Talk:Psycholinguistics/Prosody

Very interesting topic! I posted some comments based off the rubric headings. It may seem like a lot, but they are just the small nit picky things that are a nuisance, I've been penalize many times so I try to remember them now. I've also taken a class with Dr. Newman before, and so I happen to know he can be picky. Hope it helps!

Writing Style

Conducting a thorough read over of your own work will assist in finding some small mistakes in language use, like tense errors, and mistakes in the use of plurals. Grammatical errors such as the use of commas can also be eliminated by a review. Incase your english classes were awhile ago, remember to separate clauses using a comma. Introductory terms like further, however, for instance, and therefore, should always be followed by a comma as well. Comma’s should also be used for long sentences, this makes the longer amount of information more understandable. In the use of the phrase, the idea that of the…, the word that can be eliminated to make the wording more concise, and also makes the writing more readable. In science, and published articles in particular, we use the most concise, but clear, wording; that is, the least amount of words required to accurately explain a concept. This is because we are generally explaining a more advanced topic, and so the least amount of words will assist our readers in a better understanding. Also, the chapter is about 500 words too short, so filling in around research articles and key points so that they are very clear will easily fill up this gap in word length.

Structure

The introduction of the paper should define terms that you will use throughout the text that may be ambiguous, or unknown to some readers. For information that they should know, but may not, refer them to another chapter of the psycholinguistics wikiversity page. A link to this chapter is helpful as well. When beginning a new section, the first paragraph acts like an introductory paragraph. Therefore, it should give a small intro for the first couple of sentences to bring readers up to speed, then outline the following subsections briefly so the reader knows what to expect. Also, in text citations should link down to the reference section. I recommend using the numbered citations, as that is a frequent format used in wikiversity; although making a linking APA-format in text citation could be possible.

Research

The inclusion of empirical evidence is crucial to validating your arguments in science writing, especially for an online information source. While direct quotes are typical evidence resources in literary writing, in science they are steered away from; and we were advised not to use them in class. Putting these quotations into your own words and explaining them is a much more universally accepted method. When introducing one of these papers as evidence to support your claim, briefly explaining the methods used to carry out their purpose before listing the results can assist readers see differences between studies. When listing more then one article with similar purpose and methods this would only to be done once. For using our classroom textbook as one of these resources, find the article that he discusses first, read it, and then cite that. For information in the textbook that he does not give a reference for, you do not need to cite it according to Dr. Newman as it is knowledge that you should be able to come up with on your own. Overall, in terms of research, I would like to see more of the relevant research articles mentioned, also incorporating opposite viewpoints to the ones that you have mentioned, the rubric for the chapter points this out as well. When using research more then 10 years old, it is always good to double check to see if there at least something that can be added on to the research you have included. That way the reader can be sure you did a thorough literature review. In terms of substance of the literature review I would have liked to see some move evidence to back up some of your claims. As well, I would have really liked to see a section on the neural basis of prosody, and knowing Dr. Newman, I’m pretty sure he would like to see it as well. A neat way that you might be able to include it, without having to make a full comprehensive discussion on it, could be through a mention of aprosodia and the lesioned areas associated with it, and how they result in deficits in prosody perception. Although I have not researched this topic myself, I’m sure you could find some more recent information on the subject. I do know of one article by Jonathan Rohrer et al. who published in the journal Cortex in 2010, title Receptive prosody in nonfluent primary progressive aphasias. Of course you wouldn’t have to discuss aphasias if it's not relevant, but it could lead you to other articles, and give you a feel for some of the neural aspects of prosody. Sometimes it is tricky though so ask Dr. Newman or Sarah for help if you can’t.

Reviewed by S. Walsh 23:48, 27 February 2011 (UTC)