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| papers [2012/03/28 12:02] – tate | papers [2012/03/28 12:03] – tate |
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| You are writing a scientific article for an audience of your peers, say incoming PH575 students. You and your peers are highly educated, technically savvy people, but you do not know everything about every material that has ever been discovered. You are educating your peers about a particular material that is of scientific interest or technological importance and you want to convey what is interesting or important about that material from the point of view of a scientist. You are all capable of reading and understanding articles in any of the journals on solid state physics or materials. | You are writing a scientific article for an audience of your peers, say incoming PH575 students. You and your peers are highly educated, technically savvy people, but you do not know everything about every material that has ever been discovered. You are educating your peers about a particular material that is of scientific interest or technological importance and you want to convey what is interesting or important about that material from the point of view of a scientist. You are all capable of reading and understanding articles in any of the journals on solid state physics or materials. |
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| === Expansion? What does that mean? === | === How to go beyond the basics === |
| Here are some ideas that might stimulate your creativity | Here are some ideas that might stimulate your creativity |
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| Don't write a technical manual (“go to this menu, and click this button”). | Don't write a technical manual (“go to this menu, and click this button”). |
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| Beware of the "true statements" trap. Just because you say true things does not mean a paper is well constructed or a valuable learning tool. You may have gleaned a piece of information from a well-respected paper in a reputable journal, but quoting that authority without integrating the information into the flow and design of your paper is not helpful (looks just like name dropping!). Also, don’t consider the PH575 instructor as a target reader (in the sense that she knows what you have been taught). She may well give the paper (with no name) to a faculty colleague or a senior grad student as a check to see whether that person thinks the paper is well constructed. | Beware of the "true statements" trap. Just because you say true things does not mean a paper is well constructed or a valuable learning tool. You may have gleaned a piece of information from a well-respected paper in a reputable journal, but quoting that authority without integrating the information into the flow and design of your paper is not helpful (looks just like name dropping!). Also, don’t consider the PH575 instructor as a target reader (in the sense that she knows what you have been taught). She may well give the paper to a faculty colleague or a senior grad student as a check to see whether that person thinks the paper is well constructed. |
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| ===== Questions from class re the project ===== | ===== Questions from class re the project ===== |
