Developing a Research Question

In this post I will be be posing several possible research questions, why I think that they are interesting and what I hope to learn by asking these questions about my field.

Hull, Duncan, "Question Everything" uploaded 25 Feb, 2005 via flickr.com, Generic Attribution 2.0

Does quantum mechanics have a religious property to it?

I find this question to be an appealing question for one because it combines two separate fields, religion and science, and combines them into one. What I hope to learn about my field because of this question is whether religion and science can come together or if the have to remain independent. 

Does quantum mechanics allow our consciousness?

I find this question to be interesting because it combines two of the coolest things we know about: our ability to think and quantum mechanic. While I personally don't think that there is a connection between the two it would be interesting to read someone's opinions on the topic.

How does the public view relativity?

I find this question to be an interesting one because it explores the way in which physics is communicated to the general public. I hope to find that there needs to be a somewhat revamping of the words used in physics to coincide with the public's connotations with the words.

Reflection on Project 1

In this post I will be discussing the complications and problems I ran into while drafting my QRG. I will also be discussing important things about writing that I learned while writing my QRG.  Finally I will conclude this post by discussing what I found helpful, similar and useful from my previous writing experiences.

Workingham Libraries, "Creative Writing Editing Library Paper Write Pen", Uploaded 2 years ago via pixabay.com

• What challenges did you face during the Quick Reference Guide project and how did you deal with them?

While writing the QRG I found that I struggled with identifying the audience I was writing to. In doing so I tended to use bigger words as if I was writing an essay. One of the ways I over came this was to finally reduce my words to simpler words and read my QRG off to my brother who had no idea what the controversy was about. In addition to this, after reading through the clarity part 2 blog post and the exact words section, I found several instances where I should have used simpler words to convey the same meaning. 

• What successes did you experience on the project and how did they happen?

One of my major successes that I experience was when I finally figured out how I was supposed to write both the QRG and the blog posts for it. I realized that the blog posts were essentially the same thing as the QRG only shorter, so the I began to write my QRG as I would a blog post and made the entire process go much faster.  Another of my successes was when I finally figured out how to identify how I was supposed to identify and speak to my audience. This happened after I read my QRG to my brother and then while reading it realized that I need to address him not someone who know everything about the topic.

• What kinds of arguments, rhetorical strategies, design choices and writing practices did you find the most effective for your project? Why?

For this project I found two thing to be most effective.

1. Write to the audience not an expert on the topic: I found this effective because it helped shorten and allow me to go in depth with my QRG more than I would have.
2. Use a lot of white space and pictures: I found this to be effective because it made it much easier to read my QRG and made it look a lot more aesthetically pleasing.

• What kinds of arguments, rhetorical strategies, design choices and writing practices did you find were not effective for your project? Why?

For this project I found that there were also two things that I found to be least effective:

1. Thesis statement: I found the thesis statement to be the least effective writing practice before this because it seemed that this QRG was more directed towards information and not analysis. While there was some analysis that had to be done, for the most part there was no central argument to the QRG.
2. Essay format: The format of having an introduction, body paragraphs and a conclusion all seemed like they were not as effective as they would be in an essay. For the most part the structure still applied where the was an intro, body with questions and then a so what, but the style for each part was vastly different.

• How was the writing process for this project similar to other school writing experiences you’ve had in the past?

One of the ways this project seemed to be similar to my high school writing was both the general structure of having an intro, body and conclusion. Another was the analysis of the sources and the evaluation of the reliability, credibility and so on for each of the sources. The biggest thing that was the same was finding some underlying "theme" of the argument and dissecting the controversy and breaking it down into the main anxieties and problems of the controversy. 

• How was the writing process for this project different from other school writing experiences you’ve had in the past?

In my high school we tended to write analysis heavy essays. This project was vastly different from those essays because it was less focused on analysis and more on information. In addition to this we only wrote for one specific audience. This project was a lot harder for me because I had to actually identify who the was and had to write for them.

• Would any of the skills you practiced for this project be useful in your other coursework? Why or why not?

The most important skills I learned from this project is the identification of the audience. I think that this will be the most important skill I learned because if I know who the audience is then it will be a lot easier to communicate effectively to said audience.

Final QRG Project

Below is a copy of my QRG. ENJOY!!

QRG

Clarity Part 2

For this blog post I have read 4 more sections on clarity and will be talking about what I learned about them. I will also be going through my own paper and then discussing the clarity mistakes I tend to make and discuss what I learn about my clarity topics from reading my essay.

Zorbis, Marcus, "Clear Water" uploaded 29 December 2006, Attribution Non-commercial 2.0 generic.

Parallel Ideas

For parallel ideas, I learned that the most important thing about them is balance. I was surprised by how much they are used in everyday language. Their most important function is emphasis and making the sentence flow naturally. The also connect object and actions that are in this parallel structure and make them interact in some form.

Needed Words

Needed words are often used when there is a confusion between what is being compared or there is a subject doing something to an object but was not intended to read that way.  I realized how often I do this in my writing because I assume the reader will know what my intended meaning is when writing. The most helpful thing from this section is to be direct about what you really mean. Do not let the reader guess your meaning.

Variety

In this section the most important thing I learned is to vary how I open my sentences and vary the sentence structures themselves. It makes it so much easier to read through a paragraph that has varied sentences than it is to read through the same sentences over and over.  One thing that I had never though of was inverting the sentences so that it add even more variety.

Exact Words

Exact word are able to convey the  same meaning in less words than a phrase. In doing so the meaning of the sentence becomes more grounded and less wordy. To do so the most important thing is to use concrete nouns where possibly.  I had never thought that being exact in the language I use could drastically alter the meaning and flow of my sentences. It also never occurred to me that the connotations of a word could have such a drastic impact on what meaning is being conveyed.

Response

"The debate could go on for a couple more months or years." This sentence came up at the end of my QRG and I realized it was not parallel tank to the help of Chelsea. After reading through the sentence several times I realized that it didn't really carry as much power as I wanted it to. After correcting the mistake to "The debate could go on for several months or for several years." the sentence seemed to flow much better, seemed less clunky and carried a lot more power than before.

Another example of a mistake I found was when I used exact words incorrectly. In the sentence, "In the comment section of a link to the controversial article two users, ididnoteatyourcat, who is verified as an expert in particle physics, and Wigners_Friend, who is a two year reddit user, debate the problems both with Silk and Ellis’s reasoning and string theorists" the word expert is not what I necessarily meant. By replacing "verified as an expert" with "knowledgeable" it still makes it seem like he knows what he is talking about in the comment, but is not known how much knowledgeable in the field he is. This is what I meant because reddit does not tell you how knowledgeable the person is in the field, just that they are.

Identifying Basic Grammar Patterns

In this post I will be giving the longest paragraph in my QRG and dissecting the grammar patterns with in it. I will also be talking about what this practice helped me realize with my writing and what I want to improve on.

PDPics, "Grammar Magnifier Magnifying Glass Loupe Book" uploaded 28 Feb. 2013 via pixabay.com, Public domain.

The dissecting of my longest paragraph can be found here.

After going through my paragraph, I found that I tend to start sentences with prepositional phrases and extend them using conjunctions. My strongest sentences tend to be compound complex sentences and compound sentences. I fail to use many imperative sentences an exclamatory sentences, mainly due to this genre. I think that something that I would want to work on for future projects is using a more variety of sentence structures and not just compounds and complex or both. That and not starting my sentences off with prepositional phrases I think will help strengthen my writing.

Reflection on Project 1 Draft

In this post I will be discussing the peer review I did on Chelsea's and Hallye's QRGs. I will also be answering several questions from Student's Guide to First Year Writing.

Berkati, Muhammad, "Macro, Nature, Reflection, Beautiful, Reflections" uploaded 5 Sept 2015 via pixabay.com, Public Domain.

I reviewed both Chelsea's and Hallye's QRGs. They both wrote extremely well and had wonderful QRGs.

Audience

• Who specifically is going to be reading this essay?
• After reading the two QRGs I determined the people who are going to be reading the QRG are generally educated, knowledgeable teachers and students who are interested in the topic.

• What are their values and expectations?
• The people who are going to be reading these QRGs expect information about the controversy that is easy to find, accurate and touches on the central issues of the controversy.

• How much information do I need to give?
• This question will vary depending on the topic you are discussing. For the people's whos QRGs I revised I noticed that it tended to be an introduction to how the controversy started and then a brief history of the controversial topic.

• What kind of language is suitable for this audience?
• For this audience the language seemed to be fairly average almost like someone was talking in a normal conversation. This tended to err on the side of knowledgeable but not at the level of expertise.

• What tone should I use with my audience?
• The tone that I noticed in the QRGs I read seemed to be a sort of friendly and informative tone. It also tended to be informal talking to the audience like he or she was a close friend and knowledgeable in the subject field.

Context

• What are the formatting requirements for this assignment?
• The formatting requirements seemed to be lots of white space accompanied with multiple images. There was also several sections that were easily navigable and centered around questions that one may have about the controversy.

• What are the content requirements?
• The content requirements for the QRG is a general overview of the controversy along with some form of analysis that touches on the key points in the controversy.

• Does my draft reflect knowledge and skills gained in class in addition to my own ideas and voice?
• Yes. My draft pulls from the format of the QRG that was discussed in class and the rest of it is my own explanation and evaluation of the controversy.

• Have I addressed any grammatical issues that my teacher highlighted in class or in my previously graded assignments?
• Kind of. I am still in the middle of looking over my draft for the 4 clarity problems that I tend to face when writing. Other than that the general grammatical errors are being corrected accordingly.

Clarity, Part 1

In this post I will be talking about 4 different way to improve the clarity of my writing. These tips are from the Rules for Writers and I will be discussing how these tips can help improve my writing.

Kim, Johnathan, "Writing" uploaded 26 March 2007 via flicker.com, Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic 

Active Verbs:

I often fall victim to using passive verbs and it makes my writing sound like it has holes in it or is unsure.  In this section I learned that while a majority of the time the active voice is the best voice to use because it conveys a stronger meaning the passive voice does have some use if I was to emphasize the receiver of the action. I also learned that I should use the name of the thing that is doing the action instead of beating around the bush. The most important thing I learned is to be direct.

Misplaced and dangling modifiers:

I have fallen victim to dangling modifiers countless times and it has made my writing sound confused. In this section I read the key thing that helps me was the modifiers should always come directly before the word they are modifying. It also touches on ideas from the Active Verbs sections and again is about directness not beating around the bush.

Emphasis:

When I typically try to emphasize ideas I often do not do very well due to the fact that I forget about the colons and semicolons.  In this section I learned that there are two main ways to emphasizes thing: equally and unequally. If I was to emphasize both points equally I would use a correlative conjunction or a colon. This is helpful when both ideas are important and are based around the same main point. when I want to stress the importance of one over the other I should use make one an independent clause and the other dependent resulting in the dependent clause being less important that the independent clause.

Wordy Sentences:

I typically like to ramble in my sentences because I do not necessarily know if I am able to get my point across to the reader the same way I was thinking about the idea.  In this section I have learned to cut down the amount of words I am using by not over inflating phrases. The main takeaway from this material is that certain words have the same power as phrases do. This makes the writing sound smooth and not so clunky.

Reflection

I was glad to see that I was not the only one to make the mistakes with dangling modifiers and emphasis. After reading Hallye's QRG I noticed that she had several instances of dangling modifiers. For example, one of the sentences I found read, "Attempting to handle large influxes of tourists, especially at  such a popular site, can be a struggle for a place as understaffed and underfunded as one Pompeii." To me at first this read fine then when I went over it again I noticed that there was some misplacement with Pompeii. Dangling modifiers tended to be the biggest problem for people.

I also noticed in Chelsea's QRG that the problem with emphasis showed up. In her sentence, "There has been a large debate between scientists over whether or not these methods would actually be beneficial to put to use. This has left the two different groups at odds over how to effectively and safely combat climate change." If this was me I would have combined these two sentences to make the both of these sentences carry equal amounts of weight instead of having them be separate.

I did not notice as many active voice problems or wordy sentences but there were a few. I think all of us suffer from these problems to one degree or another and it is really hard to get everything down in the first go.

Thoughts on Drafting

In this post I will be talking about the pros and cons of the tips that the Students Guide reading gives tips about writing an essay. I will be touching also on the differences of a QRG and an essay as the tips in the book apply to essays and not QRGs per se.

SEO "Content Writing Tips and Tricks", uploaded 18 Dec. 2012 via flickr.com, Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic.

Things that are helpful for QRGs:

• PIE format: This is helpful because the QRG has a slight analysis component to it and when using the PIE format you analyze the quote as well.

• Organization: While the organization for the QRG is going to be different from the essay but the tips they provide for the organization are quite helpful

• Revision: The tips they provide for revisions are practically universal for all genres of writing making it one of the most useful sections in this chapter.

• Writing an Introduction: The introduction in this genre is very important because it essentially sets the entire background the "so what" and the context of the issue.

Things that are not useful for QRGs:

• Developing a thesis: While this section is useful when drafting an essay, for a QRG there is not really a thesis statement. The QRG is designed to be easy to understand and fast not an in depth essay about some central point

• Writing a conclusion: The conclusion in a QRG is different from an essay conclusion because in the QRG the conclusion is pretty much another section that asks the question "whats the future". The QRG conclusion does not act in the same way as an essays so the conclusion section is not as much help as it would be in an essay.

EDIT: After reading Victoria's and Chelsea's posts I realized that some of the things that I saw as not important in the first place actually have some sort of relavence.

1) The thesis statement is not useless because the QRG is helping to get at the central issues in the controversy.

2) My draft needs to have more evaluation of the sources at hand and analyzation of said sources

3) I need to shorten my paragraphs in the sections because they do not all need to folloe the PIE format.

Draft of Quick Reference Guide

In this post I will be talking about the specific things to look out for in my Quick Reference Guide (QRG). I have attached a link to my draft. Anything that needs some slight explaining in the QRG feel free to ask questions about.

Workingham Libraries, "Creative Writing Editing Library Paper Write Pen", Uploaded 2 years ago via pixabay.com

In my QRG I would like for you to look out for simple errors such as grammar, spelling and the flow of the sentence.  I also tend to ramble in my sentences so I feel like it may be helpful if you could also considering "cutting the fat". Another thing I would like you to look for is the analyzation of the situation. If I do not add some form of analysis after a set of quotes or something like that, please let me know. Any other edits that you think would help the overall flow of the guide are greatly appreciated. For my QRG click here.

Practicing Quoting

This blog post is about me practicing quoting from the comment section on reddit.  In this post I have included a screenshot of both the comments as well as a link to the google doc where I practiced quoting them.

screenshot of reddit.com comment section. 12 Sept 2015, https://www.reddit.com/r/Physics/comments/2ply3o/scientific_method_defend_the_integrity_of_physics/

Click here for the google doc

Key
Purple is contextualization
Orange is brackets
Red is transitions
Cyan is authority

QRGs: The Genre

In this post I will be talking about the conventions and style of the quick reference guide (QRG). I will also be discussing the intended audience and purpose of the QRG in order to help explain why the QRD uses such conventions. Finally I will conclude by mentioning the images used in a QRG and why they are used.

0Night-Shade0, "Vegan Food Guide", 21 March 2008 via Deviantart.com, http://0night-shade0.deviantart.com/art/Vegan-food-guide-80619103

1) What are the conventions of the QRG?
The conventions of the QRG include an explanatory title and subheadings and easy to read language. In addition to these, the genre also tends to use lots of white space, infographics, humanizing pictures and sometimes embedded videos. With regards to the arguments, the QRG presents both sides of an argument with limited but present commentary and analysis.

2) How are those conventions defined by the author's formatting and design choice?
The author's formatting plays a key role in the use of these conventions, for example some say a picture is worth a thousand words while a video is worth ten thousand. Some authors may choose to use videos instead of pictures to convey more meaning. The author may also choose to appeal to a wide range of audiences so various types of formatting such as pictures and data may be helpful in casting the net wide. Finally the author's design may be more coherent if there is not as much white space or if there are more pictures and less words.

3)What does the purpose of QRG appear to be?
The purpose of these guides appear to be the ability for a reader to quickly learn all they need to know about a topic.  It is informative with slight commentary, and seems to be a condensed version of a long ongoing debate.

4)Who is the intended audience of these QRGs?
The intended audience of these QRGs are as large of an audience as they are able to get. The use of various types of graphics from picture that are humanizing to graphs and data plots. The net is cast wide to see how many people the QRG can attract.  It is also written in a somewhat layman's language meaning that the average audience member will be able to read it with no problem.

5)How do the QRGs use imagery and visuals? Why?
As I have said before the use of various types of images from pictures of people to inforgraphs is used to catch a wide range of audience members. Another less talked about use of these graphics is to break up chunks of writing with a pleasant image to encourage the audience to keep reading.  Finally the last possible reason is that  QRG is meant to be skimmed through and pictures are a great way to tell an entire story in a very small amount of space. All of these things contribute to the images being important to the QRG.

Clusters in My Controversy

In this post I will be talking about the process that I have done in creating a web diagram of the arguments from both sides of my controversy. I will also provide a link to this diagram for you to see what this looks like and how this web is constructed.

Screenshot of my coggle diagram, 11 Sept. 2015 <https://coggle.it/diagram/VfOhfZ84HeI7W_Bj>

In this web I arranged the questions into two catagories: one for the for and the other for the ney. I clustered the two groups questions together on each side and answered the questions given giving specific names detail and specific information. This is going to help in the long run since the entire thing is already practically written out the only thing left is to write it.

Annotated Bibliography in AIP Style

In this post I will be providing an annotated bibliography in AIP citation style. This bibliography will be in a style similar to this one. The main point of this is to provide both the audience and myself a guide to how my paper will be structured.

futureatlas.com, "citation needed". October 30, 2010 via flickr. Creative Commons Licence. 

For my annotated bibliography please click here.

EDIT: Annotated bibliography has been updated with 4 extra sources from news media, blogs and comments on social media.

EDIT: After reading both Casey's and Chloe's bibliographies I looked at my bibliography and realized that the amount of annotations I put on mine was about the same as the others so that made me feel confident about my annotations. After looking at Casey's bibliography which was in the same format as mine I realized that I had forgotten to put numbers at the beginning of my citations so I returned to mine and made the apporpriate changes.

Evaluation of Social Media Sources

In this post I have found two comments by people on social media (ie., Facebook, Twitter).  I will evaluate these sources based on several questions.

Lonaug, Marlon. "Facebook". Uploaded April 5, 2015 via pixabay. Public Domain.

Facebook Comments

Alex Kinney: "We've abandoned plenty of elegant theories in the past because experiment demonstrated that they didn't describe the way nature actually was. And what is "sufficiently elegant"? If we'd accepted an idea like this at an earlier point in history, we might all still believe in the ether. This is a not even wrong way to do science."

• Credibility: They do not belong to an organization that bestows credibility on them, nor do they have the education to back up their claims that is visible.                                                              
• Location: He is not directly involved in the controversy. My bet is that he read the title and the first paragraph and from that made assumptions about the entire article then formed his own opinion.                                                                                                                                                     
• Network: The majority of his friends and followers are undergraduates or graduate level students who are not in the field of physics, but instead are in the humanities.                              
• Content: In the above quote, he does mention the ether which means he knows what hes talking about, however the majority of his post is his own opinion and questions.                          
• Contextual Updates: The majority of his posts are about politics and gender equality. Although there are some posts relating to science, none of them are physics related.                         
• Age: The age of the account is over 6 years old meaning it is fairly reliable and not a spam account                                                                                                                                                   
• Reliability: Overall the reliability of this source as an opinion is valid and reliable. While he does provide a specific example to back up his knowledge, he still fails to cite anything specific

More Facebook Comments

Earl Crosby: "Common scientists sound more and more like a mystery theatre troupe than they do scientists. 
It's been sad to watch science devolve simply because they don't want to admit being wrong about a lot of things... for some odd reason."

• Credibility: The credibility of this source does not hold because he works at Carl's Jr. and does not appear to have a degree in any science.                                                                                          
• Location: He does not appear to be directly involved in the event because he is only posting a comment on a second hand source media that does not have a connection to the original document.                                                                                                                                                
• Network: This person associates with non college graduates and lacks any connection to people with degrees in physics.                                                                                                         
• Content: He provides no content which can be backed up with research or other things resulting in lack of credibility.                                                                                                                               
• Contextual Updates: He does not usually post about things like this. He typically posts about politics and controversial topics.                                                                                                           
• Age: The age of the account is fairly old and he posts often meaning he is not just a spam account.                                                                                                                                             
• Reliability: The reliability of this source to provide any credible information is lacking.  However as a response to this controversy, this is just reliable enough because of the public opinion poll this kind of comment offers.

Evaluation of Scholarly Sources

In this post I will be focusing on two scholarly articles related to the controversy that arose from the question of if physics is falsifiable nowadays.  I will be answering questions related to the sources being scholarly articles.

RI, "Cover of the first volume of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, the first journal in the world exclusively devoted to science"  created 31 December 1664. public domain.

Scientific method: Defend the Integrity of Physics

• What is its purpose?  The purpose of this article is to persuade the reader that physics can not be justified strictly though a mathematical approach.                                                                      
• How and where was it published? This article was published in Nature which is a scientific journal based in the UK and was also put on Nature.com.                                                                 
• What kinds of sources does it cite? This article cites sources from various journals along with texts pertaining to the field of string theory and cosmic inflation theory.  All of these citations are from reliable publishers and scientific journals.                                                                          
• Who is the author? The authors of this article are George Ellis and Joe Silk. George Ellis is a professor in mathematics in Cape Town, South Africa while Joe Silk is a professor in astronomy at John Hopkins University and Gresham College.                                                       
• Who is the intended audience?  The intended audience of this article is the scientific community, specifically the physics community.                                                                                     
• How did I find it?  I found this article when I was completing a previous blog post as a referenced article that talks about the debate from the side of the attacks on science.  I then clicked on one of the links provided in a non-scholarly article and came upon this article.

Falsifiability of Scientific Theories

• What is its purpose? The purpose of this article is to persuade future scientists to not abandon a theory immediately if there is a piece of evidence that contradicts the theory, instead leave the theory that is able to explain so much about things even if there is an observation or two that do not agree with the theory.                                                                                                                         
• How and where was it published? This was published in the journal titled Mind.  It only ever appeared in text form.                                                                                                                        
• What kinds of sources does it cite?  This article cites sources from previous books that produce some form of scientific theory as well as accounts of people that were the producers of these theories.                                                                                                                                       
• Who is the author?  The author of this article is Richard Swinburne, who is Emeritus professor of philosophy at Oxford University.  While he is a philosopher-and not a physicist-philosophy and science actually play off of each other and there for have a relation to one another about the way science should be conducted.                                                                       
•  Who is the intended audience? The intended audience of this piece is future scientist who have the possibility of scrapping a theory because they produce one observation that contradicts the theory or along similar lines.                                                                                           
• How did I find it?  I found this article by taking keywords from the previous scholarly article and putting them into JSTOR.  My key phrases were "scientific method", "integrity of science" and "falsifiability".  I found an article that referenced this article and after reading both found this one to be a closer fit to my controversy.

Evaluation of General Sources

In this post I will be talking about a recent controversial piece published in Nature.  I have found two sources that relate to this article that people have used to discuss the controversy and relay their opinions.  I will analyze these documents using A Student's Guide to First Year Writing.

trailfan. "String Theory?". June 25, 2007 via flickr. Creative commons licence.

A Crisis at the Edge of Physics

URL:
My first article I found on this controversy was from the URL nytimes.com. This URL is a .com URL which means that anyone can create them, but this is a reliable source because it is a official newspaper website.

Author:
One of the writers of this article, Adam Frank, is a physicist and writer while the other, Marcelo Gleiser, is a writer and researcher in the field of scientific understanding.  Both these authors have the qualifications necessary to write on this subject matter.

Last Updated
The last time this piece was updated was June 5th of 2015 meaning that the information in the article is up to date pretty well and the links in the page still work.  The links also take me to sites with the the most up to date information about the topics in the article.

Purpose
The purpose of this article is to inform the reader about both sides of the argument presented by the original issue.  This is in the opinions section of The New York Times website and presents both the arguments for why it should be allowed to replace observational science with theory and why we shouldn't allow it.

Graphics
The graphic in this article is of a man standing at the edge of a plank in the universe with no apparent road to go down.  This relates to the article because it is how some physicists thing the road is going down and that we have no way of knowing what to do with physics and experimentation.

Position on Subject
This article gives both sides of the argument presenting a relatively neutral bias towards the matter at hand.  When it comes to profit, the only profit comes from reporting the news as it is because it is a newspaper website so a neutral bias is necessary.

Links
The only links in the article are to things that the general public may not know about.  Since this is an opinion article and written in a newspaper there is not much citation that takes place.

"Falsifiability And The Integrity Of Physics"

URL

The URL this article was posted to was science20.com, which is a pseudo-journal that has certain writers and contributors who write various pieces about science. Again, because this is a .com domain, anyone can create it, but the source is fairly reliable because it is backed by many contributors who know what they are talking about.

Author

The author has the ability to write intellectually on this controversy because he has been in the field of physics for some time now and knows about how physics actually works.  He has a PhD which also means he's had to go through the rigor of physics to attain his PhD.

Last Updated

The last time this article was updated was December 22, 2014, which while was nearly a year ago, is still close enough to both the current information and the event that the facts still hold up.

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to persuade an audience about the authors opinion and personal experience on the matter at hand. There does not appear to be any personal gain from this article.

Graphics

The only graphics in this article are of two physicists discussing something and Richard Feynmen, who talks heavily about the scientific method and how it should be used which relates to the article that is at the center of this controversy.

Position on Subject

This article takes a bias that is opposite to that of the writers of the original article.  His one sided argument is the way that he is able to persuade his audience to believe his side of the argument.

Links

The only links in this article are the ones that take you back to the original controversial article. Other than that since it is an opinion article it does not cite other sources.

My Major

In this post I will be talking about my major and what goes on within the major. I will also be talking about what drew me to this field and the possibilities of careers I have after I graduate. To conclude this post I will talk about the most important people currently in the field and where they would go to have their work published..

Setaou, Hervé "Dying (plasma) Star" September 5, 2015 via Flickr. Creative commons license.

1) Being a physics major, the first thing people learn about is mechanics-pretty much what makes things move. After this basic understanding of how things move is understood then students usually learn various thing from quantum mechanics to astronomical bodies to thermodynamics and light.

2) With a degree in physics, the possibilities are endless in terms of careers. Many people continue to graduate school and become professors. Others have the possibility of being hired to teams of engineers and architects. While others, because of their ability to apply math to the real world go on to be accountants and actuaries.

3) Personal story time! I attended a middle school and high school where science and math were heavily emphasized.  So since 6th grade I have been doing tons and tons of physics and math. This eventually developed into a love for the two and in my freshman year of high school I had one of the best physics teachers ever.

It was his style of teaching and how enthusiastic about physics he was that really made me fall in love with physics.  Over the next three years I continued to take physics and came to the conclusion that it was something that I would like to do for the rest of my life.

4) Currently the biggest name in physics is CERN.  CERN is an organization in Europe dedicated to completing the standard model of the atom and much more.  Aside from this huge organization, other such names like Neil de gras Tyson and Michiu Kaku are big because along with their research, they also try to popularize physics and make it more interesting for kids to learn about.

5) Some of the most renowned journals in physics cross many fields. The most well known in physics is Nature Physics, which is headquartered in Great Britain. Another is Reviews of Modern Physics, which is established in the United States.  Another is Materials Today, which is published in France.

EDIT: After reading Nathan and Micheal's I realized how much we have in common. Micheal's passion for computer science is amazing because its exactly like my passion for physics.  It seems like we have both found something that we love doing.  With Micheal, his father was a huge inspiration to him and similar to me and the people who inspire me.  All in all I think after reading other people's blogs I am happy with my major.