www.cs.kent.ac.uk

The nature of our endeavour?

Sally Fincher

itp Disciplinary Commons

Third Meeting: 9th December 2005

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The story so far …

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Explored “institutional” context

• Me, my background, my colleagues• Sort of University/Department I teach in• Sort of students I teach• Sort of expectations (“standards”)• Sort (and size) of class• Sort of space

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Started to explore “disciplinary” context

• What language I teach? (Why?)• Which textbook I use? (Why?)• Who gets to choose?• What can I change?• Why would I change it?• What influences my decisions here?

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Documenting our discoveries

• Portfolio construction• The problem of artefacts

Research artefacts: Angwandte Chemie

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Angwandte Chemie

• [a typical paper] … is about three pages long. Almost one page contains experimental detail. Half a page is endnotes. The body of the article is then about one and a half printed pages, of which roughly a third consists of graphics

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Angwandte Chemie: research results

“The authors speak, as chemists today do, of molecules that they do not see, but for which they have excellent indirect evidence … I have written of this incredible process, and the way that the chemists’ necessity to move simultaneously in macroscopic and microscopic worlds forces chemists to use a mixture of symbolic and iconic representation of compounds/molecules”

Roald Hoffman (2002) Writing (and Drawing) Chemistry in Jonathan Monroe (ed) Writing and Revising the Disciplines, Cornell University

Angwandte Chemie: research artefact

A particular feature of Angwandte Chemie is the mandatory inclusion at the end of any experimental paper is an “Experimental Section”, detailing procedures for the experiments carried out

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“Experimental Section”

“This is a general statement that, in effect, states that anyone, anytime, anywhere who treats the same ingredients in the same way as I did, will make the same chemical compound”

- and yet, it is based on a single empirical study at one specific time and in one specific place

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Not researchers … we’re commoners …

• Not abstraction• Not generalisation• Specific, particular

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Situation: a familiar power

“To cook rice correctly requires not only patience and skill but an abstract conception of an idealized form.

So what I turned to for help was the basic artisanal sense of task. Make it simple by making it particular: what can I do with this rice, this rice pot, this need, this temperament?”

“The problem, I gradually realized, was that I wanted to simply follow a set of instructions, whereas what was required of me was to establish a close working relationship with a particular cooking vessel—my personal rice pot.”

(Thorne & Thorne, 2000)

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Our artefacts

• Don’t think recipes: think ricepots

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