Article
Review: Less Helpful
STRENGTHS
This
article definitely should be published. I had a lot of fun reading
it and thinking about some of the ideas. It was short enough
for me to read more quickly than an article that is twice as
long as this one.
The
author is a really clever guy who came up with the idea of "number
consciousness." By "number consciousness" he
means a cultivated tendency to search for and recognize special
properties of the smallest natural numbers. He bases his article
on an article by Arron Eisen called "Reader Reflections"
(that I haven't read yet but might read later). The example
is using September 4! for September 24. The new one goes on
to talk about constants, primes, powers, Christmas, including
the day of the year and variations. He uses a digital clock
as well as the calendar dates to get his students to think about
numbers.
The author writes in a clear, concise way that I like. I think
the font the author uses is good but the titles of the paragraphs
should not be in capital letters. Also, I think the author made
a big mistake on page 2.
WEAKNESSES
I found a few grammatical errors. They are all marked on the
paper. On the last page, item 3 should end with ", and"
and not with "and,". The - - should be a - or a colon.
There is an extra comma in line 7 on page 3. There is a missing
comma after phi on page 1.
The only other thing that I thought could be added was the ideas
that students should see M*DM=DY could be simplified: DM^2=DY
then M^2=Y or M = ± squareroot(Y).
FINAL
COMMENTS
Other than the author's poor grammar, the article is great.
I really like all of these ideas that I wanted to use with my
students and I might try to use some of them if I ever teach
the right class. The number written in all different ways were
fun to read. This article might appear as the Calendar for some
month. I hope he writes more of them!
Analysis
of Review: Less Helpful
Some
reasons why this manuscript is not particularly helpful to the
panel member or to the author:
- Short
length is easy to see.
- The
language at some points seems to be an evaluation of the author
rather than an evaluation focusing on the manuscript. Referring
to the author, whose identity is not known, as a "guy"
and "he" - and therefore a male - is offensive.
- It's
not clear which of the ideas in the manuscript were interesting.
This doesn't help the author know what to cut or what to keep.
- The
Reader Reflection referenced was definitely not read. In some
cases, this could be a major weakness in a review.
- The
reference to using the ideas in the future with the "right
class" could include what the "right class"
might be.
- Most
of the review describes the manuscript rather than evaluates
it. It helps to work on the assumption that anyone reading
the review is very familiar with the manuscript but not with
how you think about the manuscript.
- Referee
doesn't seem to be an experienced MT reader. (Reader
Reflection is treated as an article title. The suggestion
to include this as part of Calendar doesn't match expectations
for the kind of problems and solutions expected for Calendar.)
- Grammatical
and punctuation errors are described in great detail here.
There are comments about typographical issues such as font
and all-cap headings. These things would be addressed in the
later stages of the editing process if the manuscript were
accepted.
- Suggestion
of symbolic manipulation material added doesn't relate to
the manuscript's goals. Ideas that extend the paper could
be valuable; suggestions for additions that compete with the
author's ideas without suggestions for changes in goals of
the paper are usually not helpful.
- The
reference to the potential error on page 2 is too vague to
be helpful. A reader of the review may never find the "error"
referenced.
