srabbitt's blog

      Working with an outline certainly has an advantage. I have never created my own before so knowing exactly what to put in will still be challenging.  The problem that I face is staring at the screen trying to think of something to write. I'm thinking that possibly I could just put some words down to start then fill it in as I can figure it out. Writing has never been a strong subject for me, I just sort of fumble around and try to make things fit. This last writing project was extremely challenging. This is not my only writing challenge, creating the bibliography or reference list in next on the list.

       I have made many reference lists, bibliographies, and annotated bibliographies but I still need to learn how to use a citation tool for my reference list. I have watched people do them, and been shown different tools but nothing seems to stick. Just this evening I found an interesting article and I attempted to put it on the class biblio page but I could not find were to copy and paste the DOI number.  Once again I will need further instruction on this. Once I learn it this time I will be sure not to forget it, this will save me so much time with papers in the future. 

Stigmella multispicata Rociene. & Stonis, an Asian leafminer on Siberian elm, now widespread in eastern North America (Lepidoptera, Nepticulidae)

Introduction

Topic: Increased invasive insect populations in the US

• originate from Europe and Asia
  • Mattson W, Vanhanen H, Veteli T, Sivonen S, Niemelä P (2007) Few immigrant phytophagous insects on woody plants in Europe: legacy of the European crucible? Biological Invasions 9: 957–974. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-007-9096-y
• Leaf consuming insect species 310 from Europe and 77 from Asia in 2007 (Mattson et al. 2007)
• Increased global travel/transport of goods are the cause  growing number of established alien  species (Work et al. 2005)
  • Work TT, McCullough DG, Cavey JF, Komsa R (2005) Arrival rate of nonindigenous insect species into the United States through foreign trade. Biological Invasions 7: 323–332. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-004-1663-x
• Not as many Lepodatra as other species (Pohl et al, 2018)
  • Pohl GR, Landry J-F, Schmidt BC, Lafontaine JD, Macaulay AD, Nieukerken EJ van, DeWaard JR, Dombroskie JJ, Klymko J, Nazari V, Stead K (2018) Annotated checklist of the moths and butterflies (Lepidoptera) of Canada and Alaska. Pensoft Publishers, Sofia, Series Faunistica 118, 1–580. https://ebooks.pensoft.net/book/13218/annotated-checklist-of-the-moths-and-butterflies-lepidoptera-of-canada-and-alaska
• DNA barcoding enabled better tracking of these porly studied groups (Landry et al. 2013)
  • Landry J-F, Nazari V, DeWaard JR, Mutanen M, Lopez-Vaamonde C, Huemer P, Hebert PDN (2013) Shared but overlooked: 30 species of Holarctic Microlepidoptera revealed by DNA barcodes and morphology. Zootaxa 3749. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3749.1.1.​

Concluding statment: Report about insect from asia that was ID through DNA barcoding

Topic: James Vargo found UK species of Stigmella in Indiana USA

• Material sent to DNA specialist who did not recognize the moths as being native to the US
• Another specimen from Missisippi UNK

Conclusion: DNA barcoding matched these with a leafminer from Beijing China

(Final Paragraph) Redescribe S. multispicata and compare to Europian S. ulmivora  and North Americain species of Nepticulidae feeding on Ulmus.

Conclusion: Discuss probility coming from Asia to North America

      I thought that class went very well today. First Dr. Brewer cleared up a lot of the mind boggling information about the methods project. Dr. Long sat down with me and described in detail how to approach writing a scientific paper. Her suggestion about creating an outline was very helpful and I will try to implement this technique in the future. 

       The introduction to persuasive writing was a fun exercise. Dogs have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.  I felt that saving them is the least I could do for them since they have brought me such joy throughout my life. Even though this was a fictitious exercise it was something that I could get behind. Everyone in the class had such strong arguments as to why the breed that they chose would be the best. 

      The work with the things explainer was such a refreshing look at simple words to explain complex systems. Dr. Long's explanations were spot on about how people use words that they do not understand just because its expected in technical papers. Creating my own cartoon was something I haven't done since elementary school, and I see that my artistic abilities really have not improved since than.         

        The American breed known as the Chesapeake Bay Retriever (Chessie)is a strong, reliable, intense, and built for endurance. This powerful working dog's ancestors were rescued from the icy waters of the Chesapeake Bay in 1807 (American Kennel Club). Originally this breed was use as a sporting dog, capable of retrieving 300 ducks in extreme cold in a single day. After the long day of retrieving these dogs were again tasked with defending the camp while the owners were out. Now Chessies are used for much more then that. They have an acute senting ability that has made them popular with K-9 handlers in the fields of search and rescue, drug, and bomb detection. This breed is a very loyal breed and forms a very strong bond with its handler. This versatile dog should be at the top of the list for saving because of its versatility.

This final review of the methods project has really beaten me down. My confidence level has drooped so much now I have no idea about what I am doing. I can clearly see that any aspirations of becoming a researcher have been completely removed. Now all I can hope for is at least a passing grade for this course. I do not see me attempting another course like this with a full course load. Writing has never been a strong suit of mine but up to this point I was feeling that my writing was at least adequate. Hopefully this next project will be better now that I have a better idea of what we are supposed to do (At least I think I do). I just have to remember that this research  has to be reproducible in order to be valid. Trying to write something that resembles a coherent paper is still going to be a challenge. 

        This was an observational study about differences replicating an original figure by using only the methods section of a research paper. To develop this section photos were taken of a plant that showed leafminer activity. These images plus a map showing where photos were taken are used to create multi panel figure. The process of how and where the photos were taken were then used to develop a methods section of a research paper. This methods section was then given to another student to follow and create a figure based on the methods that were written.

       In summer 2019, as a part of the junior writing course at the University of Massachusetts Amherst I conducted a project about the importance of clearly written methods section for future researchers to be able to recreate your work in-order to be able to confirm or deny a hypothesis. Another student recreated the multi panel figure by using my methods section. Having no prior knowledge of what the original multi panel figure looked like, designed their figure based on the methods supplied. The replicate figure done in this study had 5 main differences observed between the replicate and the original figures. The differences were in the plant, with size type, color, shape, and location. Since the exact location of the plant was not clear there was too much left for the person replicating the figure to make their own choices. The images of the figure were not consistent because those too had no exact specifications. The location of center of the map was not were the original, this is due to the issue mentioned previously. The issues with in the leaf mines themselves were observed also. The original figure mines moved across veins of the leaves in random patterns however, the replicate mines were liner along the main vein of the leaf. The leaves being different types attracted different leafminer’s which have different feeding patterns. Most of the inconsistencies between the figure would not have occurred if there had been a clear and concise methods section. Writing the methods may be better done as the data is being collected and documented.     

(I coul really use some feedback on this)

I have been struggling with attempting to re-write my methods project paper. The biggest issue is changing the methods is would require an entirely new study. My poorly written methods section is the reason that the figures were not the same, nothing more. However, when I attempt to say this in the discussion I cannot use the correct language to properly describe this. THe 6+ hours that I have spent on my corrections seem to have made it worse (at least what I read) and I find myself returning to my original conclusion that by failing to properly write my methods the entire project is a failure.

The more I write the worse it becomes. The more I try to fix what I wrote the less clear it is. Refering to the book is useless because what the book is saying the comments on my paper are very different. What is the point of the abstrct? It seems that I may have just used the enitre results section instead of a abstract. I guess in my limited education I thought that a summery was not very detailed but just an overview of whats the main article/story was about. Apperantly that is not the case. 

Lets try this again. Today after class I stopped at an elm tree that was on my way to my vehicle. This was a smaller tree about 20 feet tall with a 10 foot crown (aproximatly). The tree seemed healty with no yellowing leaves or limbs without leaves. I did not see any leafminer activity on this tree but I was ony able to clearly see only a few layers of branches. Next I tried to use the campus tree finder to determine what species of tree it was. This is were an issue begain. My phone only wants to connect to the UMASS network. When it is connected I can get absoulty nothing from the internet. So I have to shut my WiFi off and use cellular data. Opening the page took a while and I found that I could not zoom in enough to tell what the tree was that I was stading next to. So hopfuly at least one of the phones in our group will be able to get this information or we will have to rethink out methods for sampling trees. We will need at a miniumn know what the genius of the elm is for our data collection. I was not trying to collect data at this time, this was just a dry run to try determine what complications that we may encounter.