srbuckley's blog

I did an exercise similar to our current activity of the multipanel figure in one of my engineering classes. I believe it was an engineering graphics course I took. The final project for that class included writing an instructional piece on how to replicate a simple shape or object in terms of words. It didn't seem like it should be that hard of an activity when it was first proposed to us, but it ended up being more difficult than I anticipated. What can feel so obvious to one person can be totally lost on another. I feel like simplifying what you are saying is a good approach. I tend to go about explaining things by overly trying to describe a situation or the appearance of something. I feel like "putting my foot in my mouth" (in a sense) will serve me well. I feel like using factual terms will help too. If I speak in terms that people can understand but that are technical enough to convey the message I have with across the board results. That's probably the real trick behind this stuff, I would imagine. I guess knowing the audience is pretty helpful, as well. If you are writing a peer reviewed journal piece it will be different than writing a piece for Popular Science. The good thing about writing this METHODS section is the fact that we are all basically on a similar level in our understanding of insects and more specifically leafminers.

One of the things you will need to do when creating your multipanel figure is to use an arrow pointing to the leaf on the affected plant. You can use the line tool and add a marker which can be an arrow. Make sure to make the arrow a contrasting color to the image of your leafminer plant. You also want to adjust the opacity on your background. You can do this by sliding the bottom bar all the way to the right on the colors menu. I think what I am going to do is to do a dry run with my current recollection on the process I undertook with the software and see what I come up with. 

Once you have the image how you want it, you will have to adjust the page size to the image size. I can’t quite remember how to do that. You also must adjust the the quality to 1080 by (I can’t remember right now) 724? 

Yesterday in class we created a multipanel figure for leafminer activity. I am going to go about trying to outline the process I undertook to create my mulitpanel figure in preparation for my final draft. I am going to skip the part about collecting the photos for the speciman because that seems pretty straightforward to me thus far. 

Open "Inkplot" Don't worry about the size of the page in the center. Ignore it for now. We will adjust the size later. Go to file and import your pictures. You can zoom in by hitting the magnifying glass and zoom out by hitting the shift key and the magnifying glass. Hit lock icon. This prevents you from distorting the image when resizing it, I think. This is hard to do without the software or the lecture recorded. I should have taken notes or something. You can type in the size you want the images to be, if I remember correctly. Adjust the pictures to the sizes you want and arrange them. Okay, this isn't exactly MY process but this will help me to go over this again. Once you have the pictures arranged the way that you want them to be, you can go on to use the text tool. Use the font that looks neat and doesn't have serif. Label each photo. You can create the proper spacing by hitting the shift and arrow keys. Once everything is the way you want it, you can select all the elements of your multipanel figure and use group to make it one unit. 

I woke up this morning at 5:45 in the morning. I walked into my kitchen to make coffee. I also used the bathroom. I proceeded to return to my room while the coffee brewed to check my phone. I texted my friend to ask her how quitting cigarettes was going for her. I returned to the kitchen to pour my freshly brewed coffee and add sugar and cream. I stirred the coffee and returned to my room. I turned the television on and watched some true crime television. My cat started meowing so I made my way back into the kitchen to feed him. I hadn’t slept well and was still tired so I lay back down to doze off when I watched TV. I fell back asleep for a while and got up in time for school. I took a shower and got ready to face the world. I got into my car and proceeded to drive over to the UMASS campus. I found a decent parking spot and went into my class. I went around the campus looking for leaf miner specimens. I found several leaves that had leaf miner activity and documented them. Class was over and I got back into my car to drive home. On the way home, I stopped at the local Stop and Shop to get a few groceries. I checked out and drove home to make supper. My son wanted meatballs so I made him meatballs. After making the meatballs I assembled a couple of grinders for my son. I cleaned up after supper and proceeded to my room to finish writing my post for the blog for this class. Next, I watched some crime television to put an end to my night. I took my meds after the show and fell asleep.

Sleeping/Waking

I woke up this morning at 5:45 in the morning.

I hadn’t slept well and was still tired so I lay back down to doze off when I watched TV.

I fell back asleep for a while and got up in time for school. 

Today in class I worked on finding different sources of multipanel figures. One hallmark of a multipanel figure is lettered pictures representing a single phenomenon or process. According to Dr. Long, a good mulitpanel figure will serve as a visual abstract for the prospectrive paper. It should tell the story of the point you are trying to make. A good multipanel figure should also be well organized and visually pleasing, ie. not jumbled or messy looking. When deciding how to create our own multipanel figure we should take many things into consideration. Will the prospective reader be able to print in color? Do they have any color blindness that could affect their perception of color? When we are using an object to show the scale, will the prospective reader have access to such an item? It is also pertinent to make sure any images that are used are properly cited or that you have permission to use the image. A simple scale is also helpful to print on the picture to help people get an appreciation for the size of the objects or process. 

Figure 1. Track visible from leaf miner activity. Frass is visible until point of exit. "Lyonetia clerkella mine on Prunus cerasi" flickr photo by cquintin https://flickr.com/photos/34878947@N04/29976512118 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sultan_Darvesh/publication/10921377...

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0903753

This specimen is a green, serrated edged leaf. The leaf is approximately 155mm in length with an elliptical shape. One end has the base of the stem where the leaf was attached to the mother plant. The other end is pointed. At the widest part, the leaf measures about 50mm. The stem is about 5mm across. There appear to be 2 lighter green "tracks" on the leaf. They take on a drizzled appearance. Almost as if someone drizzled icing on the leaf. The widest part of these tracks measures approximately 2mm. The thinnest part the track measures less than .5mm. These tracks only appear on the right vertical half of the leaf. They only appear on the top surface of the leaf and don't appear to permeate the bottom. The length of the tracks in total measure about 105mm and 145mm. On the left vertical half of the leaf there is an oddly shaped hole that has the shape of a fidget spinner. This hole has yellowing around the edges and is about 70mm up from the base of the stem. The stem of the leaf has fine, hairlike structures. There are some shiny dots on the leaf that are able to be washed away with water.

Specimen: One green leaf approximately 6.5 inches long. Has a elliptical shape with pointy ends. Has a serrated appearance on the edges. The width of where the stem was attached to the mother plant is about .25 inches across.
Interesting Features: There is a lighter green ribbon like structure across one vertical half of the leaf, on the right side. It almost appears as if someone drizzled the leaf with a lighter green paint. There appears to be two separate "tracks" of this lighter green. It looks to me like an insect was eating parts of the leaf and this is the track left by that. The tracks are minuscule in width. I would say they are 1/16 of an inch at most. I'd say one of them is about ten inches in length an the other is about 6. The ribbon like structures appear to be only on the surface of the leaf. On the back side of the leaf they are barely visible. On the left side of the leaf there is an odd shaped hole. There is a yellowing around the edge of this hole. It has the shape of a fidget spinner. There appear to be fine, hairlike structures on the stem of the leaf. The stem is more of a yellow green than the rest of the leaf. There are small almost shiny dots on the leaf that go away after it is washed.
The specimen is a serrated edged leaf. The leaf is approximately 155mm in length with an elliptical shape. One end has the base of the stem where the leaf was attached to the mother plant. The other end is pointed. At the widest part, the leaf measures about 50mm. The stem is about 5mm across. There appear to be 2 lighter green "tracks" on the leaf. They take on a drizzled appearance. Almost as if someone drizzled icing on the leaf. The widest part of these tracks measures approximately 2mm at the thinnest part the track measures less than .5mm. These tracks only appear on the right vertical half of the leaf. They only appear on the top surface of the leaf. The length of the tracks in total measure about 105mm and 145mm. On the left vertical half of the leaf there is an oddly shaped hole that has the shape of a fidget spinner. This hole has yellowing around the edges and is about 70mm up from the base of the stem.