Studio six: Revision part one

Alex Senneville
The overall excerpt was helpful to pinpoint specific

strategies that I could use for my revision. It showed plentiful

examples of how to use the as for mentioned strategies. The most

helpful strategies to me where to focus on how to revise. Instead of

only looking at grammatical mistakes and spelling issues, your first

revision should be broad. For example, cut down all the boring and

long-winded segments instead of making sure the boring parts are

spelled correctly. Focus on making the paper smoother instead of

having jarring transitions make the flow of the paper make sense

and enjoyable to read instead of a chore. I did not like the tip

where ballanger advised the audience to read and highlight where

you were a more active reader and then highlight where you were a

less active reader. I understand the point of this, to cut out long

boring places in the paper, but not everyone reads like that. I read

in a mix of the two all the time regardless of what I am reading and

so this is not a very helpful tip for me. As far as boring parts the

whole thing was boring at least for me. I don’t think that this paper

was intended to entertain and instead it is intended to inform, and it

should be based on those merits instead. It did inform and it taught

what it wanted to teach thoroughly and well enough for anyone to

understand the point of each tip. The most useful tip that I will use

in my own personal reflection is that I must explain the concept to

the reader as if they have had no prior knowledge about it. This is

one of the hardest things to do for me since I have trouble gauging

what the gap in knowledge should be. This would help my paper

tremendously and I plan on revising my paper with this in mind.

Scientific Literacy: Politics Greatest Resource

Alex Senneville

Why are some people so adamant that global warming is

a myth? Perhaps they were not taught about global warming in

school and hold that belief today. Maybe they do not want global

warming to exist and so they shroud themselves in a lie to make

themselves feel better about the situation. Perhaps they fear the

consequences of their past actions and do not want to take blame

for things they have done in the past and so they lie to

themselves and say that it is not real or even that it is a hoax. No

matter the excuse it is a real-world example of scientific

illiteracy.

Scientific illiteracy is a massive problem throughout the

entire world. It allows people to derail the progress of scientific

advancement either because they fear science or do not

understand it. Scientific illiteracy is the opposite of scientific

literacy as the name suggests, but what is scientific literacy?

Simply put scientific literacy is the basic understanding of

scientific concepts and ideas that allow for an individual to take

part in formal discussion over the topic of science and its impact

on the world (Blake, 2017). This definition seems complicated to

some but it really boils down to “Do you understand science?”

which is not a hard question to answer. This question must be

asked by every individual which makes it a challenge to ascertain

who is and who is not scientifically literate. The easiest way to see

if someone is scientifically literate or not is to ask basic

generalizations about scientific concepts. For example, ask

someone if the Earth is flat, if they say “yes” they are scientifically

illiterate, if they say “no” then you cannot be certain if they are

or are not scientifically illiterate. This is the main folly of

scientific literacy, it depends on numerous questions and answers

that contribute to someone’s personal scientific literacy. The

same can be said of someone’s reading proficiency. A person is

considered literate if they can read and write but there are levels of

reading proficiency. Someone is, for lack of a better word, more

literate if they can read at a college level compared to someone

who can only read at an 8th grade level. Both individuals are

technically literate but one can read more advanced texts than the

other. Scientific literacy functions the same way.

Since scientific literacy is judged based on more of a

scale than on black and white absolutes it is important to

understand that no demographic or occupation is inherently more

scientifically literate than another, at least not by definition. But

why is this important? It seems that scientific literacy is not very

important since if someone wants to believe that the Earth is flat

then it doesn’t affect anybody but them, right? That would be true
if it weren’t for voting. The way that almost every democracy is set

up relies on the people of that republic to vote for numerous things.

The most important being the president, but constituents also

vote for local elected officials as well as state officials, not to

mention the numerous house bills that the public can vote on as

well. The way that people think, feel and sometimes even where

they live can all affect voting patterns and scientific literacy is a

big part of that. The data is clear as to who is scientifically literate.

As a trend those who are more exposed and more interested in

science and technology are more scientifically literate (Miller,

2016). Take an area such as Mississippi which has the lowest

scored science performance for the 8th grade according to the

Nations Report Card (Card, 2015). The state voted primarily may

Republican for the 2012 presidential election (Maps, 2016). Now

take a state like New Hampshire who scored amongst the highest

state in 8th grade science performance (Card, 2015). New

Hampshire voted primarily democrat for the 2012 election (Maps,

2016). These correlations between scientific performance and voter

trends are nothing to sneeze at. They paint the picture for how

voters tend to vote based on their level of scientific and academic

performance. However, these trends are nothing new.Sociologists

and political analysts have known for years, but the importance of
these trends in a world that relies on science more than ever is the

key.

Does this data mean that everyone who is scientifically

literate votes democrat? No, not at all and it should be said that

this is just one data sample and outliers are always something to

keep in mind while looking at statistical data. The importance of

these trends is to show that scientific literacy has a substantial role

in how voters tend to vote. In a fair and equal democracy such as

how the United States strives to be, there needs to be active and

informed voters. Based on personal accounts people that I know

tend to vote for very simple reasons, they have voted a certain

way since they could vote and they stick to that party no matter

what. Others vote a certain way because their parents vote a certain

way, and some still vote because of who they think the most

persuasive or suave candidate is. These are all terrible ways to

pick a representative. A voter needs to be aware of the issues that

their representative will be voting for, how they will be voting

for them, and how that affects the constituent. Being scientifically

literate can be the first step to creating informed and active voters.

Science permeates everything that we as citizens do in the

United States. It affects our food, our water, our technology and

how we use all of this in conjunction with our lives. It

encompasses so much of our daily lives that many people don’t

even realize it. We have in our pockets at all times, a computer that

is more powerful than the computers used to send people to the

moon and we complain because it is too slow. Science is making

so many innovations and advancements that it is hard to keep up

without actively having a role in these advancements or reading

about them every day. That is not a realistic expectation of the

American people. It is important nonetheless to understand the

very real impacts that science makes on our society. Part of this

is knowing how science and science based political policies will

affect the person voting instead of creating arbitrary rules for

voting. The United States needs to be more responsible in

educating the public of science and its effects on the country.

There is a massive problem with this idea however, it

requires for people to change. For this to work, people and the

government must change the way they look at voting entirely.

That is the hardest part when it comes to making a reform like

this. The people of the United States need to want to make this

change. Even if I detailed a conceptually perfect plan for creating

more active and more informed voters it would never work without

the cooperation of the American people. In fact, creating active

voters is a problem that the United States is already facing. Only

around 40 percent of registered voters aged 18 to 29 voted in the

2016 presidential elections. That is a terrible sign considering in

2008 the same demographic had a voter turnout rate of almost 50

percent (Mcdonald, 2016). Voter apathy is a hard problem to

combat since making voting legally required would infringe on a

person’s right to abstain from voting. The good news is that as the

data suggests the older someone is the more likely they are to vote

as indicated by higher turnout rates. But this is still a massive

problem.

Scientific literacy is not the most pressing issue in America

and I am not advocating for it to be. There are far more important

issues to take care of first, but it is a very important topic that

needs to be discussed publicly. The best way to create public

exposure to any topic is to portray it in the media. I wanted to

look at how scientific literacy was portrayed in large, credible

news outlets. The first thing that I noticed when doing so was the

lack of exposure that this topic received. The news was not

focusing much on scientific literacy which was the first bad sign.

The second came when I did find an article written by the BBC

under the title “On the merits of Scientific Literacy” written by

Alice Bell(Bell, 2012). It looks promising until you start reading

and realize that Bell is not a scientist or anyone who knows the

intricacies of scientific literacy but is instead a journalist. Bell

gives an apt description of scientific literacy and its potential

effects on the public. This is all good until you realize that no real
expert opinion was given. It was more of an opinion piece.

Ordinarily this would not be so bad, but it fails to give any

scientific view or outside opinion by an expert in the field and is

written by someone who openly claims to not really know what the

concept is and was written six years ago. This is not a good sign. I

am all for freedom of the press and opinion pieces in general but

the only credible news source that I can find seemed to have

written the article and then forgot the topic existed with no real

updates on the matter.

Voters are the most important part of the democratic

system of government. Without them officials are not elected and

the whole system collapses. With a dim portrayal in the media it

is hard for scientific literacy to become a major talking point

amongst voters yet it is imperative for creating educated voters.

The way that the average American voter views science is crucial

to the way that they vote, and with science becoming more and

more influential over our lives now is a better time than ever to

educate people on science. Luckily the scientific community has

already been doing so with outreach programs for kids and

science based summer camps to get children excited or at least

interested in science. This is not a permanent solution however,

more needs to be done to educate as many voters as possible but it

is a good start.
 Although scientific literacy may seem like a small speck of

things to reform in the United States, its impact on how we vote

and what we vote for is crucial. It can be the tipping point for

many areas that are unaware of the scientific world and it creates

more educated voters that hopefully will vote based on how the

candidate will affect them. This has been a core issue for years but

the increase in the way that science affects the average American

has made it a more pressing issue.

Works cited:

Bell , Alice. “On the Merits of Science Literacy.” BBC

News, BBC, 4 July 2012, www.bbc.com/news/science-

environment-18709587.

Blake , Caitrin. “Professional Resources.” Concordia

Nebraska Online, Concordia University of Nebraska , 20 Apr.

2017, online.cune.edu/defining-scientific-literacy/.

The Nations Report Card. “State Profile.” The Nation's

Report Card, 2015,

www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile?chort=2&sub=SC

I&sj=&sfj=NP&st=MN&year=2015R3.

Miller, Jon D. Civic Scientific Literacy in the United States

in 2016. Institute for Social Research, 2016, Civic Scientific

Literacy in the United States in 2016,

home.isr.umich.edu/files/2016/10/NASA-CSL-in-2016-Report.pdf.

Maps, Political. “2016.” Political Maps, 2016,

politicalmaps.org/category/year/2016/.

Mcdonald, Michael P. “Voter Turnout

Demographics.” United States Elections Project, 2016,

www.electproject.org/home/voter-turnout/demographics.