Notes for Mike Upon Reading His PhD Thesis

Notes for The Influence of Reading and Instructions and Stuff by Miguel “Tiny” Sanchez

By David Oppegaard, Esq.

Doctor of Philosophy? Oh man, you got the wrong degree (title page).

Your dissertation came out ten years after 9/11. Coincidence, or mental terrorism? (title page).

You forgot to credit Ole and Opie and Master Shake (i)

You can just say “For Rachel” without the word dedication above it. And why the period? Not a true sentence. (ii)

Good use of “salacious”. Gets me in the mood immediately. (1)

I liked when you referenced yourself. (1)

Head mounted eye-tracker? Sick. (3)

Did you take into account whether participants had been struck by lightning previously or lost a house to a tornado? They might hold a grudge against said climatic occurrences and thus be inclined to recall significantly more data (i.e. to help crush their enemies, as knowledge is power).

Nothing like a little combinatorial prereading. (3)

You going for the world’s longest e.g. here? (5)

You want a seductive detail? Boobs.

I once ate a Click beetle for the hell of it. Tasted like chicken. (6)

This seductive detail problem is why I never describe characters too much. Distracts from the narrative flow. (6)

I guess boobs would be of ABSOLUTE INTEREST.

Someday none of the dickwad email kids are going to be able to read for than 120 word blocks of text. You should have done this about twitter or something. (7)

Electrical discharge. Ha! (8)

Ball lightning? We’ve all been there, right?

Are you the Sanchez of Sanchez and Wiley?

“Readers are typically interested in topics that reflect or depict emotionally interesting content involving aspects of the human condition like sex, death, power, and money.” –Duh.

“however, are there other groups of readers that might be similarly detrimented by seductive content?” (15) –Yes. Cow-like Americans grown fat on cheese whiz and corn products. And I don’t think detrimented is a real word.

I love me some good base text. (17)

Extra word: For example, general instructions necessitate that readers examine each sentence in to determine its instructionally designated relevance. (24)

You know, we debate prereading instructions all the time at the DRC.

You used internet sources? Now that’s just good science! (32)

I’ve got an experiment for you: try to get the first person ever to read while INSIDE A TORNADO! And then see what they recall! If they live!

Oh no. This is starting to look like math. But good use of standard deviation! (35)

Why not break it down further to letter by letter? I like “t”. T gets a 6! (36)

A table should have four legs and a top, duh. (40) That’s no goddamn table.

Everybody likes a good head burn. (40)

“For example, witnesses in Maryland watched as a bolt of lightning tore a hole in the helmet of a high school football player during practice, burning his jersey and blowing his shoes off.” –HA HA HAHHAHAHAH!

Would you rather get hit by lightning or get tossed into a tornado? I choose both!

You should have more exclamation points on this page. Spice it up a little. (55)

All caps? You clever bastard! (61)

Ahhh! Calculator shit! (65)

I’d recheck your figures on this page. Something don’t feel right with them there median scores. (68)

“compared to LWMC participants.” (78) –You know, that acronym for stupid people is strangely close to my high school’s acronym LCWM (Lake Crystal Welcome Memorial).

“This experiment had three goals served by these findings.” (80)-Not true! You also got a PhD!

“The observations of the current project, in addition to the large body of previous research, should leave little doubt that seductive details impede readers’ ability to learn from scientific texts” (87)
-Whoa, whoa, whoa. Where did you get this idea?

God. I’m starting to fucking HATE seductive details. (91)

“However, as demonstrated by the current experiment, any comprehensive theory of scientific text comprehension must necessarily account for the processes and products involved when readers comprehend both relevant information that is useful for application to their learning goals, as well as irrelevant information that can damage their understanding of important scientific concepts.” –DOY! And also if they’re drunk as a May squirrel!

Good use of alphabetical order here, but I might have gone with which books/articles were thicker first. (92)

“Hunt, R. R. (1995). The subtlety of distinctiveness: What von Restorff really did. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2(1), 105-112.” –God, I love it when the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review comes in my mailbox! I break out the wine and then read it cover to cover by candlelight.

Too much McCrudden. You shouldn’t use people as a crutch, Mike. (96)


Lightning prereading and test questions
1. What is the meteorological definition of lightning? Thor is mad!
2. How does ice inside a cloud assist lightning formation? It gets it all drunk and shit!
3. How does the movement of updrafts and downdrafts create a lightning strike? What?
4. What causes lightning to become visible? Your eyes, stupid!
5. What produces the sound wave we call thunder? John Bonham, bitches!
6. How does a lightning strike typically form? First, working condition have to be very poor. Second, a leader must emerge with vision and strength. Third, he must corral his fellow workers and unite them. Fourth, they draft an official document or something and WHAM! You’ve got a union!


Tornado prereading and test questions
1. What is the meteorological definition of a tornado? John Randle, hungry for a sack!
2. How do scientists believe tornadoes begin their formation? Too much coffee.
3. How long can the mature stage of a tornado last? It’s can’t be any longer than He’s Just Not That Into You.
4. How does warm, moist air influence a tornado? It makes him put on a condom.
5. Why is a tornado still dangerous during the dissipating stage? Because of high-flying cows still reentering the earth’s atmosphere.
6. How do tornadoes typically form? One day at a time. One day at a time.

Missouri. Of course it was in Missouri. (103)

What? You forgot to put The End (or is it?) (104)

Good work, Mike! The plot lagged a bit in the middle, and I really can’t determine who your main protagonist is, but I think this is still better than Frankenstein Unbound. ..Wait a second…you forgot to mention the implications your findings had for Braille readers!