Foods in the News
Patrick Spicer
p.spicer@unsw.edu.au
APril 16, 2014
Topic: contemporary coverage of food topics
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Your area of study is central to people’s lives and will thus be a regular topic of conversation and news. •
As a trained scientist, you will have knowledge and experience these people don’t. You must use it well for your own benefit and others’.
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We will talk today about how to read and assess news coverage of food and other scientific topics to learn new things, to read between the lines, and to offer educated commentary when needed.
Scientific Method
Question
Hypothesis
Prediction
Experiment
Analysis
Theory
This is how you will be taught, how your textbooks will read, and how you will ultimately construct arguments and communication with others. Example: DNA
• Question: DNA known to be made up of four nucleotides. How is information stored in it?
• Hypothesized: Watson and Crick suggested
DNA could be helical in structure
• Experiment: Rosalind Franklin measured diffraction of DNA
• Theory: Watson saw Franklin’s results, knew it
was from a helical structure, and he and Crick modeled DNA as a double helix
“Inverted pyramid” of journalism
Most newsworthy info
Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?
Important Details
Background information This is how journalists are taught to communicate. It is practical, flexible, and it works to capture our attention and make us read more.
(It’s also how senior business people expect to be pitched...)
Example: Lincoln http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ File:The_Assassination_of_President_Lincoln__Currier_and_Ives_2.png
Notice: you can stop reading at almost any time and walk away knowing the key information. You can’t do that with most scientific articles and textbooks.
This is important...
• ...because you will see more on a daily basis from the latter than the former, even if you’re crazy into