A Way to Fight Bafflegab

Above is a photo of beads that represent the words in the two sentences below.

Sentence #1
Recommendations to the X Council regarding research preparation standards and to doctoral programs for strengthening course work that prepares counselor educators as researchers would be the critical outcome for these studies.  31 words

Sentence #2

From these studies, we could recommend how the X Council should standardize ways schools of counseling prepare students to understand the research process, and we could recommend how doctoral programs could strengthen course work that prepares as researchers those who educate counselors.   42 words     

Of the sentences above, which one informs readers more quickly and completely? 
Do the verbs help?

Are shorter sentences always better than longer ones? 

Bafflegab

 

Back in 1983, when I started teaching writing, Americans frequently wrote sentences that baffled readers: a style called bafflegab.  Too many of us still do.

For example, today I was enticed by the title of an article about how I could teach better online.  But the article was so hard to grasp that I gave up.  

Here is a typical sentence of bafflegab:

Initially, ongoing survey data from 248 pre- and 47 post-program student surveys and additional summaries of course evaluations given to students within the MVCR program were analyzed for student beliefs about necessary qualities for their instructors. 

Why did that writer fail to put actions into verbs, so I could understand as quickly as I could read?  The writer preferred bafflegab, probably because it sounded impressive.  But bafflegab limits his discoveries to the elite few who have time and skill to decode them.

Why?  Is the purpose of research to “get published” and elude criticism through obscurity?  Is it true that “bafflegab pays,” as J. Scott Armstrong showed back in 1980? 

In the same source, I found other types of bafflegab:

 

Finally, design is an ongoing process.  Technologies, incoming faculty, student needs, curriculum, etc. are always changing.  The document will therefore continually need revision.  Document revision can be on a structured or unstructured time scale.  It can also be performed by any number of committee formulations.  Then the process of acceptance of any new formulation of the document must reiterate itself.

(If a camel is a horse designed by committee, imagine a horse designed by a “committee formulation”!)

Decoded, the paragraph says, "Update documents." Scarcely a discovery.

To heal those rapid-fire sentences, writing teachers tell us to “vary sentence structures.”  But arbitrary variation solves little.  The sentences above need to be combined, not arbitrarily, but so that the each one has a word or two, early on, that repeats from the previous sentence.  And on that foundation, each sentence’s end should add its new information. 

If sentences linked ideas, and if actions appeared not in nouns but in active verbs, writers would clarify what they meant.  And the results might truly impress people. But that style requires writers who know what they mean, and writers who prefer communicating over impressing.

Most people really do want to communicate.  They will give up bafflegab if they know how.

That’s why I teach.

Honest Statistical Writing

We’ve all heard that people can lie with statistics.  But if you write statistics, you do not wish to lie.  And we all dislike being lied to.

For those who write or evaluate statistical evidence, there is a handbook. It is called How to Report Statistics in Medicine, second edition, 2006, by Thomas Lang and Michelle Secic.  (It is published by the American College of Physicians).  The book is simply and clearly written, with examples.  It advises us generally about types of measurement and then covers kinds of evidence, such as

·      Various measures of risk

·      Hypothesis tests with their p values

·      Association and correlation

·      Regression and ANOVA

·      Surveys, case studies, cross-sectional analyses

Readers who don’t know statistics very well (as I do not) can use this book to judge statistical presentations.  This book would be ideal if you review articles for a science journal.

I learned a few things:

On page 3 -  Do not give people more than two significant figures.  That’s all they can grasp.  Do not write that in April 2011, unemployment was 9.4481% of the available U.S. workforce.  It’s clearer to say that, in April 2011, unemployment was 9.4% of …  

On page 22 - 

When I inform people about the risk (of what’s bad) or the probability (of what’s good), I need to tell them at least four things:

1. The numerator and denominator with their units of measurement (for example, 25 out of every 100 …).
2. The time span.  Am I reporting the probability that X will occur over one year?  Over 10 years?  Over the life cycle of a fruit fly?
3. The unit of population.  Every 1,000 live births?  Every 1,000,000 European residents?  Every 100 fruit flies in my sample?
4. The confidence interval (CI or p value).

When I read an odds ratio (page 27), I should remember that “4.2 times as likely as” does not really mean “4.2 times more likely than.” 

This book by Lang and Secic is helping me read better and listen better.

As you know, statistics often appear in tables or graphs.  If you need to create them, here is a basic tutorial: Including Tables and Figures in Academic Writing .  Its examples are not necessarily all in APA 6th edition style. You will want to check APA6 pages 116 and following.  But the facts are good.

The tutorial comes from our British friends at the Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies, Avenue Campus, Highfield, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK SO17 1BF

Latin Words and Phrases

Searching the Web for help, I found this sentence, “It’s not a problem of your system, per say.”

Ouch.

Per se is Latin for “in/by itself or themselves; as such.”  Many Latin terms are part of English.  Once English italicized all foreign terms, but in the U.S., we write the common ones in regular type, as a good dictionary will confirm.

Of course, medical and legal dictionaries are full of Latin. 

Below are a few Latin terms in everyday English:

ad hoc - for this (current) purpose. The crisis was assessed by an ad hoc committee.

de minimis - slight(ly) or negligib(ly)  We found other errors but judged them de minimis.

deus ex machina - supernatural intervention to “save the day”

e.g. exempli gratia - examples drawn from among others; an incomplete list 

ergo - therefore 

i.e.  id est - that is; a complete list

ipso facto - by that fact alone.  All care by physicians is not ipso facto the best care.

mutatis mutandis - all things being equal; after the appropriate changes are made

pro bono -  for the good of others; work done without charge

pro rata - proportionately shared.  We combined the shipment, but billed each party pro rata.

quid pro quo - what is given in exchange.  He offered a favor, but there was a quid pro quo.

quod erat demonstrandum Q.E.D. - [This is] what we set out to prove.

sic - yes; so.  "That is how the writer wrote it."  Used to recognize an error.

Here is a link to many, many more Latin terms. 

And here is a shorter list that includes abbreviations. 

Intelligences

Mirror picture

More and more I am convinced every child has intelligences that we need to free up.

Edward was assigned to take five photos with a digital camera. One had to be a portrait, and he chose a self portrait.  I lent him my camera, and I set up a mirror that he could photograph.  The resulting photo, as it popped up on the back of the digital camera, was just a glare.

I was stymied; but Edward wasn’t, not even for five seconds. He reversed the camera so it pointed toward him.  He used the mirror to see the camera’s viewing window, and snapped the shutter.  He took a photo with minimal glare (above).

I would never have solved the problem, let alone solve it as quickly as he did. 

Edward is 16, and attends a good private high school.  His grades are not great.  He struggles with finding the right word, and he fails to understand idioms. (He thought “on pain of death” meant that you were painfully dying.)  His teachers criticize his written work.

But Edward’s peers seek him out when they need someone who listens thoughtfully and counsels carefully.  And as the photo story shows, he’s a problem solver. 

Someday our school system will value people like Edward.  If he could teach others what’s natural to him, we might have world peace. 

Quiz Yourself

"To Really Learn, Quit Studying and Take a Test" —That article, by Pam Belluck in The New York Times, recounts research results that showed "Taking a test… actually helps people learn, and it works better than a number of other studying techniques."

The New York Times article refers to a study published in Science by Karpicke and Blunt.  Karpicke opines that we measurably improve our learning when we retrieve information.

In my live classes, I am going to ask more questions. 
I'm going to give students more chances to quiz each other. 
I'm going to feel better about referring students to my online courses, which are chock full of quizzes.

I'm going to try to slow down the aging of my brain by quizzing myself as I walk the 'hood.  Naming every tree by species, every bush.  Thinking of a word, then trying to name every synonym I can.

Who knew that tests were good for you?

You can read the full article by Karpicke and Blunt here.

Diagramming Sentences

Some of us learn better if we see not only words but also pictures or diagrams.  Thus, perhaps, the old practice of diagramming sentences may return.

If you want to see how people diagram sentences, you can go to Capital Community College's writing website.  If you click the correct icon, a PowerPoint presentation will open on your screen. Every time you click your mouse, the slide adds an element. 

One click forecasts what kind of sentence is coming.
The next click prints the sentence; the next one begins drawing the diagram.
Subsequent clicks fill in the diagram with words.

All diagrams have a horizontal line that locates the clause's essentials: subject, verb, and completer.  These essentials may sprout a descending oblique line that locates their modifiers.

Your high-school teacher may have said, "If you can't diagram it, it's not a clear sentence."  On the other hand, if you can diagram a sentence, you have glimpsed a miracle.  It's the miracle of language: a template inside our brains that morphs a mere strip of words into the blooming, buzzing reality that is a thought.

A Slide Presentation

Today, when we are asked to present, audiences often expect to see PowerPoint slides. PowerPoint's default slides seem to lock you into a structure: a short heading and then bullet points. Or worse, as Edward Tufte maintained, an "evil" flurry of arty charts.

An alternative structure, with a free PowerPoint template, is available from Michael Alley at Penn State.  His target audience is scientists.  He proposes an "assertion-evidence" model.  Each slide asserts in a short (two-line) headline sentence.  Then, as evidence, the slide shows one to three illustrations.

Before we make any slides at all, Alley rightly suggests we ask:

1. Can I give my audience meaningful illustrations that support without distracting?  (Clip art is useless distraction, as is the "chart junk" that Edward Tufte decries.) 
2. Will the audience understand the information on each slide?
3. Will the slides be identical to the handout?  If the slides will have to eliminate important text, or reproduce large blocks of text, they defeat their purpose.
4. Will slides really improve the audience's understanding by providing pictures, graphs, and color?  If slides are merely note cards to guide your talk, think again.

If you click on Alley's page, and scroll to the words a special PowerPoint template, you can download a PowerPoint file that illustrates by examples and with slide templates, the assertion-evidence model. No bullet lists there.

Dr. King Still Writes

Like many of us, on Dr. King's birthday, I visited the Stanford web site where I could reread his writings and speeches.  As an aspiring writer, I never plumb the depths of that genius's consummate skill.

This year I reread Dr. King's address, in A Call to Conscience, entitled "Beyond Vietnam."

I noticed again how his sentences so often ended on the upbeat.  They so often painted pictures.  They alluded to stories we know and love.  They drew wisdom from scriptures, poets, philosophers, histories. They never stopped with facile slogans, but meticulously recounted buried histories, as in that speech we heard the real history of Vietnam.  They went beyond history to practical politics, and beyond practical politics to core values.

"One the one hand we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."

What writing.  What truth.

Online Teacher: It's All About You

How little I knew about online teaching when I first built my WriteWell courses!  First, I thought everyone would flock to them. The truth is that most people learn faster and more easily face-to-face in a classroom. Online learning is best as an adjunct.

Second, I found it was crucial and challenging to keep my teaching personal.  Writing is like breath: no one wants to know they have a problem, although everyone appreciates a mint. From a friend!

How do I monitor, say, 80 online learners?  These pictures show a recent printout of quiz scores in one course.  I pinned it on my wall and followed each learner's progress.  Then I sent out emails that encouraged good work and suggested resources.   

Because teaching is about the learner.  It's all about you.

Is Editing Worthwhile?

At IBM a group of editors tested whether editing paid off.  You can see the report written by James Mathewson of IBM in July of 2010.

The IBM people gave unedited web pages to a random sample of users.  The pages were then revised by an expert editor from IBM marketing.  The result was shown to the remaining users in the sample.

The edited pages got 30% more clicks to desired links on the page. 

Word Documents: Changing the Header or Footer

Frustratingly, Word documents tend to reproduce the same header or footer throughout. If you want different headers or footers, here's how. The steps work in Word 2008 (Mac) and I think the procedure is very similar in Word 2007:

1. Your Word document must be open and your cursor must be inside the header or footer that you want to change.
2. Then, go up to View. In the Toolbox, select “Formatting Palette.”
3. Toward the bottom of that palette, you will see “Header and Footer.” (If you don’t see it, then your cursor is not in the Header or Footer.)
4. Click on the triangle to open this Header and Footer Menu.
5. If you want your title page to have a unique header or footer, select “Different First Page.” If you want to format your document for two-sided copying, click “Different odd and even pages.”
6. If your document is in sections, put your cursor in the header or footer of the section you want to change. Now, in the Formatting Palette’s Header and Footer menu, you will see “Link to previous.” Click that box if you want this section’s header or footer to reproduce the previous section’s. Unclick the box if you want to enter a different header or footer in that section. Then go into the section’s header or footer and type what you want there.

Clear Sentences in the Service of Physics

Here I pose with Dr. David Kielpinski, a young “old” friend from University of Chicago days. David was an MIT post-doc and is now a physics researcher at Griffith University in Brisbane.  He and his colleagues wrote “Imaging trapped ions with a micro-fabricated lens for quantum information processing,” recently accepted for publication in Nature Letters. 

Editing the paper for clarity, I used the techniques that you can learn in my WriteWell classes.  David and his colleagues were pleased, and they look forward to my help on future papers. 

If you know me, you know that I am as ignorant of quantum physics as a ladybug is of Chinese calligraphy.  But clear sentences always follow the same rules.

Do You Know These People?

In 30 years of teaching writing, I’ve learned from my godchildren (above).  Do you work with any types like them?

From left:

Norine, second-born: languorous, smart, but so independent that, at age 4, a teacher thought she was learning-disabled.  Refuses to learn a bit more than she chooses.  To teach a Norine, you wait until she is motivated and let her ask the questions. 

Eddie, the youngest:  Deeply empathic; wildly athletic; dyslexic.  Understands time as “now” or “the other day.” Declines to organize anything more ambitious than a sandwich.  Will write “at gunpoint,” but only if the writing expresses his own ideas. (His idea of a great argument is that, in Julius Caesar, Brutus was an alcoholic.)  To teach him writing, I stimulate his imagination, seat him at my Mac, and then use the Mac’s text to speech so he can hear all the errors.  Likes to listen. Generous and popular.

Bill, the oldest: Introverted; pianist; smart. Took a long time to enjoy reading, but now tells his brother, “You’ve got to read so you’ll have something to say.” Passionate about music. Talks little but thinks first.  As a child, he would not write, and words seemed to come easier when his were hands busy.  Liked to be timed so he could "beat the clock."  Excellent leader of outdoor activities. A high school English teacher called him "smart, serious, and independent."

Rosaleen, third-born:  Verbally precocious, meticulous.  A social learner.  At age three, would greet me by criticizing my clothing.  Through high school, came to my house where she wrote every assignment.  Bored when she was not conversing, she made me listen to every version of each sentence she wrote.  Once she tied me down for nine solid hours until she was happy with a paper on The Great Gatsby.  You have to beg her to stop editing.  Turn it in already!

Do you recognize any of these types at your workplace?  In your family?

Education Is the New Oil

Finance expert Niall Ferguson thinks (as I do) that better education in China may help explain China's new economic power.

On Dec. 7, 2010, the NY Times reported that Shanghai students outscored the rest of the world in reading, math, and science. US students ranked 17th to 23rd worldwide.

All children are born thinking outside the box. (They haven't seen the box.) Like Shanghai, we could educate for discipline and skill. And in the great American tradition, we could nurture creativity and inventive scope: music, art, and writing.

Education is the best investment. Communication can win what armies only botch.

Websites for Learning English

There are hundreds of websites that help (or claim to help) people learn English as a Foreign Language. Recently I reviewed some of them. I sought the ones with the most free resources, the fewest ads, and the easiest navigation.

1. World English/ ***** very few ads; a menu of hundreds of activities, exercises, and tests. This one offers hundreds of free quizzes.

2. Rong-Chang.com **** includes many free lessons and is easy to navigate. Dr. Ron Lee limits ads to one band across the page. Despite the .com, his site is generous with free tutorials, most of which he wrote himself.

3. ESL Mania * So heavy with ads that I couldn't navigate to free material.

4. a4esl.org ** This nonprofit site has little new to offer except a large variety of two-language quizzes (Czech-English, French-English, etc.) created by volunteers.

5. 1-language.com ** Offers, for example, 40 units of free audio English instruction if you have Adobe Macromedia Flash Player. My Mac has it, but I still could not coax sound from my computer.

6. English for Internet ** http://www.study.com/ voluntary $20 contrib, or voluntary $1/month subscription. Calls itself "a free place to study world languages: real teachers, real classmates, real time." Requires you download an .exe file. Good luck.

Special Categories

7. VOA News/Special English *****  Listen to a news story while you see the text. News stories are written in a basic-English vocabulary, easy to understand and imitate. Excellent practice!

8. Cambridge Dictionary for nonnative speakers of English: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/ I don't know how many free lookups this site offers. But it tells you whether a noun is count or uncount, and it distinguishes among British, Australian, and US English.

9. Macmillan Dictionary lets you toggle between British and U.S. English: http://macmillandictionary.com

Thanks, Ekaterina of Indore, India

If you read the comment to my  post "Websites for Learning English," you will see links to four sites.

Thanks, Ekaterina of Indore, India! You remind me of a crucial factor: Some English sites use British English. The sites you graciously mentioned use British spelling and pronunciation.

The first site, englishtips.org, has a free daily "English tip." Today's was an excellent discussion of "scope out." Englishtips.org is primarily a blog that reviews and rates ESL books and materials.

The second site is the general site of Open Learning, a British open university; it offers audio in that it allows you to download a "speaker" application. The accent will be British. I clicked on Languages but could not find any EFL lessons.

The third site, functionalenglish.in, is a blog about teaching English worldwide with a link to Ekaterina’s 4QL site.

Readability by arc 90 - A Cool Tool

Here is a safe, simple tool that transforms a crowded web page into a beautifully readable one.

http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/

At that website, select your settings and drag the Readability button into your browser's toolbar. That's it.

Now open a web page shrieking with content, ads, color, and animation, all competing for attention. Mouse up to "readability" and click.

Goodbye Barnum & Bailey. Hello Easy Reader.

Introductions: Layout Matters

Have you ever tried to introduce a manual or an online course? Too often, readers skip introductions. Here is one that most people can read quickly:

Congratulations! You are in the Acme Focus Group’s (AFG's) Course for Group Leaders.

From this online course (and this workbook) you can expect:

Content tailored by expert leaders of focus groups
A chance to work at your own pace
A course facilitator to answer your questions
Best of all: In 8 weeks or less, you’ll be ready to lead focus groups with confidence.

Here’s how the course works:
All course content is organized into modules. Each module appears in a folder that you will see whenever you log on to Whiteboard. These folders contain links to:

Slide shows
Word documents
Video clips
A Discussion Board where you can type in (“post”) questions or comments
Practice tests so you can check what you’ve learned
Opportunities to go back and review any time

Flesch Kincaid Grade Level: 6th grade, 2nd month


A draft version of that introduction required more reading effort:

When the Acme Marketing team in Houston began training leaders of focus groups, the training was done in-person at a 3-day workshop. What the Acme team quickly discovered was that it was difficult for people to get away from their normal office duties for that length of time. It was expensive to train small groups of people and to offer trainings outside of Houston. It was at that moment the Acme On-line Group Leader Training Course began to take shape!

Staying true to the practice of the Acme team to consult with experts, this on-line training course was developed in collaboration with expert Acme group leaders who provided feedback about the content and structure of the course, the learning activities, and this workbook.

Trainees enrolled in the course have 8 weeks to work at their own pace to learn the Acme Focus Groups (AFG) content and skills to effectively run the focus-group program. As an on-line learner, you make your own “class schedule.” You have a course facilitator to answer your questions, and you have this workbook to guide your learning.

Here’s how the on-line course is set up. All the course content and activities are organized into “modules.” The content of each module is described below. Within Whiteboard, there are Module Folders with links to slide shows, Word document, and video clips to help you learn the course content. As part of each module, there is a “Discussion Board” where you can type in (“post”) questions or comments. There are practice test questions to help you know whether or not you are learning the AFG principles and strategies. If you discover you are answering these questions incorrectly, you can review the course content another time.
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 8th grade, 9th month

Word (Windows) 2007: Grammar Check & Readability

Many of you already know this technique; but if you don't, here is how to use Word 2007 (Windows) to grammar-check your document and report on its readability:


1. Click on the icon at the extreme upper left of your screen (the Office icon).

2. A window will open, and at the bottom you should click on Word options.

3. Another window will open; in the left column, click Proofreading.

4. The resulting window will have many choices with checkboxes next to them.
Probably you will need to check "Show readability statistics."

5. You will see a drop-down menu that lets you tell Word to review not
just Grammar but "Grammar & Style."

6. Then you can select specific style features that Word should flag, such as the comma in a series of three or more, and the number of spaces after a sentence-final period.

7. Click OK, and get back to your document.

8. Now, go to the "Review" tab, and at the left of the resulting toolbar you will see "Spelling and Grammar." Click on it.

9. After you have made a decision about each spelling or grammar issue, you will see a window with the word count, sentence count, etc. At the bottom will be

Flesch Reading Ease. This statistic is on a scale of 0 to 100; 70 is excellent, 60 is good, 50 is usually acceptable at the grad level.

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. A reading of, say, 12.2 means 12th grade second month. 15.5 means junior year of college, 5th month.