Hush Coffee, Plymouth -- where the Plymouth meetings of the Devon & Cornwall Linux User Group started, perhaps 20 years ago - just closed its doors for the last time. Very sad. Now on the hunt for a new home...
Friday, July 13, 2018
Goodbye Hush Coffee
Hush Coffee, Plymouth -- where the Plymouth meetings of the Devon & Cornwall Linux User Group started, perhaps 20 years ago - just closed its doors for the last time. Very sad. Now on the hunt for a new home...
Sunday, May 27, 2018
Second archival appearance
After posting that Acorn Programs link (see last post), I thought I'd also link to the first psychology publication I appeared in ... as a stimulus...
50 years of BASIC
This month marks the 50th anniversary of BASIC -- the programming language that taught me and millions of other people how to code. For me, BBC BASIC. I first made some money writing a BASIC program in 1984, publishing a listing in Acorn Programs.
Wednesday, May 23, 2018
Cargo cult writing
Richard Feynman coined the term cargo cult science, which can be defined thus:
"Cargo cults ... focus on obtaining the material wealth (the "cargo") of the advanced culture by imitating the actions they believe cause the appearance of cargo ... Similarly, although cargo cult sciences employ the trappings of the scientific method, like an airplane with no motor they fail to deliver anything of value." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_science
Increasingly, I'm seeing in undergraduate student writing something that I think is best described as "cargo-cult writing". By this, I mean the construction of phrases that seem focussed on sounding scientific rather than communicating clearly. If you skim cargo-cult writing, it can appear scientific, but when you read it for meaning, it is unclear, often ungrammatical, and says very little of substance.
Somehow, we need to focus students back on the idea that science is about communicating clearly, in the plainest English possible. Using complex, difficult-to-read language is sometimes a byproduct of talking about complex issues with precision -- but it's not a goal in itself!
"Cargo cults ... focus on obtaining the material wealth (the "cargo") of the advanced culture by imitating the actions they believe cause the appearance of cargo ... Similarly, although cargo cult sciences employ the trappings of the scientific method, like an airplane with no motor they fail to deliver anything of value." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_science
Increasingly, I'm seeing in undergraduate student writing something that I think is best described as "cargo-cult writing". By this, I mean the construction of phrases that seem focussed on sounding scientific rather than communicating clearly. If you skim cargo-cult writing, it can appear scientific, but when you read it for meaning, it is unclear, often ungrammatical, and says very little of substance.
Somehow, we need to focus students back on the idea that science is about communicating clearly, in the plainest English possible. Using complex, difficult-to-read language is sometimes a byproduct of talking about complex issues with precision -- but it's not a goal in itself!
Thursday, April 12, 2018
No longer an h-teen :-)
My h-index on Google Scholar just hit 20 - I'm no longer an h-index teen :-)
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