story structure
DESCRIPTION
Chapter 4, Writing Science, J. SchimelTRANSCRIPT
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Chapter 4: Story structures
15 maggio 2013
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From
Writing Science: How to Write Papers That Get Cited and Proposals That Get Funded, Joshua Schimel, 2011
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The elements of a story’s structure
• Opening (O)• Challenge (C)• Action (A)• Resolution (R)
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Opening
• Who are the characters, including the main character the story is about?
• Where does the story take place?• What do you need to understand to follow the
story?• What is the larger problem being addressed?
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Challenge
• What are your characters trying to accomplish?
• What specific question are you trying to answer?
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Action
• What happens to address the challenge?• What work did you do or are proposing to do
(for a proposal)?
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Resolution
• How have the characters and their world changed as a result of the action?
• What did you learn from your work
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Four core story structures
• OCAR – Slowest, takes time to work into the story
• ABDCE– Faster, starts in the action
• LD– Faster yet
• LDR– Fastest with the whole story up front
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OCAR
• Opening –Challenge – Action – Resolution• Typical of science papers– Challenge is at the end of the introuction– Resolution comes at the conclusion
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ABDCE
• Action– Starts with dramatic action to immediately engage
readers• Background– Describe characters and setting so that readers
can understand the story • Development– Follow the action as the story develops to the
climax
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ABDCE
• Climax– Bring all the threads of the story together and
address them• Ending– Same as resolution: what happened to the
characters after the climax?• Typical of modern fiction and scientific
proposals
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A good story is circular
• Typical of OCAR and ABDCE structures• By the end, we are back at the beginning– But things have changed, and we need to highlight
how they have changed
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LD
• Lead/Development or the inverted pyramid of news stories– Core of the story is in the first sentence (lead)– Rest of the story fills out the story (development)
• In LD, the lead collapses opening, challenge and resolution into a single short section (as short as a sentence).
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LDR
• Lead/Development and Resolution• Typical of magazine articles– The lead must be engaging, but the resolution is
left for the end, to entice the reader to go to the end
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Story structure in science writing
• Scientific paper: OCAR– O: opening is larger problem and central
“characters”– C: challenge is interesting question– A: action is research plan and results– R: resolution is conclusion about how our
understanding about the world has changed as a result of the work
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Story structure in science writing
• Generalist journals (Nature, Science): LDR– Editors are professionals, not scientists– Structure should be similar to other magazines– Start with a strong lead to interest the editors
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Story structure in science writing
• Proposals: LDR or ABDCE– Your proposal must convince reviewers that the
topic identified in the opening is important– It must fill them with excitement at the questions
posed in the challenge– If it has not done so within the first two pages, you
will lose your audience and not get funded
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IMRaD
• Introduction• Methods• Results• and• Discussion
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Mapping OCAR to IMRaD
• Introduction– Opening– Background– Challenge
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Mapping OCAR to IMRaD
• Introduction:– Opening• First paragraph• Introduces the larger problem targeted by the paper• What is the context?• What are the characters we are studying?
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Mapping OCAR to IMRaD
• Introduction:– Background• Extension of the Opening section, fleshes out
characters• What information does the reader need to understand
this work?• Why is it important?• What does it contribute to the larger issues?
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Mapping OCAR to IMRaD
• Introduction:– Challenge• What are the specific hypotheses/questions/goals of
this paper?
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Mapping OCAR to IMRaD
• Materials and Methods (M&M):– Begins describing the Action– What did you do?
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Mapping OCAR to IMRaD
• Results:– Continues describing the Action– What were your findings?
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Mapping OCAR to IMRaD
• Discussion:– Climax and Resolution– What do your findings mean?– What did you learn?– If there is a conclusion, this will be your Resolution
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Mapping OCAR to IMRaD
• Opening = beginning of Introduction• Challenge = end of Introduction• Action = M&M + Results + Most Discussion• Resolution = end of Discussion
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Resolution
• Extremely important• Show how your work has changed our
understanding of the world• Map back your resolution to your opening– It must say something about the larger problem
you identified there• Your conclusion should address a topic as wide
as your opening
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Hourglass structure
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Exercises
• Look at the paper you suggested– Which story structure does it use?– Where are its OCAR elements?
• Look at the paper you are writing– Are the OCAR elements in place?– If not, rewrite your paper to include them
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