The text I am analyzing is a paper put out by the Patek Lab of Duke University, where researchers studied the forces behind the punch of a Peacock Mantis Shrimp, an organism capable of throwing punches at speeds of 23 meters per second. The scientists took high speed footage of the shrimp’s punch and found that there are four main points of impact, two from the two arms, and two from the cavitation bubbles following the punches, which exceed forces up to 2500x the shrimp’s weight (see glossary for definitions).
The article begins by explaining what mantis shrimp are, how they capture prey, and the brief history of research on them. The wording is concise, with explanations given relating back to easily visualized examples, such as mantis shrimp grabbing food the same way praying mantises do. The only question within the paper is the introduction to the concluding paragraph, which underlies areas of future research, and serves to inspire questions within the reader. The word choice and phrasing makes the article relatable and interesting, which it should be if the topic involves the word “shrimp”, which most people associate with food or small subjects. The examples they use to explain topics, such as cavitation, as previously mentioned, are easy to visualize. When cavitation bubbles, essentially bubbles of vapor, collapse, they form light and heat, which is strong enough to melt holes into boat propellers when they are poorly designed. This destructive power is then associated with the shrimp’s punch, which causes the reader to make an association between the two. There are few transitions within the article, with topics being broken up by spaces between paragraphs, but not smoothly enough to facilitate a flow of ideas. Additionally, metaphor was not used at all, with alliteration being sparse, and most likely coincidental. The ending line as well is, for the most part, weak, with it being a vague summary of the findings, and draw to further research. I would like to take the language and style of explanation from the article, as it makes a foreign subject interesting and easy to understand. I would also use more alliteration than these writers did, as it makes the paper more entertaining to read, and therefore more easily processed by the readers. Link to the article: https://pateklab.biology.duke.edu/mechanics-movement-mantis-shrimp
1 Comment
Issy Changsut
3/22/2018 09:43:52 am
Interesting article! I found a lot of the same problems with the article I chose to read as well. I think it's sort of easy to fall into that in the genre of scientific articles. Science is so matter of fact, I feel like a lot of people feel that they need to mimic that in their writing. I think it's interesting that our articles were written so similarly!
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