Hey readers!
This week was
filled with some great progress, especially in articulating my research. As you
may know, this blog become award-winning, courtesy of Mrs. Haag. Additionally, I
became a finalist at Arizona’s Junior Science and Humanities Symposium for my
oral presentation… unfortunately, I didn’t win though, but it was fantastic practice
for my presentation, as I got to present a lot of my data in a twelve-minute presentation!
I’m super excited for April 14th, as I realized how fun oral
presentations are.
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| Anotha oral presentation ... Major ket alert 🔑🚨 |
When
I wasn’t working on my presentation or presenting, I was working on data
analysis, which is essentially done now. The data analysis involved extracting
the elemental composition from the RBS spectra we collected on saline. The
power of these results is that, unlike canine blood or human blood, which have
unknown exact compositions, we know the concentration of elements in saline. In
this way, even though we didn’t plan on using saline, it has been really
advantageous, because I am working on converting the elemental counts to
concentrations. How this works is you have the number of atoms for certain
elements. Then, you divide by Avagadro’s number to determine the number of
moles of an element. Convert the moles into mass by multiplying by molar mass.
Then, by dividing the mass by the volume (which we know because we applied the
drops with a controlled-volume mechanical pipette), we can compare the
concentration in the drop to the true concentration in the bottle. So, that’s a
look at how I have been performing analysis… now to the main content of the
post: the feedback on my paper and my preparation for the presentation.
By
looking at most of my group members’ feedback (Thank you Gursajan and
Ashwath!),
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| Get some rest, guys... I got us!! I love you! |
I
was able to figure out the main problems with my paper:
First
off, I found some key places to cut words in the literature review, including
some repeated definitions (e.g., hydrophilicity), awkward transitions (e.g.,
properties of blood), and repeated parts about the mechanism of
hyper-hydrophilic films acting on blood.
Although
the methods were extensive and detailed, Ashwath made a point that I often
explain concepts and techniques inaccessible to a lay person with slightly less
esoteric jargon (but still esoteric). For these ideas, like Ion Beam Analysis,
RBS, RBS data analysis, and even capillary sampling, I think that focusing on the
input and output – only providing enough information for my reader to
understand why I use it and what results it provides – is a good strategy to
avoid wasting words and confusing the reader further. I was trying to get the
reader to understand everything about every word in my project, but taking a
more pragmatic approach to make sure the reader understands the concepts in
relation to my research, but maybe not understand everything about all
techniques and words (e.g., contact angle, RBS, damage curves, incident angle, rubefacient,
etc). Because, after all, word count is a thing. I need to achieve this balance
of explanations and providing just enough information to understand my results
and project. I do need to expand on what certain concepts, like surface energy,
are though…
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| My discussion section has negative energy right now... let's correct that! |
Since
results and discussions are usually together, Mrs. Haag and I decided to
combine my results and discussion sections to save worda and prevent detached
or repetitive explanations across the sections. Then, I will have a smaller
conclusion section. In my discussion section for feedback from my group, I was
just figuring out what my results meant myself, so the readability of the
section suffered. It was too long, and I assumed a great deal of knowledge from
the introduction. The alignment between the methods and the results also just
wasn’t there. I’ve been focusing on re-writing my discussion into LaTeX and
adding connections to my Lit Review and Methods, especially with me
understanding my results much more now. I had to rewrite/re-portray much of the
RBS data because of the amount of knowledge I assumed. Adding the new section
of data should not take too many words, as it is just a derivative/expansion upon
what I did earlier with the accuracy calculations. I am working on this section
still, but it will be ready for my day in the peer edit group.
My
conclusions are pretty solid, as I know the specific limitations of my
experiment including the inability to perform RBS on all samples including the
Si wafers, using different fluids, and lack of coating uniformity. Moreover,
the uniformity of blood films on HemaDrop in this study demonstrates that
future directions with other techniques apart from RBS are promising and
necessary to detect molecules. This part of my paper was not ready for feedback
in the last round, so if my groupmates could focus a bit on this too, I’d
really appreciate it (especially the justifications of the limitations)!
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| Classic Khaled here... |
Regarding the
grading rubric, I believe this is how it break down right now:
Row 1: My literature
review is pretty strong in conveying the significance of my research and
creating a specific niche for my project. Moreover, there is a clear gap that
my research fills both in the academic conversation of thin films, but also in clinically
for blood testing. However, one aspect I should improve on (and you guys could
look out for) is integrating this purpose and niche throughout my paper with my
results. Such connections were lacking from my last draft, and I tried to add
those.
Row 2: My
sources do interact in conversation, but some of this interaction is lost due
to the novel nature of my project. Particularly, the connection between
hyper-hydrophilic films and thin films theory to blood testing needs to be
clearer. I tried to articulate this well, but this could be a weakness for me.
I do show the significance of each study to my research, and the reasoning in
my literature review follows.
Row 3: All of my
sources are academic papers or textbooks, so credibility is not an issue. I do
need to make sure that I convince the reader of the relevance of the study with
more information on the methodology of some studies. I tried to do so, but I
also did not want to use up too much space, so please check for succinctness in
these assessments.
Row 4: I think I
nailed this explanation by demonstrating the importance of uniformity and
describing how to calculate uniformity from the first paragraph of my methods
section. Moreover, a quantitative method with qualitative observations is
undoubtedly the best method for my research’s goal.
Row 5: My
results are expanded upon, and I provide important and logical implications of
both quantitative data and qualitative observations. However, what is missing
here is the connection of the findings to something understandable to a lay
audience. Please identify sections disjointed from the methods and
non-understandable to you. The main problem areas are the 3LCAA data and the
saline uniformity calculations.
Row 6: I think
my discussion section is the weakest of my paper, so this is a row I need to
work on. Finding important places to integrate clinical significance from my
literature review would really improve readability and increase significance. I
was pleased with my ability to interpret the graphs and providence evidence for
claims due to the immersion I had in my research and how much I learned.
However, if you do not understand a result interpretation or explanation (e.g.,
which sample had the highest electron acceptor energy), please let me know,
because this part is extremely weak.
Row 7: My figures can
be a little scattered and filled with information, but both Gursajan and
Ashwath liked my subtitles and captions. I also provide both tables and graphs
for RBS data, which is quite intuitive for the reader. I am happy with my
figures, but if you see a better way of portraying data or plots, I’m all ears.
Row 8: LaTeX has my back on citations lol… I think I do a
good job of integrating quotes while also paraphrasing. It is clear where these
occur respectively, so I like this row.
Row 9: My
vocabulary is precise, but terms like surface energy and Rutherford
Backscattering Spectrometry need to be defined in more simplistic terms. The terms
I used are not enough for a lay audience to understand. I tried to fix most of
this, but please look out especially for this, as I cut some words.
OF COURSE,
please help me cut down words. That’s always a problem…
For my
presentation, I’m pumped! I have a lot of practice articulating the significance
of my research, but the weaker part of my presentation will be explaining the data
in an understandable way while staying without losing the reader. In this way,
I may have to choose specific data that I want to show and interpret well
instead of just swamping the audience with data. I did this for JSHS, only
presenting the human blood RBS data. Stylistically, my presentations are
usually boring, and I have a problem with repeated hand movements, so I will
need to focus on varying that. I really love hearing myself talk, and talking
about HemaDrop, so the oral presentation should be lit.
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| We're getting there -- we're climbing! |
Phew – lots of
words, for lots of research... let's go!!
Cheers,
Yash
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Hi Yash!
ReplyDeleteWow! I remember reading your Literature Review and Methods during the school year, and you have changed your paper to be so much easier to understand. I'll dive right into what I thought about each section.
In your Literature Review, You are able to concisely and clearly reach conclusions in this section, which helps the reader understand your line of reasoning. However, I had a couple of issues with some of the claims you made. For example, when discussing vacuum-based techniques, your claims are predicated on the fact that these types of analysis techniques are more accurate and provide more information than normal forms of liquid analysis, but is that true for all forms? Also, a couple of areas, such as the Properties of Blood, the Current Blood Analysis, and the discussion of the different degrees of hyper-hydrophilicity could use a little more explanation, not because the information is too complex, but because your claims seem to jump around and do not provide enough detail in order to make the conclusions that you do. Fix the organization of these areas, which I pointed out in my comments on your doc. I also agree that you need to spend some more time explaining what the surface energy of a coating is, as you articulated in your blog post. Right now, you clearly explain how this affects hydrophilicity, but you don’t spend time providing a simple definition of what it is to your reader.
Regarding your Methods, you do a great job splitting your method up into 5 steps, since this provides the reader with enough direction in order to read through your paper without feeling overwhelmed. Also, Figure 3a,b do a really nice job of providing the details about 3LCAA, and – as you mentioned in your blog post – it is better for you to explain the nuances of this analysis through those figures instead of in your text. Although, regarding Rubric Row 4, you bring up categorical coding and observational studies out of nowhere. I would clearly explain what these are and justify how, exactly, they can contribute to your qualitative measurements in order to help you most effectively answer your research question. I would also suggest describing the angle of incidence in a figure explaining the RBS spectrum similar to how you described the contact angle in the figure for explaining 3LCAA. Additionally, some wording and phrasing is a little unclear (which I mention in my comments – like in the Sample Preparation and Substrate Composition sections), but there is nothing that is not easily remediable. For the most part, your methods were very easy to follow.
With regards to your Results/Discussion, you do an excellent job justifying why your results turned out the way they did, but this is definitely the most difficult section to understand. A lot of your sentences are also grammatically incomplete in your Discussion, making it even harder to understand your already complex research findings. Also, why do you only bring up the canine blood, the human blood, and the BSS in the Discussion section, and not the Methods section? Furthermore, you mention having 10 types of samples, with 3 replicates each, but I thought you said that you had 12 types of samples, with 2 replicates each. Additionally, Figure 8 was a little difficult to comprehend, so I would add a little text underneath it. Lastly, your explanation of RBS may not be wholly necessary, since I was able to have an understanding of it from what you said in your Methods section.
Finally, in your Conclusion, you should relate your overall conclusions in each paragraph to your ultimate purpose of your study. Otherwise, your conclusions seem too nuanced for the reader to understand. Also, contrary to what you stated in your blog post, I liked your suggestion for future research regarding the spinning apparatus, since it was thoroughly explained; your suggestions regarding metals in water and saliva, however, are lacking.
I wish you the best of luck in editing your paper!
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What up Big Boi! I just want to begin things by saying that I think that your research is super interesting and has some pretty big implications if it is successful. That being said though, reading this made my head hurt, and I have taken my fair share of science classes. Anyways, I am going to break down my comments by section so that I can be more specific.
ReplyDeleteLiterature review: I think that you do a good job in articulating the significance of your research here. Your paper flows pretty well and I think that the transitions are pretty logical. That being said, there were a couple paragraphs in there that I don’t think were very useful, and so I marked them as ones that you could probably cut. Also, I think that some works to be done with what you choose to define and not define. I think that people know what vaccum is, which you define, but not what surface energy is, which you do not.
Methods: I think that for the most part, you do a pretty good job explaining how everything works and what steps you took to do your research. I would try to focus a little bit more on the purpose of everything that are you doing and why it is important though instead of including some of the technical explanations of how things work (i.e. RBS). I did like how you split up the different sections of your methods into multiple parts. It made traversing through the paper easier.
Discussion: I think that you do a pretty good job justifying your results for why they were how they were, as well as for explaining their implications. However, there were still some parts where I think you went into unnecessary depth explaining how something worked. Although this is needed to a certain extent, I think that stating that you used a technique, and then explaining what you found from using it and the significance of it would be a better path to follow. The reason for this is that this is a pretty technical paper, and so the reader is going to struggle to try and read all of this in the few minutes they are given. Because of this, you want to help the readers out as much as possible by simplifying it.
Conclusion: Overall, I though this section was pretty good. I know that you had commented on how you thought that it was pretty short, but I think that concision is what you need. However, I also think that it would still be useful to link your paragraphs more to your overall purpose instead of doing it all at the end.
Overall, I think you are pretty clear with your explanations of things, but I think that it is a lot of information to handle all in one sitting. I know that you had mentioned using this research and this paper for other reasons outside of research, and so some advice would be to maybe have two versions of your paper so that you could have a simplified version for the college board, and then a full-length technical one to try and publish or something like that. Anyways, I hope this helped. Keep up the hard work bae!
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