Clarification and Interpretation of Ideas

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Clarification and Interpretation of Ideas
GXEX1406 Thinking and Communication Skills
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What is meant by Clarification ofIdeas?

• Whenever you read the newspapers,
• magazines, chapters of a book, a short story
• or even listening to a speech, the first step is
• to clarify what is there. What is the BIG
• IDEA? How is the big idea supported? Or is
• there more than one big idea? Are the terms,
• words or phrases used clear? Is there
• evidence for ambiguity or a tendency for
• vagueness?

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Process Of Extracting The Main Idea

• Main idea
• Supporting ideas 1 Supporting ideas 2
• Details Details
• Note Other names of the main idea
• main point, gist, central theme, general
  impression, master idea, big idea, writer's
  message, outstanding point / feature,
• significant idea.

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Extracting the Main Idea (cont)

• (Details about the (supporting) ideas )
• WHAT? - are the IDEAS put forward
• (Main idea, Supporting ideas and
  Details)
• WHO? - are putting forward the IDEAS
• (the persons, organizations, etc)
• WHY? - are the IDEAS put forward
• (the purpose of the ideas)
• WHERE? - are the IDEAS put forward
• (the context, location, etc)
• WHEN? - were the IDEAS put forward
• (time, occasion, events, etc)
• HOW? - were the IDEAS put forward
• (as a study, report, news item, conference
  paper, advert, etc)

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An idea

• How do people remember (the idea)?
• This is a pretty big question
• To begin to answer it weve got to break it down
  into smaller more specific ideas to develop
  theories as to why
• Then we can begin using experiments to test parts
  of the theories

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An idea (cont)

• Meaning of Words
• The usual method would be to check the meaning
  of words using a dictionary. But one should also
  keep in mind the context in which the word is
  used. You could also determine (perhaps with less
  accuracy) the meaning of words using the context,
  i.e. reading the line before and after the word
  might give you clues as to the meaning of word or
  words)

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An idea (cont)

• Meaning of Specialised Words and Definition
• At times the text you are reading is in a
  specialized discipline
• and the words may have specific meaning unique
  to the area of study. For example, if you are
  reading an economics text, there is likelihood
  that you will come across words such as per
  capita income, consumer price index, price
  control, free-trade, WTO and so forth. You could
  either refer to a dictionary of economics terms
  or ask someone you expect to know about the field
  such as an economist or an economics teacher.

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An idea (cont)

• Synonyms and Paraphasing
• You could also establish the meaning of words by
  looking up at synonyms, i.e. words of similar
  meaning at times provide a clearer understanding
  of the text. Alternatively, the text may also
  provide a paraphrase of a particular word, i.e.
  saying the same thing in a different way which is
  easily understood by most people. eg. "He is a
  good lecturer because his students rate him high"

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An idea (cont)

• Examples and Non-Examples
• Examples and non-examples may be provided to
  illustrate and explain a particular word or
  phrase. One of the best ways to explain a concept
  or principle is to give an example. For instance,
  to explain the concept of oxidation, the case of
  the gate in your house rusting would be a good
  example. Similarly, to explain painters of the
  impressionist era, then examples of paintings of
  the era would illustrate better the features of
  the era. Non-examples are also used help readers
  understand better what the ideas or statements
  really mean.

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An idea (cont)

• Vague Word a word that lacks a clear and
  distinct meaning.
• "That was a very nice party".
• This is an often heard comment. But what does
  "nice" mean? It does not give a precise and
  accurate description of the experience the person
  is trying to communicate.
• "Many old people attended the party"
• Similary with this statement, "old" is rather
  vague. For example when you talk with primary
  school children, a boy or girl in Form IV would
  be considered old. When we are forty, sixty is
  considered old! To an anthropologist, an "old"
  person might be one who lived 9,000 ago!

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An idea (cont)

• Ambiguity
• A word that has more than one meaning and is
  open to different interpretations. A claim is
  ambiguous if it can be assigned more than meaning
  and if the particular meaning it should be
  assigned is not made clear by context.
• eg.
• "My work here is finished", said Saiful.
• a) Saiful has finished the work assigned
• b) Saiful is fed up with the job and leaving the
  
• organisation.

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An idea (cont)

• Drawing Contrasts
• Another technique adopted to clarify ideas is to
  state what it is not rather than what it is. i.e
  in what ways the concept or idea is different
  from another concept or idea. For example,
  instead of saying what is chemical weathering, it
  is described as different from mechanical
  weathering because there is a chemical reaction
  involved.

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Where do ideas come from?(focus on the ideas of
research)

• Research is often driven by curiosity.
• We typically study things that were interested
  in.
• B. F. Skinner (1956) Here is a first principle
  not formally recognized by scientific
  methodologists When you run onto something
  interesting, drop everything else and study it.

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Idea origins(Ideas about the research)

• Common Sense things that we all think are true
• Treat others as you want them to treat you
• Nice social psych experiment, does this work?

• But note a lot of our common sense is
  contradictory
• absence makes the heart grow fonder
• long distance affairs never last.

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Idea origins (cont)

• Common Sense
• Observation both of others and of yourself (and
  maybe even of animals or kids).

• Direct observation includes public observation,
  self observation,
• observing children, observing animals
• Vicarious observation what somebody else has
  observed

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Idea origins (cont)

• Common Sense
• Observation
• Past research find out what research has
  already been done and ask yourself what dont we
  know still (or perhaps better what do we NEED
  to know that we dont already know)
• follow-up studies, expanding the past research in
  more detail or new directions
• improvements on past research studies, maybe you
  think the past research had some serious flaws or
  limitations

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Idea origins (cont)

• Common Sense
• Observation
• Past research
• Identify a problem perhaps there is an
  important problem or issue that needs a (or some)
  solutions.

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Idea origins (cont)

• Common Sense
• Observation
• Past research
• Identify a problem
• Ask the Experts basically boils down to putting
  your trust in somebody else who says that they
  know what the research

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Idea origins (cont)

• Common Sense
• Observation
• Past research
• Identify a problem
• Ask the Experts
• Stick with it and get lucky
• Pavlov was working on dog digestive systems.
  Noticed dogs salivated when put into their
  harnesses prior to being fed. This observation
  and the subsequent work led to groundbreaking
  work in how animal (including humans) learn -
  classical conditioning

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Classic barriers to good research ideas

• Im not smart enough.
• Yes you are, but it may be hard work

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Classic barriers to good research ideas (cont)

• Im not smart enough.
• Somebody else must have already done this.
• review the literature, if somebody has done it
  remember two things
• replication is an important part of science
• perhaps there is a new angle to add to the
  research idea

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Classic barriers to good research ideas (cont)

• Im not smart enough.
• Somebody else must have already done this.
• I dont know how to pursue the idea.
• - again, review the literature, how have others
  examined similar issues

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Classic barriers to good research ideas (cont)

• Im not smart enough.
• Somebody else must have already done this.
• I dont know how to pursue the idea.
• Its too simple, something must be wrong.
• parsimony is generally a GOOD thing

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Classic barriers to good research ideas (cont)

• Im not smart enough.
• Somebody else must have already done this.
• I dont know how to pursue the idea.
• Its too simple, something must be wrong.
• The idea will take too much work.
• dont be afraid to work hard, sometimes you can
  think of ways to
• simplify things to reduce the workload

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Classic barriers to good research ideas (cont)

• Im not smart enough.
• Somebody else must have already done this.
• I dont know how to pursue the idea.
• Its too simple, something must be wrong.
• The idea will take too much work.
• Our goal is that you come away from this course
  with the knowledge and ability to see past most
  if not all of these pitfalls.

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Are my ideas good?

• Evaluate your idea
• Is is specified enough to be manageable
• ROT rule
• Replicable - one time deal?
• Observable - can you measure it?
• Testable - can you falsify it?

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Testable

• Many interesting hypotheses are not testable
  until they are further specified
• Is abortion wrong? are drugs evil?
• These deal with opinions and arent answerable
  with experimental methods
• Meditation affects how good one feels about
  oneself.
• Which direction? What counts as meditation? How
  much meditation? What does feel good about
  oneself mean?

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Replication

• Many interesting results are not accepted until
  they are replicated
• Cold fusion - the answer to all of our energy
  needs
• The results were never replicated and are not
  generally accepted by the scientific community
• Extrasensory perception (ESP)
• Some proponents claim that ESP only occurs under
  certain unknown conditions and that it is
  impossible to predict when the conditions are
  right.

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Observable

• Many interesting questions may not be examined
  experimentally because they arent directly
  observable.
• Do dogs think like humans?
• Since we cant directly observe a dogs thoughts,
  we can only make inferences about their thoughts
  via their behavior
• Is my experience of the color red the same as
  yours?

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Breaking the idea down

• What does memory involve?
• Encoding - getting the memories in
• Storage - keeping the memories
• Retrieval - getting the memories out
• Are all kinds of memory the same?
• Procedural vs. declarative memories
• Pictures vs. words
• How long do memories last?

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• How do we observe memory?
• Can we re-do the experiments, do we get similar
  results?
• Are our predictions testable?