Introduction

Today we’ll be working with the article “What Educated Citizens Should Know About Statistics and Probability”, which was written by Dr. Jessica Utts, a professor of statistics at University of California Irvine and published in The American Statistician, a peer-reviewed journal that publishes general-interest articles about the nature of statistics and its applications.

Our focus will on developing skills in two areas:

  1. Critical reading
  2. Proper use of citation

Reading Practices

The following practices are informed by materials published by the University of Wolverhampton, by Stetson University, resources shared with Grinnell Tutorial instructors, and my own personal observations.

Before reading

  1. Think about why you are reading
    • Are you trying to understand an argument made by the author?
    • Are you seeking information about a topic or concept and trust the author’s presentation of it?
  2. Understand the author/source
    • Is the author credible?
    • Is the author/source known for certain viewpoints, writing styles, etc.?
    • What motivated the author to write the piece?
  3. Survey the text
    • Look over the section headings, table of contents, and/or abstracts and summaries
    • Evaluate the length of the text and its level of complexity

Looking at headings can give you an idea of how the text is structured, what will be covered, and how topics are ordered. This can help you plan where to focus on.

Evaluating length and complexity will help you determine how much time you should block off for reading, and whether you should consider skimming certain sections of the text.

  • Remark: I’ve personally heard faculty acknowledge that they don’t truly expect students to read every word in the readings they assign. Instead, they expect students to develop the scanning and selective reading skills to extract key ideas and engage in a productive discussion.

While Reading:

  1. Take notes
    • Remember your “why”, and makes notes on parts of the text that pertain to it.
  2. Identify arguments
    • If an argument relates to your “why”, you should jot down the central claim, reasoning, and evidence.
  3. Take breaks when necessary
    • Some text is too long or dense to effectively read in a single sitting.
    • When peer-reviewing scientific articles, which are generally 10+ pages of highly technical writing, it’s common for me to split the process into 2-3 sessions.

After Reading

  1. Revisit your “why”.
  2. Review your notes and underlines and synthesize them into a smaller set of common ideas.
  3. Reflect on how the text relates to other course materials, works of other authors, and your own thoughts/beliefs.

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Practice

Next, we’ll practice these reading strategies on Section 9 (Average vs. Normal) of Dr. Utt’s paper. Our focusing will be on understanding the topic that Dr. Utt’s is presenting in this section.

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Activity (part 1)

To begin, I’d like you to read your assigned section from the Utt’s article and using the critical reading practices we’ve been working with.

After 5-10 minutes of independent work, convene with your partner can check-in on the following:

  1. Did you identify the same “why”?
  2. What do you know about the author? Did this influence your reading?
  3. What notes did you make? Did you both identify the same key points?
  4. What did you do after reading? Did you make any connections? Did you consolidate any of your notes?

Participation Assignment: After discussing each of these, have one person in your group record 1-sentence answer/description of what you discussed for each of these 4 items. Upload a document with these 4 sentences to P-web to receive completion credit.

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Activity (part 2)

For this part of the activity you are to write a \(\leq 1\)-page summary of your assigned section. This should be done individually, and it should include at least one example of all of the following:

  1. Paraphrasing or Summarizing
  2. Block quotes
  3. Snippet quotes
  4. Your own thoughts

You should refer to the Academic Honesty Handbook for guidance on citation.

Additionally, you should focus on clearly conveying the main idea of the section to someone who hasn’t read it. The focus of this activity is the clarity in your writing and proper use of citation. You shouldn’t worry about things like spelling, grammar, or sentence structure.

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Activity (part 3)

Exchange papers with someone of your choosing (depending upon how quickly you both finish writing) who wrote about a different section of the Utt’s paper.

Next, review the following aspects of the paper you received:

  1. Clarity of presentation of the text’s main idea.
  2. Mechanics of citation
    • Try to identify at least one of each of the 4 items that were required
    • Evaluate each item to make sure it adheres to guidelines laid out in the Academic Honesty Handbook

Finally, read the section of the Utt’s article corresponding with the paper you just reviewed. Add at least one additional review comment now that you’ve read the primary source of the summary.