Homework #8 – cABT and Dobzhansky Template
Due: October 7th @ 5:00 pm Eastern
This homework has two parts.
Part 1: cABT. Try to condense your narrative all the way down to a cABT.
Part 2: Dobzhansky. Use the Dobzhansky Template to find your theme.
Part 1: cABT (Conversational ABT)
The cABT is a version of your ABT taken down to the bare bones story structure. When narratives initially seem confusing, this is a handy tool for helping you to remove the complexity of the information and look at the core narrative structure. It is also used in Working Circles as a sort of final quality assurance check to make sure that your narrative didn’t go off the rails.
A cABT must give no hint as to what your actual subject matter is about and no clue as to your field or profession. If you run into an issue where a word in your cABT would reveal what you do, try substituting the word for “thing,” “stuff,” or something similar. The language complexity should be at the level of trying to explain what you do to a 5-year old or an aging grand parent.
A good cABT should follow the basic Dream, Nightmare, Action emotional structure.
This is all you need structure wise:
General Setup BUT General Problem THEREFORE General Solution
Here’s a few examples of ABTs with the cABT versions:
ABT 1: Historical literacy is about so much more than being able to recite facts. Americans should look to the past to make better sense of their present. Armed with the analytical skills that historians use, people outside of the discipline can support and strengthen their communities, participate more thoughtfully in democratic processes, and combat misinformation. But many Americans dismiss history as boring and irrelevant. Therefore, applied historians must help their audiences to appreciate history’s tremendous dynamism, complexity, and current significance
cABT 1: We’ve got something good BUT people don’t realize it, THEREFORE we need to get them to appreciate it.
ABT 2: The European Union has expressed its intention to reduce exposure to hazardous chemicals AND the EU’s Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability (CSS) lists the chemical hazards of concern BUT an easy-accessible overview of chemicals present in food contact materials with these hazard properties is currently missing THEREFORE we perform a systematic prioritization to provide a list of intentionally used food contact chemicals that are known to have hazard properties of highest concern, according to the CSS.
cABT 2: There’s a good thing that’s being done, but it’s missing something important, therefore we’re providing the important thing.
ABT 3: We know that monitoring treatment response tells us whether to continue, adjust, or stop a therapy AND in the case of T-VEC (an FDA-approved cancer-killing virus for advanced melanoma) IF we can monitor treatment response frequently at the cellular level using biopsies, THEN clinicians can make real-time decisions about whether to continue, switch, or escalate therapy — sparing non-responding patients from ineffective treatment BUT that’s not possible BECAUSE biopsies are invasive, painful, and cannot be repeated throughout treatment THEREFORE we are working to fix this BY adding reflectance confocal microscopy — a non-invasive camera capturing real-time cellular-level images of skin — to identify structural patterns in tumors that may allow us to monitor treatment response.
cABT 3: There’s an important thing we need to do BUT our method of doing it isn’t great THEREFORE we’re making a better method.
For part 1, create a cABT from your General-to-Specific ABT
Check list for your cABT:
- Use your General-to-Specific ABT as your jumping off point.
- The basic format of your cABT should be: General Setup BUT General Problem THEREFORE General Solution.
- We shouldn’t be able to tell what your profession is from your cABT – use general words like “things” and “stuff” instead of specifics that would give you away.
Part 2: Dobzhansky Template
The ABT is used as a tool to help uncover the plot of your narrative. The Dobzhansky template is used as a tool to uncover the theme of your narrative.
(Note: Theme can be a somewhat abstract term to easily grasp. If it helps, instead think of the Dobzhansky template as the central point that you want to argue.)
Understanding your theme is important for focusing your narrative, especially as you start to extend it out to a longer narrative, such as a paper or presentation. It can also be a good focusing tool for interviews or Q&A sessions, helping you to remember the central point that you want to make and continuously pulling the conversation back to it.
The format for the Dobzhansky Template is:
Nothing in (Insert broad topic here) makes sense, except in the light of (insert the central point that you want to argue).
This is based off the title of the original essay from Theodosius Dobzhansky, “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution.” In the essay, he argued that yes, there is complexity, variation, and similarity across all life on Earth, and it can all be explained through the central point that he was arguing for: evolution.
The broad topic part of the Dobzhansky tends to range from one to five words.
The central point is most powerful when you can boil it down to a single word (such as the word “evolution” in the original Dobzhansky). Very general words are okay – you don’t need to go into a lot of detail in the Dobzhansky Template. It’s meant to be a starting point from which you can expand your argument and explain what you mean, just like Theodosius Dobzhansky did.
For part 2, use the Dobzhansky Template to create your theme.
Check list for your Dobzhansky Template:
- Use your General-to-Specific ABT as your jumping off point.
- The basic format of your Dobzhansky Template should be: Nothing in (Insert broad topic here) makes sense, except in the light of (insert the central point that you want to argue).
- The broad topic is typically one to five words long.
- If you can, try your best to boil the central point down to just one word.
Instructions for submitting your homework:
- Put your draft in a Word document – have your name at the top.
- Name the Word document file: Homework 8 – cABT and Dobzhansky.
- Go to the Dropbox Upload here.
- Add your Word document to the upload page.
- If it prompts you, add your full name and email address.
- Click the Upload button.