Lit Review Process

This is the literature review writing process that I recommend. Not every professor everywhere will use the same recommended process; this is, however, what I recommend to my students. I've found that if you don't walk away from your literature review and you use it as the basis for your writing, you are more likely to come out with a running list of article summaries rather than a coherent argument that you have written using the sources to back up and for context. 

Recommended Read: Tales from Both Sides of the Brain: A Life in Neuroscience

A book I reviewed about five years ago, Michael S. Gazzaniga, PhD's Tales from Both Sides of the Brain: A Life in Neuroscience, always ends back up on my mind when I teach adolescent development. I thought today would be a good day to share my old post on it and encourage you all to take some time to pick it up. 

The blurb I have up in the post: 

Dr. Gazzaniga, the father of cognitive neuroscience, tells his tale in this book. In 1960's, he begins his work on split-brain patients to figure out what happens when the two sides of the brain aren't directly connected. His findings, and his subsequent researched, changed how we understand the brain works. He enumerates his esteemed colleagues, and makes no bones about his conservative leanings and his friendship with William S. Buckley, Jr. He takes us through his journey as a scientist, and while doing this makes us all a little bit smarter and a little more human.

Blog post here.

Some Thoughts on "Irregardless"

Hey there kiddos, buckle up. We need to talk.

Many of you shared this image this week with woe and sadness. But there's a big problem with this. Some of y'all really don't understand the deep intricacies of language evolution and it shows.

Language, and therefore grammar, are not static. They are the very foundation of culture, which in itself it's static, but rather is a dynamic societal blueprint that pass on to others to explain how we live. By definition, dynamic means changing, and culture changes. Culture shapes us, and we shape our culture. Culture can be as macro as "western culture" or as micro as the culture of your immediate family (the microsystem, if you will). Therefore, language, as the foundation of culture, *changes as we change it*.

The idea that language and grammar are static and there is a "right" way and a "wrong" way are part of white supremacist culture. I'm not kidding. You can read about it yourself. This is a good resource: https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race/topics/whiteness. There is a great infographic on there that you can use for more in-depth research.

So before you start in on your, "I'm a grammar nut" (and do not EVEN use the word that evokes images of the Holocaust in that phrase), consider whether or not you are trying to be a more inclusive, anti-racist ally or comrade in arms. If you are, spend some time really sitting on this and recognizing that the push for "correct" and "incorrect" is not just making you complicit in racism and anti-Blackness, but it's also upholding whiteness as an ideal and therefore part of white supremacy culture.

Do not @ me unless you have done the work to be able to support you answers with evidence. Embodied experience with evidence, my friends.

This American Life: No Fair!

In moral development, we distinguish between moral realism and morality of cooperation, and how these manifest across development.

This American Life's No Fair! is a great episode, but it's the Prologue that is worth listening to in relation to these concepts.

This American Life: Where There Is a Will

This episode of This American Life, "Where There Is a Will," contains a fantastic conversation about free will in Act Two. They interview Dr. Robert Sapolsky, who wrote Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst, which is on my bookshelf and an incredible read in understanding the neuroscience behind our behavior and choices. For those who work with adolescents, it's a strong read in understanding what you may believe is the irrationality of teenagers and their poor decision making, but is really a function of their neurology. 

And their lack of free will, which is open to debate after listening to this episode and reading this book.