Friday September 12

• Generating content through brainstorming and goal-directed reading

IPHY 3700 Writing Process Map

Generating Content through Brainstorming

Looking over your goal-based plan, brainstorm ideas that will help you accomplish selected rhetorical goals and strategies

Record your brainstorming ideas as notes integrated into your goal-based plan

Part of My Goal-based Plan for the Introduction Section

Rhetorical goal 1: To convince readers that my research question is unresolved and worth resolving

Strategy 1.1: Present the key conclusions and results that support each side of the debate about whether low-carbohydrate diets are superior to conventional diets for promoting weight loss.

Strategy 1.2: Present the conceptual arguments for both sides of the issue. Explain the calorie theory and the metabolic advantage theory. Explain how the two arguments differ.

Brainstorming Your Notes in a Goal-based Plan Rhetorical goal 1: To convince readers that my research question is unresolved and worth resolving

Strategy 1.1: Present the key conclusions and results that support each side of the debate about whether low-carbohydrate diets are superior to conventional diets for promoting weight loss.

Note 1.1.1: Golay et al. (1996) -- no difference in weight loss between low- and high-carb diets.

Note 1.1.2: Brehm et al. (2003), Foster et al. (2003), and Samaha et al. (2003) -- all found that subjects on low-carb diets lost significantly more weight than subjects on conventional diets over 6 month periods

Strategy 1.2: Present the conceptual arguments for both sides of the issue. Explain the calorie theory and the metabolic advantage theory. Explain how the two arguments differ.

Note 1.2.1: Calorie theory -- Only way to lose weight is negative energy balance, expend more energy than you consume. According to this theory, diets must restrict calorie intake and the macronutrient composition isn't a factor

Note 1.2.2: Metabolic advantage -- The macronutrient composition of the diet does matter. Weight loss doesn't depend on creating a negative energy balance. Instead, reduced carbohydrate intake causes a shift in metabolism, in which body relies heavily on fat as an energy source. When carbohydrate levels are very low, fat is metabolized into ketone bodies in the liver. Ketone bodies . . .

To Do List1. For note 1.1.1: Get details about the methods and results from Golay to use in summarizing the study. Get the % of CHO intake for both diets, the calorie intake, the actual means for weight loss.

2. For note 1.1.2: Could present actual data from these studies (maybe in a Table?) to show how much more weight subjects lost on low-carb vs. conventional diets.

3. Note 1.2.2: Flesh out explanation a little with information from McDonald's chapters. Need to add information about how ketones are formed and how they are excreted.

Process Activity: Generating Content through Goal-directed Reading

Use selected rhetorical goals and strategies like spotlights to guide you to relevant information and ideas in what you're reading.

After reading a paragraph or a section of a published article, stop and think about whether its content will help you accomplish any of your rhetorical goals and strategies.

Record relevant information and ideas as notes integrated into your goal-based plan.

Practice with Rabast et al.’s article

My Goal-based Plan

Rhetorical Goal 1: To argue for the underlying physiological mechanisms that might have accounted for my results, to further convince readers that my overall conclusion is valid.

Strategy 1.1: State my conclusion that the greater weight loss in the low-CHO group was due to the metabolic advantage of . . . . Present the supporting results from my study, which showed that . . . .

Strategy 1.2: Present the physiological arguments for how low-carbohydrate diets create a metabolic advantage . . . .

Strategy 1.3: Acknowledge and refute the alternative view of Rabast et al., who suggested that individuals on low-CHO diets lose more weight due to muscle wasting.

My Notes from Goal-directed Reading

Rhetorical Goal 1: To argue for the underlying physiological mechanisms that might have accounted for my results, to further convince readers that my overall conclusion is valid.

Strategy 1.3: Acknowledge and refute the alternative view of Rabast et al., who suggested that individuals on low-CHO diets lose more weight due to muscle wasting.

Note 1.4.1: Rabast et al. concluded that two primary mechanisms may have been responsible for the greater weight loss experienced by subjects on the low-carbohydrate diets:

(1) greater potassium excretion over weeks 1 and 2, and (2) greater nitrogen excretion over weeks 3 and 4.

The authors suggest that the greater potassium and nitrogen excretion reflect a greater loss of muscle in the low-CHO subjects.

Note 1.4.2: Rabast claimed that the greater weight loss of subjects on the low-carb diets was not due to lower calorie intake because all subjects were fed the same number of calories (1,380 calories per day).

To Do List1. Need to figure out why Rabast's argument for mechanisms is so different from mine. Rabast is saying that it's muscle loss, but I'm saying that it's something else. Better ask IPHY 3700 for help on this one!