Williams; Positive Psychology Project Manager for Geelong Grammar School in Victoria, Australia provides an overview of the yearlong implementation and experiment phase of the Penn Resiliency Program at Geelong Grammar School. The intended audience are prospective families, teachers and other stakeholders in the school and community. The publication is more informational than the others included however the information contained is foundational positive education information. It has been republished in education journals.

Reference

Handmadewritings. June 2017. retreived from web Nov. 15, 2017. https://handmadewritings.com/blog/annotated-bibliography/

 

 

 

“You Can’t Be A Writer if You Need Helper Verbs” she said in a passive voice.

Editing the three assignments to remove the helper verbs (“is,” “are,” “was,” “were”) proved to be an illuminating assignment. I endeavor to write using original language. I found removing some “to be” made the writing better, removing all seemed like overkill.

My most used : ARE

The most easily replaced, WAS. (My original draft read was WAS)

In a recent post I reminded budding writers:

“Avoid the Passive Voice and if you must, use with caution. The passive voice is popular in academic writing however I am personally not a fan. To be clear, when active voice says “I ate ice cream” the passive voice says “Ice cream was eaten”. I know that many would direct to avoid using “I”, “me” or personalizing in academic writing. I have seen examples where that is changing (and I like it!). I am a strong believer that if you cannot explain it in simple terms then you don’t understand it clearly.” (Lechner, 2017)

I stand by this position on passive voice. Avoid it unless you are writing for an academic journal that uses this voice- then it is mandatory that “ice cream was eaten”.

According to the University of Toronto’s writing advice center, there are times when to use and when to avoid the passive voice. I find it humorous that recommended uses include bureaucratic writing: (use it when you want to be vague around responsibility.

Example “Mistakes were made.”

or when you’re talking about a general truth

Example “Garbage in, garbage out.”

Lab reports are one place it makes perfect sense to use the passive voice when explaining what happened.

Example “Salt was dissolved in water.”

The best tip I found about when to use passive and when to use active encouraged writing a passive sentence then experimenting with turning it active. If your sentence is stronger, shorter or more precise then you have found your voice.

 

 

Corson, T (2017) University of Toronto Writing Advice retrieved from website 11/7/2017 http://advice.writing.utoronto.ca/revising/passive-voice/

Lechner, T (2017) Unlearning Everyday 10 PASSAGE PROVISIONS FOR ACADEMIC WRITERS IN TRAINING retrieved from website 11/7/2017 unlearningeveryday.wordpress.com

Credit Where Credit is Due and Other Ways Your Professors Try to Keep You From Becoming a Bestselling Author

Truthfully, the only good thing about citations for me has been that a jargon-filled or difficult book suddenly becomes shorter due to the lengthy reference list at the end of the chapter!

Academic writing doesn’t have to be this way. With the crossover of academics like Brené Brown and Neil deGrasse Tyson moving academic writing from the journals to the New York Times Bestseller list, we are finally seeing a shift in the way academics write.

I have written the first draft of a book that I hope will appeal to both mainstream and academia so this assignment acts as a reminder of the things I need to know to write for both audiences:

What Is a Citation

According to the University of Pittsburgh’s online writing center “A citation is a way of giving credit to individuals for their creative and intellectual works that you utilized to support your research.” (University of Pittsburgh, 2017 )

 

What are the Different Styles of Citation

Dependent on what type of writing you are doing, there are multiple types of citations (leave it to academics to make something as complex as possible so as to exclude those not in the know from correctly citing)

• APA (American Psychological Association) commonly used in Education, Psychology, and Science writing
• MLA (Modern Language Association) style for Humanities
• Chicago/Turabian style is generally for Business, Fine Arts & History

What Kind Do I Use?

I’m an APA chick all the way. My passions are psychology, education, and neuroscience.

APA itself has many formats.

In text…

(Image-Walden, 2017)

…or parenthetical?

 

Indirect quotations can paraphrase and the citation is then embedded in the grammar of the sentence.

A direct quotation reproduces the words of another writer verbatim and is displayed in quotation marks. These start with author name, embedded in the grammar of the sentence.

Or a direct quotation can be introduced with a colon. (I am not a fan of this method.)

I am more of a chart and image chick than a text lover (funny for a writer, right?) So these fabulous finds will help me when memory fails.

(Image- Georgia Highlanders College, 2017)

(Image- Georgia Highlanders College, 2017)

In my writing, I like parenthetical. I like to write in a way that the reader can ignore citations if they choose and I see this is the least intrusive method.  I think this quote sums it up well…

Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new after all.
― Abraham Lincoln

 

References

Georgia Highlanders College, (2017) retrieved Nov. 2, 2017 from http://getlibraryhelp.highlands.edu/c.php?g=166883&p=1094925

University of Pittsburgh, 2017 retrieved Nov. 2, 2017 from http://pitt.libguides.com/citationhelp

Walden, 2017 retrieved Nov 1, 2017 from http://waldenwritingcenter.blogspot.ca/2013/10/in-text-vs-parenthetical-apa-citations.html

 

10 Passage Provisions for Academic Writers in Training

“I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I’ll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.” -Isaac Asimov

When I write, it’s always been more of an art than a science. I usually dictate into a fabulous app called Dragon Dictation for my rough draft. Then I drastically edit. I cut  anything:

• repetitive
• negative
• confusing
• that sucks (and that’s usually quite a chunk)

When I write for a psychology publication or the Chopra Center where my work needs to include citations,  I actually gather the evidence to support my belief after writing my first draft. I have a strange brain. It remembers little pieces of everything but not specifics on anything. With enough detective work I can usually come up with the correct article to back up my thesis.

When I researched how students are supposed to write, I was not surprised to discover that the recommended way is quite different from my method. Combining my methods with the recommended ones for academic writing I have come up with 10 tips for perfect  academic paragraph writing.

1. Begin with a topic sentence. This sentence will be the foundation for your paragraph and it should be general.
2. Use clear supporting sentences. To support you may compare and contrast, you might describe the chronological process, or you may use a combination of these methods as well as relevant history or connections to fill in the details left out of the topic sentence.
3. Examples & Details  are used to support and clarify your point.
4. Repeat Your Subject & Thesis Multiple Times throughout the writing. We need to hear something multiple times presented in different ways before we clearly understand it. The key is to repeat without becoming repetetive.
5. Use Effective Transition Words as you move through your evidence. Words like however, nevertheless, and furthermore are examples of words that get a reader curious.
6. Avoid the Passive Voice and if you must, use with caution. The passive voice is popular in academic writing however I am personally not a fan. To be clear, when active voice says “I ate ice cream” the passive voice says “Ice cream was eaten”. I know that many would direct to avoid using “I”, “me” or personalizing in academic writing. I have seen examples where that is changing (and I like it!). I am a strong believer that if you cannot explain it in simple terms then you don’t understand it clearly.
7. Present with Precision or as I think of it, this is Twitter not WordPress. Shorten. Edit. Be succinct. (The term HIGH LEXICAL DENSITY was one of my favourite finds this week)
8. Remember your reader. Tell them everything they need to know to understand your article without assuming. Know your audience and then don’t try to impress them with words they will have to look up.
9. Show don’t tell. A story connects your point more easily than a statistic. Leave the stats to easy to read charts rather than the body of a paragraph. You are free to analyze and interpret the data in the paragraph itself.
10. Leave them wondering. If you write well, each paragraph will crack open a door to the next. You want your readers to want to walk through the door.

A Comparison

These two paragraphs are from journals I enjoy. The first one is an example of many of the items of my top 10 list. The second represents old school academia at it’s worst. The content is fabulous but it’s like getting meat out of a crayfish- not entirely worth it!

1.

“An increasingly important issue for clinicians involves finding suitable ways to identify
parents who require assistance, whether in the form of services or information. These challenges are complicated by the diversity of parenting needs. Some parents need only simple advice, for example, on dealing with their toddler’s temper tantrums. Other parents’ needs may stem from a lack of sufficient knowledge about child-rearing and appropriate parenting strategies—gaps that can lead to major disruptions in family functioning. An all-too-common example is the consistently oppositional child with parents who are ill-equipped to deal with his or her problems.Then there are parents with major concerns of their own (e.g., those with chronic depression, or
young adolescent mothers), which can divert attention from parenting responsibilities. A
multidisciplinary team of clinicians is often necessary to deal with the varied and complex problems facing these parents and their children. Perhaps an even more formidable and urgent challenge is responding to family situations where child abuse is suspected.”(Kopp, 2000)

2.

“The fundamental goal of Positive Education is to promote flourishing or positive mental health within the school community. To achieve this outcome first requires a clear definition of what flourishing is. Exploration of what it means to live a good life is frequently characterised as being consistent with one of two philosophical traditions: the hedonic approach and the eudaimonic approach (Deci & Ryan, 2008). Hedonism is a philosophical school of thought that focuses on feelings and experiences (Keyes & Annas, 2009), and is often associated with the maximisation of pleasure and the minimisation of pain (Ryan & Deci, 2001). From this perspective, a good life is one where a person frequently experiences positive emotions, and feelings of happiness and satisfaction. Eudaimonia as a philosophical tradition posits that happiness results from the actualisation of individual potential and from fulfilling one’s daimon or true nature (Deci & Ryan, 2008). Where hedonic approaches focus on how people feel, eudaimonic approaches focus on what people do, how they act, and the choices they make (Keyes & Annas, 2009). From a eudaimonic perspective, being psychologically well involves more than feelings of happiness and entails personal growth, giving to others, and living in accordance with values.” (Ryff & Singer, 2008).(Nourish, 2013. Pg.2)

The Conclusion

Since this is all about the middle, at the end I will leave you with a question  posed by a writing teacher I know ” Why do people in this field write or read a text like this?” And my own reminder- when writing to inform don’t forget to engage.

 

References:

https://www.scribendi.com/advice/five_habits_to_avoid_in_academic_writing.en.html

http://www.scf.edu/content/PDF/ARC/Formulas_and_Definitions_for_the_5_Paragraph_Essay.pdf

http://ung.edu/tutoring-services/_uploads/files/Traditional%20Essay%20Diagram.pdf

http://arts.uottawa.ca/writingcentre/en/hypergrammar/writing-paragraphs

http://www.analyzemywriting.com/lexical_density.html

Norrish, J. M., Williams, P., O’Connor, M., & Robinson, J. (2013). An applied framework for positive education. International Journal of Wellbeing, 3(2).

Kopp, C. B., Regalado, M., Halfon, N., Neufeld, S. J., Nicely, P., Coulson, S., … & Wishner, J. (2000). APPRAISALS OF PARENTING, PARENT–CHILD INTERACTIONS, PARENTING STYLES, AND CHILDREN: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Norrish, J. M., Williams, P., O’Connor, M., & Robinson, J. (2013). An applied framework for positive education. International Journal of Wellbeing, 3(2).

I’m Feeling Pithy

Theses. I love them. They get to the point with clarity and without question. They are the tweet of higher learning. According to Purdue University’s writing lab,  thesis statements need to be:

• specific; they cover only what the paper can support with specific evidence
•  written as a definitive; they’re not a question but a statement
• most often they are found at the end of the first paragraph

Depending on what type of paper you are writing you may be presenting a claim that is an opinion. This would be called an argumentative paper and the goal would be convincing the audience that the claim is true based on evidence provided.

Explanatory papers explain something to the audience and are also referred to as an expository.

An analytical paper breaks down issues, evaluates them, and then explains them to the reader.

For our writing assignment this week we were tasked with extracting and summarizing 10 thesis statements.

It is a magical thing for a handful of words, artfully arranged, to stop time. To conjure a place, a person, a situation, in all its specificity and dimensions. To affect us and alter us, as profoundly as real people and things do.

Jhumpa Lahiri

The topic of choice for my effort was positive psychology research. The bold print is my annoted thesis statement  followed by the article cited in APA style.

Self-compassion correlates to self-reported levels of personal well-being.

Neff, K. D., Rude, S. S., & Kirkpatrick, K. L. (2007). An examination of self-compassion in relation to positive psychological functioning and personality traits. Journal of Research in Personality, 41(4), 908-916.

Social connection is linked to health and can be cultivated through compassion.

Seppala, E., Rossomando, T., & Doty, J. R. (2013). Social connection and compassion: important predictors of health and well-being. social research, 80(2), 411-430.

Positive emotions impact health, economic status, family and work according this longitudinal study.

Kobau, R., Seligman, M. E., Peterson, C., Diener, E., Zack, M. M., Chapman, D., & Thompson, W. (2011). Mental health promotion in public health: Perspectives and strategies from positive psychology. American journal of public health, 101(8), e1-e9.

Using a newly created classification of character strengths and virtues to complement  the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders authors discover three of five suggested interventions have successful outcomes.

Seligman, M. E., Steen, T. A., Park, N., & Peterson, C. (2005). Positive psychology progress: empirical validation of interventions. American psychologist, 60(5), 410.

Evidence suggests positive affect engenders success according to three types of studies; cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experimental.

Lyubomirsky, S., King, L., & Diener, E. (2005). The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does happiness lead to success?. Psychological bulletin, 131(6), 803.

The primary global interest of politics should be the happiness of a country’s people.

White, A. G. (2012). A Global Projection of Subjective Well-being: A Challenge To Positive Psychology? Psychtalk 56.

Researchers look at the quick growth of the new science of positive psychology challenging the results of studies showing positive intervention results.

Gable, S. L., & Haidt, J. (2005). What (and why) is positive psychology?. Review of general psychology, 9(2), 103.

The broaden and build theory suggests that the average person needs 2.9 positive interactions or memories to counteract each negative one.

Fredrickson, B. L., & Losada, M. F. (2005). Positive affect and the complex dynamics of human flourishing. American psychologist, 60(7), 678.

How one interprets the subjective experiences in life directly impacts one’s experience that life is worth living through data and interpretation of scientific results.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2014). Toward a psychology of optimal experience. In Flow and the foundations of positive psychology(pp. 209-226). Springer Netherlands.

Optimistic beliefs predict higher attention to potential health risks with better long-term outcomes.

Aspinwall, L. G., & Brunhart, S. M. (1996). Distinguishing optimism from denial: Optimistic beliefs predict attention to health threats. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22(10), 993-1003.

 

To further summarize the combined findings of all 10 studies I would suggest the following:

The amount of focus you place on happiness is directly proportional to your experience of well-being.

 

Reference:

Purdue Online Writing Lab, 2017 Owl. English. Purdue

Extra, Extra- Read All About It

Headlines capture our attention and inspire us to keep reading if our curiosity is piqued. Readers skim newspapers and magazines to decide if they’re going to keep reading and online to see if they will actually open an article. Most readers read the first and last three words of the headline. Outside the world of academic writing writers know that headlines should include keywords that are searchable.

Traditionally it was thought headlines needed to be:

• short (five words or less)
• richly informative
• beginning with keywords
• understandable even out of context
• predictable

In the new paradigm of information overload we are bombarded with so many titles the new school of thought is almost diametrically opposite. Now good writers use:

• crazy long headlines that ramble and tease the point
• emotion rich headlines
• keywords are sparse in the headline and are highlighted later in the article
• very little context
• shock

Headlines can be chosen for different purposes.

• Do you want your article to be found in a search?
• Do you want the best engagement?
• Do you want the most shares?
• Is your headline the subject line of an email that you want opened?
• Is this something that’s going to be posted on social media?

What I’ve noticed lately is that many journal articles are ending up being shared in popular culture hence the change in headline style is trickling into academic writing.

I compared the titles of 10 articles from poplar science publications, news sources, and blogs that ranked highly when I searched How Technology Affects Happiness to 10 journal articles with the same topic.

These were not written for academic journals:

• How Technology Impacts Happiness
• Use Technology in a Thoughtful Way That Improves Your Life
• Does Technology Affect Happiness? – The New York Times
• Internet Use Makes Us Happier, Says Mental-Health Study – TIME
• Happiness in the Digital Age: How to Create a Habitat for Happiness in the Digital Age
• Can Technology Make You Happy
• The Right to (Digital) Happiness?
• The Technology of Joy: Tools for Happiness (Giveaway)
• Enhancing Happiness Through Technology
• The Future of Happiness: How to Be Happy in the Digital Age

 

These were titles from academic journals:

 

• Positive technology: using interactive technologies to promote positive functioning
• Putting the ‘app’in happiness: a randomised controlled trial of a smartphone-based mindfulness intervention to enhance wellbeing
• The Facebook paths to happiness: Effects of the number of Facebook friends and self-presentation on subjective well-being
• Web 2.0: hype or happiness?
• A scale for monitoring students’ attitudes to learning mathematics with technology
• Internet paradox: A social technology that reduces social involvement and psychological well-being?
• Social influences on neuroplasticity: stress and interventions to promote well-being
• Can Technology Make Us Happy?
• Reality is broken: Why games make us better and how they can change the world
• Technology and fun for a happy old age
• Positive Psychology Apps: A systematic review of current positive psychological apps aiming to increase happiness

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, one of my favourite free tools is Headline Analyzer. When I compared the headlines from non-journals to journals, the results were not surprising:

The lowest scores were all in the journal titles, although two journals ranked above 70 which is quite high. It is interesting to note that both of these articles are written by scientists who have effectively expanded their target audience outside academia by publishing books, delivering highly rated TED talks, and becoming critically acclaimed speakers.

There are no parenthesis in the high-rated titles. They are shorter and written in plain English as opposed to using technical jargon. Overall, they tell you a little about what was studied without giving away details of findings.

A great title tells me the article is relevant to my topic and entices me with a hint of how it will unfold. I noted in the non-journal articles I was more likely to open an article if it contained a familiar name like Time or BBC.

Clearly headlines for blogs and news are different than journal headlines, however as a connection to our Interdisciplinary Studies I would say that a strong academic paper now has the potential to go viral. Titling well is worth some added effort.

(Author’s note- the headline of this article got 72/100 potential points on the headline analyzer)

Reference:

CoSchedule.com Blog-How to Write Headlines That Drive Traffic, Shares, And Search Results- Nathan Ellering (June 20, 2016)