Tag: writing
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How to Make a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich
Unambiguous and mutually understandable communication is non trivial. One needs to think deeply about what the audience may or may not know and what the unspoken assumptions might be. To illustrate this, I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches following instructions written by four of the team members along with…
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Writing a PhD Dissertation “Bird by Bird” (h/t Anne Lamott)
One of the best books that I’ve ever read on the process of writing is Anne Lamott‘s book “bird by bird.” The title refers to a grade school report on birds that her brother procrastinated on until the last night before it was due. The phrase “bird by bird” refers…
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THANK YOU !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NASA for indulging a “future astronomer” in 1989!
When I was in 5th grade, our substitute teacher told us about a scene in the movie Summer School where the English teacher character gave the students a persuasive writing assignment. One of the students wrote a boycott letter to a sunglasses company complaining about their product and, in response,…
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Required Reading For Prospective Grad Students
This book is a collection of narratives on the act of creation, but this description does not really do the book justice. It contains a broader perspective on the process of performing challenging tasks through the lens of art loosely defined. The themes include: This book is now required reading…
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Spinlab Best Practices
This collection of information was on an internal facing wiki page for the group, but I was recently asked to share it with the outside world. There is very little original information here but this post does in one place collect useful insights from others who are much more experienced…
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A Behind the Scenes Look at PHY 451: Advanced Lab, Part 1
[This is the first in a series of posts about our efforts to improve the instruction in PHY 451: Advanced Lab. They are written by my collaborator Matthew Rossi who is an assistant professor of writing in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Culture. His research focuses on citizen science,…
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The Time-Consuming Privilege of Writing a Thoughtful Letter of Recommendation for a Student (2018 Edition)
[Updated from 2017 – JTS] Inspiration It will soon be application season (at least for students considering going to grad school in physics) for graduating seniors. As a consequence, I’ve decided to borrow some useful guidelines from my colleagues regarding letters of recommendation/reference: I have served on the undergraduate admissions…
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Isaac Asimov Asks, “How Do People Get New Ideas?”
A few years ago Arthur Obermayer found an essay Isaac Asimov wrote in 1959 on how to foster creativity within a group setting. This essay titled “On Creativity” was published in MIT Technology Review in 2014 and can be accessed via this link. The process of creativity appears to be universal and…
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The VOLVO Rule: When troubleshooting, turn only ONE knob at a time!
Notes from the lecture: 9., 10., & 11. – see this post on producing scientific diagrams. 12a. Model of Measurement System: 12b. Model of Physical System: 12c. Cartoon Game – I hand draw a cartoon schematic for every experiment which captures just the essential aspects of the measurement (knob &…
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The Time-Consuming Privilege of Writing a Thoughtful Letter of Recommendation for a Student
Inspiration It will soon be application season (at least for students considering going to grad school in physics) for graduating seniors. As a consequence, I’ve decided to borrow some useful guidelines from my colleagues regarding letters of recommendation/reference: Ed Brown’s Letters of Recommendation Pawel Danielewicz’s Recommendation Letters Brian O’Shea’s Recommendation…
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