Comparing Two Different Articles: What’s The Point?

Two articles were chosen at random by going to Royal Roads University’s academic journal library and picking an article from two areas that interest me, by using the “filter” function on the side bar to narrow down the topics.

Luckily for me the two topics I chose at random were two topics I am very interested in! The first one is an article involving the Strength of Materials, which is what my job directly pertains to and I deal with on an almost daily basis, yet am still mystified by how it works on a mathematical level. This article specifically deals with comparing two kinds of materials (glass reinforced plastic & carbon reinforced plastic) and which of the two is more idealistic to create a seal in a centrifugal pump.

The second article is something that interests me in my personal life yet have no actual expertise in, which is an article found in the Journal of Child Custody. This article deals with intimate violence present in families and the effect it has on children.

As the reader can see, these two articles couldn’t be further the opposite, which makes them perfect to compare, between the style of writing, the types of people who would take interest, the people who would write such articles and the language/numbers used.

Engineering and Social Work come from two very different spheres of ideology, one completely depends on mathematics and can break down the science to literally fractions of decimal places and the other uses mathematics as an aid to prove theory via statistics and surveys.

As a person whose life has been based around engineering and technical applications, I’ve always felt myself finding a better understanding of social, political and  theoretical problems. Mathematics has never been my specialty, I’ve always been a man of language and literary theory. This way of thinking is what has led me to pursuing “Interdisciplinary Studies,” finding great value in both sides of the dichotomy.

Here was my response to part one of the assignment (what you see above is part two):

INDS 300, Unit 3 Discussion:

I’ve chosen two articles within two different journals which have absolutely nothing to do with each other and compare the writing styles each author uses. The article from The Journal of Child Custody is fairly understandable and straightforward.

The article from the journal Strength of Materials can also be understood to a point, but to be able to apply the equations and mathematics is a totally different story, one I’m not too proficient in doing.

Title: “Stress State of Sealing Ring of Composite Material with the Specified Physical and Mechanical Characteristics”	Title: “Estimating Canadian childhood exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) and other risky parental behaviours”
To Determine the physical and mechanical characteristics of an anisotropic material when stress is introduced on a single plane.	Trying to find the importance of interventions addressing a multitude of risk factors present in families with IPV, ie. prescription medication usage, anxiety, binge drinking, etc.
Deals with moving fluid through a centrifugal pump with light hydrocarbons present.	Deals with violence in families and how it affects children.
Very to the point and concise.	Quite expansive.
Uses a combination of writing, mathematical formulas and charts along with several units of measurements (MPa, %, m • k, etc.	Uses a single graph and only uses one form of measurement (%).
Uses footnotes to reference.	Includes the references within the article itself.
Uses a lot of technical engineering jargon, a background in engineering would help with all the symbols.	Relatively easy to read, even if the reader doesn’t have a background, it can still be understood relatively fast.
Not very open for interpretation, there are definite answers to the problems and those problems can be solved with equations and mathematics down to the fraction of a decimal point.	Very open to interpretation and the answers cannot be solved using mathematics or equations.
States that in fact, glass reinforced plastic is three times more effective thermally than carbon reinforced plastic and gives proof.	Suggests that there are many contributing factors to IPV and gives possible solutions to the problem.
Deals with machines.	Deals with humans.

The reason why I chose these two topics is one is what I currently do for work. I’m a marine engineer so I have an understanding of centrifugal pumps, seals and a slight understanding of thermodynamics. Although a lot of this is beyond my level, I do find it quite fascinating and would like to know much more on how it actually works in a numerical sense.

The second is the field which I would like to make a career out of, which is: helping people (not machines). As I slowly make the transition to helping humans rather than helping machines, they couldn’t be more different from each other. From the writing used, the data collected, the kinds of people involved in these fields of study and the fact that humans are far more complex than machines.

References:

1. http://link.springer.com.ezproxy.royalroads.ca/article/10.1007/s11223-016-9773-0
2. http://www.tandfonline.com.ezproxy.royalroads.ca/doi/full/10.1080/15379418.2016.1204581