Perfect Paragraph

This week the class started working on proposal projects about the leaf miner Stigmella Multispicata taking root in a new host the American Elm. Our group is going to be focusing the research on the symmetry of leaves with careful measurements. On top of checking in the known host Siberian Elms and the new host America Elms we will be checking a few branches from all 15 types of elm on campus. We believe this can give us insight into why the leaf miner picks the leaves it does and a potential correlation for future host it may invade with similar leaf structures.

In science, a study must be reproducible in order to be considered valid. As part of a Junior Writing Class, at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, I conducted a project to understand what affects the reproducibility of experiments. I looked to create a complex multi-panel figure, write the methodology, have a different person carry out the methods, record the differences, and identify factors that may have contributed to the differences observed. Certain aspects, such as the composition of the figure, were highly documented and detailed, while others, such as equipment used and general details of how the photo was taken, were left out or poorly described. Of the 26 recorded differences, 4 were caused by a change to the experiment site, 5 were attributed to the difference in equipment used, 2 were caused by a lack of description, and the remaining 15 were caused by descriptive or interpretive differences.

Authors Note - My only qualm it the ending I feel like it stops suddenly but since its not an English paper.. I feel like its supposed to?
 

Today I had a great day. I woke up at 8am. I brushed my teeth and took a shower.  I started my morning off with some delicious Indian chai. After an hour I has eggs and some bread. After I finished eating I worked on my project for my writing class. I wrote some of this during that time. Then, I talked to my parents in India. We had an hour-long conversation. My dad said that he was proud of my progress in school. It made me really happy to hear that come out of my father’s mouth. When a parent expresses how proud they are of you it makes you feel very happy. After I had a long talk with y father I noticed I was running behind on getting ready for class so the first thing I did was to email my professor letting him know that I will be late. I got ready quickly after and took the bus at 12:49pm and came to class. Besides being late for class I had a great day. After class, I went home and relaxed. I watched tv and ate dinner and went for a walk out while listening to music and then spoke to parents. They said “goodnight Riya” and that’s where my day ended and I went to bed. Tomorrow I have to go to this research biology fair. It is going to be a long day but i can through it hopefully. I feel it will be fun to look at researches and meet post-docs and all. Actually I am excited for this event.

I have moved here to study at Umass Amherst. It has almost been a month but I haven’t found a job yet. I have applied to so many places but for some reason I am not getting a response. I have been very lucky when it comes to looking for a job but now I am struggling. I do feel it is because half of the summer as gone by and everyone is all set. Although, I have applied to so many places hopefully at least one person responds. It would be great to get a job as soon as possible because I have lots of bills because I am living alone. I hate when my bank balance goes down. I mean I don’t mind spending the money if I was earning at the same time. I need to find a job asap. I can’t live like this I like to be busy and have no time. But since the last month I am fed up of having so much time that I can’t function. Thankfully I am taking a class otherwise I would go crazy.

INTRODUCTION

Leafminer tracks appear as white or brown stria on plant vegetation. They can take on a swirled or drizzled appearance. These stria are from the leafminer burrowing inside the leaf. The leafminer eats the mesophyll within the leaf and eventually exits to pupate. This makes the leafminer larvae less susceptible to being eaten by animals that might just pluck the leafminer from the surface of the leaf. The purpose of this project was to create a multipanel figure of a leaf specimen that had been affected by leafminer activity and to create a METHODS section that another student or person could follow in order to recreate the same multipanel figure. 

      The study of leaf miner activity conducted was on a brassicaceous plant called a nasturtium (Tropaeolum). A common leaf miner found on these plants are the larvae of the syn. S. apicalis Hardy. The female lays eggs on the leaf and once it hatches it burrows into the layers of the leaf and consumes the mesophyll of the host leaf. Sometimes the leaf is killed, but the rest of the plans is often unaffected. Once the larvae have matured it exits the leaf by chewing itself free and drops to the ground where it pupates it to an adult. They have several generations per year from April to September.

Differences listed as being in the overall figure are those that occur in multiple panels or the overall composition of the figure. Differences present across the panels include: every arrow having a much larger head that obscures the length of the arrow, every arrows being shorter in length, the removal of most of the garden hose, the presence of an orange covering on the hose, and there is a decline in the health of the infected plant. The differences present in the composition include: smaller backround boxes in the corners of each panel, proportionately smaller letters in each of those boxes, the space between panels is approximately doubled, and the color of the spacing is set to be transparent instead of white.

*Differences is defined in a previous paragraph as "anything in the replicate that is not present, displayed in an alternate manner, or is an element that is missing from the original figure" and so everything listed can be assumed to be about the replicate figure.

We had orientation on Monday. It was alright but I was kind of nervous. I paid attention to every detail that the student leaders whether it was academically or any resources that they provided to us. The speeches were very interesting. The police officer had some good pointers and I feel very safe on campus because of that speech by the officer. I would be spending a lot of time on campus studying and doing homework and all so that speech made me feel proud of the college I’m coming to. The next part of the orientation was doing a tour which was very nice. I really enjoyed that. I was very lost on how I would get from one place to another so that was very helpful. The library is full of so many options. It was great to learn about it. In fact, I might go and check out all my options. Then, we had lunch at the franklin dining hall which was really good. Big fan of their Mexican food. I have eaten at Hampshire and Berkshire but honestly my favorite one as one of now is Hampshire dining hall. After, we went to sign up for classes. I signed for my classes but I didn’t like the part where we had to wait because we were a big group mainly because some classes that I wanted to take were full. I had students helping me which I was iffy about but then I felt comfortable knowing she was the same major as me.

Both figures came out very similar that I think either will get the same point across but some of the differences I observed were having the photos in a different order in the figure. Three of the photos are also being viewed from an upside down perspective with two of them missing arrows to direct you to the affected leaf. The picture with the ruler for scale is measuring a different section of the leaf giving a different reading. The photos are also taken from a different zoom level being further out for the two pictures of the leaf and a more zoomed in level of the map and about even level for the full plant. The figure itself has spaces between each photo and a slightly different size text label in each corner.

      There were 8 differences between the original and replicate figures that I noted. 1: The plant that was the subject of the original study was a garden nasturtium. The Replicate study was done using a long leaf plant that I cannot identify. 2: The scale image sizes were taken at different focal positions. This makes the replicate image have less detail than the original. 3: The central map position was not alike in the two figures. 4: The original was a broader scope and the replicate was much narrower and did not have the same center. 5: The figures were identified with lowercase letters in the original however the replicate used uppercase. The 6: The order of the figures was not the same. The original “a” was the full plant picture, “b” was the close-up showing the leafminer activity accompanied by a dollar bill for scale reference, and “c” was the map of the location that the study was conducted. The replicate “A” was the close-up with the dollar bill used for scale, “B” was the full plant photo, and “C” was the map of the study location. 7: The color and direction of the arrow pointing to the subject area were of different size, color and orientation. 8: Font sizes were different on the image labels. The original used a smaller (40) font and the replicate had approximately a 60. Although these studies were done on different plants I think the overall project was a success at documenting leafminer activity on the UMass campus.