Draft of Project 1

      And here is the long awaited Draft of my quick reference guide:


                                            DRAFT

        For those of my peers reviewing this; I most want to make sure that the reference guide is understandable to someone who hasn't been reading up on this topic for a week or more and to make sure that the language of the piece is accessible to those who may want to read it. I ask that you advise me on how perhaps I may make my project even more seemingly a true QRG.

                                                           Happy Reading!

Brown, Owen W. "FACEBOOK LIKE" 08/03/2010 via Flickr.
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The Time Period

The time period within which something was published can give some insight into what the story may have impacted or how it might have been received by people during that time. Events during a time period can also affect the authors of the source in deciding whether to publish something at that specific time.

Locally Grown
    I decided on Bristol to count as the local place for the setting since a majority of authors for the main source are located at the University of Bristol.
      A local news story that may have effected the publishing date of the main source is from the Bristol Post; an article about how there was a healthcare conference being hosted in Bristol on approaching health issues within the area. This could have affected the release date of the paper if they perhaps wanted it to be talked about at the meeting about how statistical matters in medical practices
       Another story from the same online newspaper for Bristol news regarded a "catch up programme" for getting kids vaccines done. Not a direct relation to the source at all, but was generally in the science and medical news in the surrounding area.

de Villa, Jason. "Old news" 01/27/2006 via Flickr.
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Nationally Known
      In United Kingdom news at the time of the publishing of the article there was another neuroscience study being published as well. In the Daily Mail Online site, on thehe exact same day as the study on statistical power was published, an article was released describing brain scans that could detect pain. The possible connection between the two is that they both detail a study within the neuroscience community and they could compete for attention from audience.
     Another important event happening around this time period in the UK was election time was coming up during the month of April, not necessarily very important towards the specific article or study but important for the idea that may have been going around within the nation.

Internationally Flown
     In international news in the year of 2013 there were quite a few things of dangerous proportions happening and catastrophes left and right. Something that would happen to change how the world would come to view national security and privacy was Edward Snowden leaking NSA secrets and running to Russia for asylum. Not directly linked to this controversy but important for international news at that point.
     In more scientific news in 2013, only little more than a month after this study was published another scientific study with important implications came about; scientists in Oregon were able to create stem cells with cloning, a defining moment for science and one many believed to be the next step in larger enterprises.

The Setting

   

Brian. "The space" 11/28/2014 via Flickr.
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      Bringing together important people in academia from around the world who have important professorships and administrative roles it is easy to accept that there could not be one specific physical place that this research could have gone down to produce the big event described. Rather the expanse of the interactive world can be seen as the large playing field for which the giants in their fields came together to form a great work. The imagined scape of the internet is much more fantastical than the physical aspects that comprised the true surroundings of the seven authors of this work. Offices of varying size, desks of varying levels of clutter and cleanliness, differing amount of caffeine intake of various preferred types; personally made tea in mug and traveling cups, hot black coffee made communally, overly sugared drinks from popular chains; these would have been the day to day of research for the authors of the scientific paper, between their classes and other obligations of course.
       While it is true that most of the authors were too scattered for it to be physical meeting places about half of the researchers were located in the UK and two of those at the very least located in the University of Bristol. For them it was probably on certain days of research best to collaborate; a meeting room, an office, to talk over what had been discovered. For the playing field that is the world wide web such situations again would have come in to play, a setting often used in such situations is the video conference; with so many authors in such differing places there would have been conflicts of scheduling, some calls for some in their mornings and the others late into the night, sharing finding over first cups of coffee and nightcaps.
       Although there may not be some shared specific physical setting this does not take away the fact that these things happened in all their undisclosed places to bring about the final main event, and its setting? The internet.

The Big Event

       Everything began in April of 2013, specifically the tenth of April; the study that seven authors: Katherine S. Button a research psychologist at the University of Bristol and also a journalist, John P. A. Ioannidis a professor of at least four different departments at Stanford University, Claire Mokrysz a PhD student at University College London, Brian A. Nosek an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Virginia, Jonathan Flint is the Wellcome Trust Principal Fellow and Honourary Consultant Psychiatrist and Michael Davys Professor of Neuroscience in the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at the University of Oxford, Emma S. J. Robinson the Senior Lecturer at the University of Bristol, and Marcus R. Munafòl another professor at the University of Bristol, had created was finally posted online.

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       The study focused on how neuroscience had perhaps undermined its own reliability with its small sample sizes making the statistical power of the studies weak and ineffectual. This publishing online of the article was the big event of the controversy because it immediately generated news throughout the scientific communities; after long months of research bent over computers, with large mugs of caffeinated beverage at all hours the seven authors of this article, scouring forty-nine different published studies and checking through the statistics and ability to be repeated of all the experiments and research, came to the conclusion that most neuroscience studies have only on average the statistical power of 20%. The dropping of such a bomb immediately generated response, and while the response was of the scientific article type and so it wasn’t posted until many months after, this paper sparked great controversy.

Stakeholder #3

     Not done with stakeholders yet. There are a multitude for this specific controversy, even as limited in a field as it is. The third and final stakeholder that will be discussed is John C. Ashton, a professor at the Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology in the University of Otago.

Zijlstra, Ton. "Wooden Stakes" 11/14/2009 via Flickr.
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Who is He?
       John C. Ashton could perhaps be described as conventionally attractive, perhaps even what some mothers would coin a silver fox for the graying sides of his hair, compared to the dark top of it. His prominent forehead and deeper set eyes give him an intimidating look, and his serious visage contributes to this, however, he does not exude any feeling of daunting, rather feelings of a trustworthiness compliment him. His clothing portrays ideas of casual professionalism, with a more business look than one of academia.  He tries to speak in relatable ways so those that are not experts in his field may understand his research as well as they can. As far as presence on the internet he is also very barely anywhere, it is hard to discover the true measure of a person when sources are limited besides their multitude of published works.  

What are His Claims?
      The claims Ashton is making within his response to Button et al. include the main one that "null hypothesis testing is no longer performed in the original manner" which is a large issue for any sort of statistical testing; if a null hypothesis is not tested correctly than the entire study is wrong. Another claim he makes is that "the vague 'open' hypotheses of much of neuroscience are barely testable" because of the tendency to just use replicating functions when there are too small of a sample size. Ashton's final claim is a possible endeavor for a solution to the issue of unreliable neuroscience studies for a variety of reasons, his claim is that "[increasing] discipline not only in analysis and experimental design but also in relating experiments to explanatory theory" will solve the issue. Because through this way there will not just be expectation of results or things left to chance.

Proof of Validity
        The validity of Ashton's work comes through mostly with his uses of ethos and logos; we already know and accept he is a well known research and professor that would have the credentials to write about these facts, so what is grabbing within his work is the more seemingly simpler way of expressing facts that he takes; making the work more accessible. He has the necessary citations for his work so that there are claims that back up the claims he expressed.

What Makes Him Special?
        Although Ashton is making a correspondence with the original work, unlike the other responses, he is actually fully supportive of the ideas presented by Button et al. and he lauds them for making a contribution to scientific study. His claims are different from the other stakeholders because he does not make the claims in attack of the original article but more in an append to it.

Stakeholder #2

     There are multiple stakeholders for every controversy, on both sides, or on the multiple sides of an argument. Another stakeholder in the controversy over whether small sample sizes are undermining reliability of neuroscience is Peter Bacchetti, who works in the department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the University of California.

Sancomb-Moran, Mary Beth. "Biostats wordmap" 06/17/2008 via Flickr.
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Who is He?
        At first glance it is hard to decide how one should feel about Peter Bacchetti. Thin and lanky, of that look of older but still some undeterminable age, he projects a trustworthy persona but may carry some harshness if one was to be under his tutelage of professorship. With a nearly full head of hair, all gray, and a goatee to match; as well as square rimmed glasses, he portrays a feeling of wisdom and guidance. However it is near impossible to get a better idea of who the man is because he seems to carry no sort of presence besides that of academia; working to fix statistical representations as well as researching HIV and liver diseases.

What are His Claims?
        One of Bacchetti's main claims is that the small sample size of research is "[misidentified] as a fundamental cause of problems" within said research. He instead claims that it is "the [acceptance of] a very harmful overemphasis on whether p< 0.05", that ruins the studies of reliability, and at the same time is the true issue within research in the neurosciences community.  The third claim made by Bacchetti is that "diminishing marginal returns" are a large part of why small sample size is totally acceptable for an accurate study; adding more candidates decreases the amount of statistic they count for as a whole.

Proof of Validity
       The claims made by Bacchetti have validity because of the statistical proofs presented within the paper; he used known rules of statistics to make solid points for the use and acceptance of small sample sizes within neuroscience research. He makes sure to utilize multiple sources for citations to insure the credibility of his response. He presents himself as a credible author because of his knowledge and expertise in biostatistics.

What Makes Him Special? 
        For commonality, Bacchetti agrees somewhat with both Ashton and Quinlan, that small sample size is not the issue with reliability in neuroscience studies. He stands out in his concern of biases mostly effecting the ideas to reliability when considering studies. While fundamentally he is against Button et al. within this controversy he agree there are problems within research statistics.

Stakeholder #1

       In every story there are those that hold stakes by the information they are giving, and the stakes may be their own merit or credibility within their field of study or something more like monetary compensation or something. An important stake holder within this controversy is John P.A. Ioannidis, a Professor in many departments and Head of many other departments at Stanford University.

Limitsios, Kostas. "John P.A. Ioannidis- Mediocracy vs. Meritocracy"
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Who is He?
       John P.A. Ioannidis, professor and researcher; the balding man of fifty perhaps would not be the most eye catching in a crowd, with his quite average stature; perhaps the more olive tone of his skin from his Greek heritage would catch the eye, or the moustache occupying his upper lip between a smile and a prominent nose, or the laugh lines around his dark eyes. But just from observation it is unlikely that one could know that they were observing a renowned, heavily honored and respected professor of Stanford University.  That is until you were able to sit in on a lecture or talk by the man; to observe him standing at the front of a lecture hall with an earnest expression upon his brow, his shirt tucked in and his arms gesticulating as he talks about the faults in research and lack of reproducibility of results. Through his speech it would be obvious to the extent of study and research that the man has conducted throughout the years. Speaking with slightly rounded shoulders, a reedy voice and an accent typical to having primarily spoken Greek, his movements seem nervous and yet he aspires to make his audience laugh with a grin upon his face. He projects a sort of reliability and an attitude that one would want to approach him for help.
     
What is He Claiming?
       The three main claims by Ioannidis include that most current published research are false; "it can be proven that most claimed research findings are false" he reports before going on through the rest of the paper to explain this point, this is his very main claim. Another claim he makes, about biases, is that "the greater the number and the lesser the selection of tested relationships in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true", this claim has to do with how statistics from research are still mostly based upon their proposed statistics. A third claim he makes within his paper is that for statistical powers to begin to get fixed there needs to be less emphasis on one teams finding as "what matters is the totality of the evidence" and not a bias to a certain work.

Proof of Validity
     His claims are valid, he has sources from which he sources where the explanations come from and from where he got the ideas and confirmation of what he had been researching. Since his main work is years before the actual publishing of the paper that began the controversy his arguments hold enough wight to then be cited within the article that began the controversy within the Neuroscience community. Since the paper he wrote was purely scientific at most he displayed logos within his work to appeal to the audience.

What Makes Him Special? 
       John P.A. Ioannidis is special within this controversy because not only he is one of the writers of the main source but because he had made a claim for the arguments within the main source of this controversy years before without the specificity of the field of neuroscience. His original work argued that most published sources were false because of small sample size and then a lack of statistical power because of this. His claims are the same as the main source and contrary to some of the other sources.