SRP: $2042.00

Inflation, deflation, or something.

Entrepreneurship

Along the wharf, shot from the sea end toward the street:

Most elaborate, last encountered:

Least elaborate:

Target shooting, for America:


Least elaborate, most honest:

Elaborate, first encountered:

Tales of Supervision: Editing

In the Finnish system, I am allowed and encouraged to copy-edit my student's work. This is still a surprise since that type of activity would be disallowed under the "student's own work" clauses of graduate studies regulations.

It's taking me approximately 20 minutes to get through each single-spaced page of my student's work. He is Finnish but is fluent enough in English and Swedish. Twenty minutes is a bit more than the time I spend on monthly copy from the place that shall not be named, whose writers are supposedly professional writers. I asked the student how confident he was with writing the rest of the thesis in English. After his affirmative response that the literature was forcing him to think in English anyway, I explicitly said that he should continue in English. (I'm told by my co-supervisor that a colleague of the student who started at the same time on a similar project is somewhat further along writing in his native Finnish.)

I pointed out that most of my editing marks concerned its/it's, agreement ("in company supply chain"), and unnecessary repetition. This should go better once he learns the rules about those. We tweaked our timeline to give me enough time to suggest edits and for the student to polish the text (explicitly by accepting the edits or making other changes to the text to address the concerns). I expect that the student's writing will quickly improve. As much as I'm tempted to rephrase and rewrite, I think all three of us will learn more by not disturbing the substructures.

Close readers will note that I could not attend the last meeting in person. Instead I had provided my student and co-supervisor with brief annotations on a PDF. I am glad to see that my notes were put to good use in this latest iteration. It is somewhat strange to see drafts this frequently. I don't think it was my Master's supervisor's expectation that I would have this kind of turnaround.

The student's empirical project has changed course slightly due to the company's business needs. The title of his thesis has also changed slightly. I predicted that it would change at least twice more before this adventure ends. He presents his research plan and progress to the rest of his cohort at a regular meeting next Friday. I will unfortunately miss that presentation due to international travel.

On other international issues:

My co-supervisor has encouraged the use of "passive voice" among Bachelor's and Master's thesis students. I am of the opposite view. We explored this topic and discovered that what she meant by "passive voice" was a combination of past tense and narrative mode. We clearly outlined the differences among narrative mode (I, we, it), tense (found, finds/finding, find), and voice (... were found, finds ...). [The Finns learn a rule about tense that makes constructs like "Sally was finding that" preferable to "Sally found that". I think the construct matches one of the 15 tenses in the Finnish language, but I will leave that battle for later.] We discussed the importance of students learning to follow editorial and publication guidelines concerning voice, etc. (I learned last week that among the health and medical journals, the recommended maximum passive voice content is 10 percent.) Apparently, we use APA in this field. I shall have to retrieve my copy from Canada.

We also talked about the lack of "international English" skills among the faculty who are supervising the (supposedly) entirely English-language Master's and PhD programs. I confirmed that I would help my co-supervisor enhance her English editing skills for now, but we would look for sustainable solutions for the rest of the department in the near future. (After having tried annotated PDFs, we also agreed that pen on paper would be the most effective way for my co-supervisor and our student to enhance their English writing and editing skills.)

I know some colleagues in Alberta who would have far more time, enthusiasm, and skill to build an editing program for faculty than I do now. But as one of the two or three native English speakers in the department, I may leverage some things from this.

My co-supervisor was not familiar with my insistance that the student not only clearly link his chosen methods to the empirical work, but that he also discuss why alternative methods were not chosen. I explained the multi-disciplinary audience that would be reading the student's work, and the benefits of making our scientific writing more accessible to non-expert and general audiences.

These are my editing marks on the first page, if you're into this kind of thing. The original text has been Photoshopped out since it would be unfair to show preliminary work. A full-sized image is available at: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGD7dmhrkcsEJvMLrZ_18Se5aaMqfg6UFbGrP6KH9ZpThnOczSVDWvkdPhMj_yzwa6etOWLT-U0LH1vdON2oHb6-6vVTd6nPOHdD0Hm_RIi9hczzKvy3tTDv_siQ18i8mm99sTAmogKIE/s1600/editing-1.jpg

What? Were you expecting a poem?

I read today to some dismay some copy sent my way.

"A new intern," I mused, "victim of bureaucratic abuse."

Here lies an interesting story, taken by style-esque verbosity and disorder.

Words, clauses, sentences, finally paragraphs, I excised until cutting revealed no more.

Curious. These details inform more than the palace's usual dreck.

Surely no regular intern would conduct research.

The letter: unsigned. My eyes laid upon the electronic messenger.

"Attached are two of the text columns..." Ignore.

"I sent this last week..." Ignore.

"We can go over the changes that we want made..." Ignore.

Four forwards ago: "Please review the attached."

Unsigned yet again!

What then did quoted headers betray? The byline of this gros parler!

His editor was also once mine! The scribe's printed words were never /this/ vapid.

I cannot possibly respect or praise enough the many editors and subs who made this person's writing fit for public consumption.

Sunset

Photo walk with other international students - "Autumn"

"Remember the octopussy"

I attended the first class of my program today: "Scientific Communication in Nutshell", instructed by a guest lecturer from Gothenberg. It was held at the university's very well appointed teaching hospital located 3.5 km in the opposite direction from the university.

Those who know about my reaction to hearing unusual grammatical constructs issued in the Received Pronunciation will understand why misplaced "ap-pos-troffs" get my attention. Similarly, certain styles "increase the risk" of a manuscript being accepted.

Then we came to the squid analogy concerning many uncertain words, in which "a fearful octopussy cloaks itself in ink". I thought I had simply misheard the first time. "This is an octopussy". I glanced at the only other native English speaker in the room to confirm. We try to be stoic. "Remember the octopussy". What does a Bond film have to do with this? This would not have been a problem in a generic Eastern European accent. "Think about the octopussy". Well, yes, that is the problem.

Had JA been in the room instead of the student from the east coast, I would have needed to apologise for disrupting the class in immature laughter.

More seriously, the course is mixing challenges of scientific writing in general, with translating scientific writing into English, without critical distinction. Of consequence, I am learning a great deal about peculiar issues regarding Swedish health researchers who write in English, but not much new about scientific writing. At the very least, I'll be able to pass the PPTs to my MSc student.

I also learned that supervisors can have a greater degree of latitude editing and otherwise contributing to thesises than in Canada.

AC: +0, strangely.

Krakow

A classic Prussian design

Sketchy commuter rail station by the salt mine

Berlin 2

Berlin

Step 1: Sexy Dance



Step 2: ???


Step 3: Currywurst

Separate post because FB's blog import feature fails...

Pain...
video

‎69°03'N; 20°50'E. Glad I trained for long bus rides in Poland.

Blogger's photo interface leaves something to be desired

A switch or two:



No Berlin Cowboys for you:



Food trucks have nothing on this guy:


(More later, blogger photo interface is annoying)

Omnibus update

A. The field station

When I last left the summer recap, I had forgotten to write about my ten days at the field station. I was there to begin my field work investigating researchers' perceptions of information infrastructures, but was asked to stay a bit longer to sort out some local IT pains.

Long story short: The designated IT person has somewhat more training and skills than the average MOUS, but less than someone who has fought to get working sound on Windows 2003. The station director was trying to run data management operations through a very skilled civil service person, an overworked designated data management person, and others who incidentally managed data. He had wisely installed an "oops" (Uninterruptible Power Supply) at every computer, including those in the data closet which adjoined the mud room with a door at the bottom of a slope. I relayed my experiences with flooded UPSes on the third floor of a particular incompletoplex, and the exotic mycology of optical digital media substrates.

The food was recognizable but not superior to that provided at KFS. Breakfast was reliably hard-boiled eggs, toast with deli meats and various pickled meats and produced, with oatmeal and/or milkcereal, Lunch was reliably some kind of soup with salad. Dinner was a combination of various local fish, game, berries, etc. in a delightful sauce. Unlike at KFS, the kitchen staff do not experiment much with international styles or ingredients (I would like to see how the Finns would handle KFS curry).

Seeing dozens of boxes of paper logger records, printed e-mails, and wet samples crystallized for me the data and meta-data situation. Incompatible data formats would be a nice problem to have.

After yet another asspull ninjaing a comprehensive assessment of the data management situation overnight, I agreed to return to do a workshop about this topic for the senior staff. Later I found out about a previous assessment done three years earlier (our observations agreed, I saw the progress made by following previous recommendations, and my suggestions happened to continue to build on that work).

B. Europe (from my notebook and FB updates)

Waiting for security to open at OUL for this afternoon's eight or so outbound flights. Reminds me a bit of YHM but for the spider lamps. Also, there are three competing public-funded free Wi-Fi services.

At any given time, AC at Helsinki airport could exceed that for all of the rest of Finland combined.

It's not a Finnair flight without a walk on the tarmac.

T-Mobile in Berlin: Y U no basic affordances? /raeg

The semi-interactive digital display for the payphones flash screenfuls of information every 4 to 30 seconds, covering everything from international calls to how to get a mobile serviced, but nothing indicates how to make a local call.

TXL does not sell mobile phones. Mobile phone stores close early on the weekends.

I suppose you could consider Alexanderplatz to be one metro station on several levels like Union, but it's annoying to change elevation five times with luggage to get from one U2 entrance to the U2 platform two blocks away.

Currywurst: Does not go with sauerkraut?

TIL: MacBook Pro does not like fizzy water.

At Pałac Galiny doing accidental tech support and consulting for U of C...


C. Chaos monkey

Power outlet still disassembled on floor. Hope this gets fixed before I return from 69°03'N; 20°50'E.



... photos and such in next post