Write, review, reveal

Research Methods — Week 4 Application

Today’s plan

Three phases

Phase	Time	What
Write	45 min	Write your briefing, commit it
Review	30 min	Read someone else’s, file Issues
Reveal	25 min	Who were the traitors?

• [5 min] Orientation. Remind students of the briefing structure. Traitors know who they are. Everyone else: read critically.

Questions?

Submit questions anonymously:

PollEv.com/geol

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• Open the Poll Everywhere Q&A activity before the session and leave it active throughout.
• Questions appear in your Poll Everywhere presenter view; upvoted questions rise to the top.
• Address during transitions or at the end of concept blocks, not mid-explanation.
• Reset (archive) the activity between sessions so questions don’t carry over from the previous week.

Briefing structure reminder

1. Summary — the answer, up front
2. Evidence — figures from Weeks 2–3, with captions
3. Caveats — what depends on assumptions
4. Conclusions — your recommendation

• They can write in .qmd, .Rmd, .md, or even Word with exported figures. The format matters less than the content.

Phase 1: Write

✏️ 45 minutes

Writing block

You have until the clock says 50 minutes.

• Reuse and refine figures from Weeks 2–3
• The analytical work is done — this is about synthesis
• Traitors: be credible, not cartoonish

Hard deadline: whatever is committed at minute 50 gets reviewed.

• [45 min] Circulate for questions about content, structure, and R code. This is the main working block.
• Traitors may need reassurance: “You’re not lying. You’re writing a technically sourced briefing that happens to cherry-pick.”

Phase 2: Review

✏️ 30 minutes

Peer review assignments

Each of you has been assigned one other student’s repo.

Navigate to it on GitHub now.

• [5 min setup] Hand out assignments. Students navigate to their assigned repos on GitHub.

Review checklist

File 2–3 GitHub Issues using this structure:

• Clarity: Is the main message clear? Could a non-specialist follow?
• Evidence: Are figures honest and well-labelled? Numbers in context?
• Uncertainty: Are limitations acknowledged?
• Trust: Do you believe this is faithful — or suspect it’s a traitor?

Give a reason for your trust judgement. Not just yes/no.

• [30 min] Students read and review. This is quiet, focused work. Circulate to check Issue quality — are they giving specific, constructive feedback?

Phase 3: The reveal

💬🎓 25 minutes

Who did you flag?

Did you flag the briefing you reviewed as suspect?

Cast your vote

PollEv.com/geol

text geol to 07480 781235

• Activate the poll before showing this slide.
• The split is the interesting part. If most people flag the right briefings, great. If many faithful briefings get flagged, even better — that’s the lesson.

• How many traitors did the class identify?
• How many faithful briefings were wrongly flagged?

• [5 min] Review the results on screen. The numbers feed directly into the reveal on the next slide.

Traitors: reveal yourselves

Brief reaction from the room.

• [5 min] Let this land. Celebrate the traitors — they did a hard job well. The goal was to be convincing, and (hopefully) some of them succeeded.

What made them convincing?

Walk through the techniques:

• Cherry-picked comparisons
• Omitted caveats
• Truncated axes or misleading chart choices
• Confident language where uncertainty was warranted

• [10 min] Use the teaching notes to walk through techniques students didn’t spot in the content session.
• The richest discussion: faithful briefings that got flagged. These show that unintentional misleading is as common as deliberate deception.

The real lesson

Honest mistakes and deliberate deception can look identical.

The skills that help you spot a traitor also help you avoid being one by accident.

• This is the emotional peak of Phase 1. Let it resonate.

Wrap-up

What you’ve achieved

In four weeks:

• Articulated a question
• Explored data
• Tested assumptions
• Produced figures
• Written a briefing
• Reviewed someone else’s work

Phase 2 starts next week. Same skills. Your question.

• [5 min] Celebrate the accomplishment. Phase 1 is complete.
• Preview: “Starting next week, you choose the topic. Groups of 3–4. You’ll design the investigation, analyse the data, and write an individual report.”