Grammar for Writing: Level Gold — Chapter 7

The World of Biosphere Research For millions of years, the planet Earth has floated within an envelope, or biosphere, that permits life to flourish; but now our planet, known to ecologists as Biosphere 1, is in serious trouble. City smog, industrial pollution, holes in the ozone layer, increasing carbon dioxide levels are all problems that you and future generations will face. The solutions to them may lie in your hands. Investigate the world of biosphere research. Then write a feature article for a Sunday newspaper magazine supplement or monthly magazine such as National Geographic. Your article should explain the experiments underway to measure the biosphere and its reserves and a prediction about what will happen in the future. STEP 1: Initial Search Begin your research with visits to the following Web sites: Discover Biosphere 2 Tour the site and learn how the residents of Biosphere 2 lived. UCDavis Biosphere Databases The information center for biosphere data. Walford: Biosphere 2 Read the interview with Biosphere 2 resident Roy L. Walford, M.D., an internationally known nutritionist and gerontologist who spent two years in Biosphere 2. SAMAB: Southern Appalachian Programs and information about biosphere research. Search for information about current biosphere projects. Take notes on research projects that interest you, as well as general information about biosphere science. STEP 2: Focus Your Search Search for research projects that are part of biosphere programs. Use cluster diagrams to organize the details you have discovered. Then choose one project that interests you. (See Grammar for Writing, Level Gold, pages 10-11.) Search the Internet for more information on the topic you chose, and explore other resources, such as an encyclopedia or newspaper and magazine articles. To run a general search on the biosphere and biosphere programs, visit the following site: refdesk.com STEP 3: Define Your Audience Make your information interesting to a general audience that may know something about the biosphere, but not many details about biosphere research. Make the biosphere and the research you are writing about come to life for readers. Write in an informative style. The beginning of your article might consist of factual paragraphs explaining the problem. The end might have a persuasive paragraph urging readers to take some action. STEP 4: Develop an Outline Outline the information you collected. Include: (1) facts that show what it's like to live and work in a biosphere, (2) the kinds of research done, and (3) environmental concerns that biosphere programs address. Appositives are excellent tools for scientific writing. An appositive allows you to define a term within the context of the sentence. Appositives that are not essential to a sentence take commas; essential appositives do not take commas. See the examples below. (See Grammar for Writing, Level Gold, page 163.) Nonessential appositive: Biosphere 2, a closed ecosystem made of glass, steel, and concrete, was home to eight "biospherians" from September 26, 1991 to September 26, 1993. Essential appositive: The research projects Desert and Rain Forest attracted national attention. Biosphere programs are a blend of the technical and the adventurous. Make a list of technical terms you will need to use; then find colorful adjectives for each term to add to the adventure. Read the passage below. Notice how the vivid adjectives in bold type add a sense of adventure to a technical problem. "Normally on Earth, oxygen measures nearly twenty-one percent of the atmosphere. When the oxygen level in Biosphere 2 dropped to a dangerous fourteen percent, Columbia University's Dr. Wally Broeker was called in. He discovered that the soils were too rich in organic materials, providing a home for a huge crowd of hungry microbes that were gobbling up the biosphere's oxygen supply." STEP 5: Organize Your Ideas and Write a Rough Draft Once you have written your outline, consider your opening paragraph. You might open with an anecdote, a vibrant description, or a science-fiction-style situation. Follow your outline when you write the rough draft. STEP 6: Revise, Edit and Proofread Your Writing Reread your article. Be sure each paragraph has a topic sentence and that all sentences in the paragraph support that topic. Add enough details and sensory descriptions to give readers a clear picture of how a biosphere works and the specific research project you are writing about. Revising is the time to reorganize and add content. Read your article and ask yourself the following questions: Is the information presented in a logical order, an order that makes sense to the reader? Does your paper summarize your main ideas? Do you need more background information? Is everything relevant to your main idea, or have you wandered off track? Do you want your article to spur readers to take action? Does it? Edit your writing for grammatical errors; then proofread your work carefully for spelling, punctuation, and capitalization errors. STEP 7: Publish Your Work Present your magazine article to the class. You might want to include pictures to illustrate it. Copyright ©2007 by William H. Sadlier, Inc. All rights reserved.