The design of the front cover consists of numerous lines to form different shapes, patterns and other geometric properties, such as symmetry and tessellation. The illustration makes me think that the journal is tailored to elementary children and talks about entirely geometry, or at least certain aspects of geometry in relation to algebra. My prediction is partly correct in that only the first three articles are dedicated to the learning and teaching aspects of geometry with some reference to algebra. All other articles in this volume examine students' arithmetic errors, word problems in arithmetic and other non-algebra topics. Next, I browsed through the pages, read some paragraphs, and noticed some interesting things. The FLM is a Canadian publication involving contributors from Canada, USA and UK (shown behind the front cover), requires no abstracts, accepts writing in both English and French, and prescribes a length of 2500 - 5000 per article as shown on the back cover. There is a total of 9 articles in this volume which, on average, are 5 pages long. In addition to diagrams, tables, graphs, and flow charts, some articles even include excerpts of interviews. In the bibliography sections, the authors quote the works of different researchers from what other authors use.
I think some titles are either too general or not self-descriptive. For example, the title of the first article, "About Geometry", is too broad to reveal the specifics of the article. The unclear title made me read the first four paragraphs to figure out that geometric thinking is the main idea of the article. A lack of subheadings in all the articles except one makes it difficult for the reader to get an idea of content in the next section. I feel that an article is not complete without an abstract which necessarily gives the reader an overview of the article. One positive side of the journal is that especially the 7th and 8th articles provide a collection of detailed diagrams, tables and graphs that clarify the authors' perspectives and major themes in a simple, concise way. I really like the math history, such as Euclid's Elements, incorporated into most of the articles and the articles' informal tone. Finally, students' work samples and analyses of their work, which increase readability and my personal interest, are the best yet.
I definitely agree with you Kevin that articles should have clear titles that let the reader know exactly what the article is about. Sometimes an author will create a title that isn't so revealing, but acts a "hook" to lure the reader in. But even these articles usually have abstracts. I found it interesting that abstracts were not required. I wonder how many people when scanning the journals don't even bother with the articles that don't have abstracts. When doing any kind of research, I believe that most people first look at an articles title, and see if it interests them. If it does, then they look at the abstract to see if that too interests them. If it does, then they will start to read the article. Even then, many readers will skim. Without appropriate titles and abstracts, I believe that many of the articles will be unnecessarily overlooked.
ReplyDeleteI also noticed in the volume that I read, that the use of pictures, diagrams, and tables really helped, and as you mentioned, they clarified the authors' perspectives. As the old saying goes, "A picture is worth a thousand words". . .although I don't think that we'll be able to draw 4 pictures for our final paper and call it a day ;)
It is interesting to note that both of you have touched on the clarity of titles and the lack of abstracts and subheadings. May be this was how it was meant to be at the time of the publication or it was a conscious decision to not include abstracts. It appears to the case that FLM do have abstracts for the current articles (at least online.)
ReplyDeleteI am surprised that you think that FLM was "tailored to elementary children and talks about entirely geometry." From going through Bingjie's thesis, I got the impression that FLM was published for mathematics education theorists by mathematics education theorists (give and take a few exceptions.)