Analytic Response to Sci-Tech Blog

I focused on writing my article in the style of a citizen journalist. By that I mean I not only made information more understandable to a wider audience, but I also extended the issue presented in the article. And by extended I mean I asked deeper questions on the core of the subject.

Mueller and Oppenheimer research the effects of note-taking on laptops versus note-taking by long hand. Their results showed students who took notes via laptop consistently underperformed. But this was because they were more likely to write notes verbatim. Writing information verbatim allows more information to be recorded, but ultimately this is harmful because external memory storage is not reinforced. I identified the theme of transcription note-taking vs. verbatim note-taking as the main problem behind performance. While it was more likely for students to take notes verbatim on laptops, I questioned whether it was truly impossible for them to transcribe. If they are able to do this, can’t they also take advantage of laptops?

In my blog post I utilized James Porter’s ideas of intertextuality and the discourse community. Intertextuality is writing by incorporating the ideas of others, whether explicitly or implicitly. I aimed to make my paper an intertext by explicitly referring to research papers. The primary paper was Mueller and Oppenheimer’s research on note-taking on laptops versus long hand. Another paper I referenced was Effects of Note-Taking and Study Technique on Recall and Relational Performance. I used the ideas and findings in these papers to explain and reinforce one another and also to further my own writing. On page 37 of his paper James Porter says “the creative writer is the creative borrower.” This statement gives a broader sense of what it means to create an intertext, and helped me in creating my sci-tech blog. It is through the ideas of others that we come to our own ideas.

Another paper I found myself leaning on while writing the sci-tech blog was Killingsworth and Palmer’s Transformations of Scientific Discourse in the News Media. Killingsworth and Palmer primarily focus on how journalists transform scientific information and publications into a more general format for a broader audience to understand. While, I am not a journalist in the news media, I tried to function as a “citizen explanatory journalist”. On page 133 Killingsworth and Palmer say journalists’ “brand of objectivity resembles that of applied science.” I tried to apply this in my own writing. While I do not have hard factual evidence to back up my questions, I pushed issues that might arise from the article I examined. I used other research to help support my reasoning for asking those questions. Killingsworth and Palmer say scientists’ goal in their writing is to present research and some of the results implied. But as a journalist, I used research to raise greater questions about problems in humanity. I wasn’t seeking to present evidence, but rather appeal to a wider audience.

Porter’s Intertextuality and the Discourse Community and Killingsworth and Palmer’s Transformations of Scientific Discourse in the News Media were the two texts that most heavily influenced the construction of my sci-tech blog post. Thinking of my post as an “intertext” helped me incorporate ideas from various research papers in order to formulate new ideas. Writing from the perspective of “applied science” and as a journalist shaped my post to address a certain audience.

Works Cited

Porter, James. “Intertextuality and The Discourse Community.” Rhetoric Review Autumn 1986: 34-47. Print.

Killingsworth, Jimmie. Palmer, Jacqueline. “Transformations of Scientific Discourse in the News Media.” Ecospeak

Mueller, Pam. Oppenheimer, Daniel. “The Pen is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Long Hand Over Laptop Note Taking.” Psychological Science April 2014. Print.

Kiewra, Kenneth. Benton, Stephen. Risch, Nancy. Kim, Sung-Il. Christensen, Maribeth. "Effects of Note-Taking Format and Study Technique on Recall and Relational Performance." Contemporary Educational Psychology 1996: 172-187. Print.