OCG533, Fall 1999
Homework assignment 11, due 7 October 2002
Modified Exercise 11-4. Beginnings and endings
To read: Sections 11-11 through 11-13 of the text.
To think about and do:
We have been speaking in class about how sentences progress from general
to specific, where the general is roughly a short subject that receives less
stress, and the specific is roughly the longer predicate that receives greater
stress. The subject and predicate can also be considered the “old” and
“new” information, respectively. The other major type of sentence begins
with an introductory phrase or clause that acts as “stage-setter.” That
element receives intermediate stress because it is new information, but broad
and general.
Here is a GSO student abstract in which
the sentences are written with insufficient attention to first and last
elements. Examine each sentence and determine what should be the topic (the old,
familiar, general information) and what the stress (the new, more detailed
information that forms the climax of the sentence). To do this, you will
probably have to decide how much the abstract should be about the student and
how much about the research. Place the topic first and the stress last,
rearranging the sentence as necessary to accommodate your changes. Remember that
the new information in one sentence will often become the old in the next.
Remember also that reasons for actions will best precede the actions (because
reasons set the stage) as long as they can be kept short relative to the rest of
the sentence. If not, they go into the predicate. As you work through this
exercise, also try to start developing a sense for the rhythms and cadences that
make sentences most balanced and effective. Come early so that we can make
copies of your paragraphs for the rest of the class to compare with theirs.
I applied a deterministic model developed to estimate stage duration and production of the copepod Calanus finmarchicus in a Norwegian fjord (Miller and Tande, 1993) to the Gulf of Maine. The model uses only temperature to predict development time and assumes that insufficient food never slows development. I explored interannual and spatial variations in stage duration and production by using various sources of local temperature data. In addition, I changed model parameters and equations in an effort to represent more accurately local conditions. Near-surface temperature regimes around the Gulf of Maine are different enough to affect model outcomes. Changing egg production from a time-dependent function to a temperature-dependent function drastically altered model results. A comparison of these results to other data indicates that further model tuning is required to reflect the biology of C. finmarchicus in the Gulf of Maine. The addition of food-dependent development and egg production functions may be necessary, as may be better information regarding mortality.