Beyond Misinformation: Educating Graduate Students about the Mischaracterization and Misappropriation of Research

The contemporary information landscape has produced numerous incidents of researchers having their research misappropriated or mischaracterized—or worse, being subjected to intimidation and harassment—by individuals or groups who seek to cherry-pick evidence in support of ideological agendas or who wish to suppress evidence that counters those same agendas. While the COVID-19 pandemic has elevated these tactics in their frequency, visibility, and intensity, this phenomenon is by no means unique to the pandemic. Medievalists and Classicists have seen their research become politicized by white supremacists, and historians and archaeologists of ancient India have had to push back against religious nationalist narratives that contradict the factual evidence. To help prepare graduate students for the possibility that their research might be mischaracterized, misappropriated, or politicized in other ways by ideologically motivated individuals or groups, I created and taught a workshop geared toward graduate students, entitled “The Public and Your Publications: Strategies for Handling the Misappropriation or Misrepresentation of Your Research”, and offered it as part of Syracuse University Libraries’ Learn@SUL workshop series. The workshop covered how to use social media and tools provided by the Libraries’ databases to keep current on one’s field of research and the public discourse surrounding it. It also covered options for responses to incidents, highlighting examples from the news of successful responses to the mischaracterization or misappropriation of research. This included an activity in which workshop participants viewed videos of experts in various fields testifying before Congressional committees and identified and evaluated how the experts approached the Congresspersons’ or Senators’ slanted questions. Drawing on my own experience as a former community college political science instructor, I encouraged participants to take advantage of teaching assistantships for undergraduate courses as opportunities to have a rehearsal space to apply these strategies by gauging how well a relatively uninitiated audience understands (or misunderstands) their research and testing responses that might clarify misconceptions about their research. The session emphasized that participants should reach out to their current or future institution’s security if they felt threatened and concluded with the caveat that participants must take into consideration the interactions and intersections between aspects of their own identity and the identities of their audience when preparing for and implementing a response to a potential mischaracterization or misappropriation of their research

Age Estimation of a Skeleton: Using the Methodologies of Pubic Symphysis Categorization, Cranial Suture Closure and Dental Wear

When you pass away, and eventually there is nothing left of you except for your bones, what will forensic anthropologists be able to tell the world about how you lived, and who you were when you were alive? Was your story long, or was it cut short by outside forces? Forensic anthropologists can give skeletons a human identity. This tactic may also be used to aid in the process of helping law enforcement to identifying missing persons. Age estimation is one contributing factor to a biological profile. Age estimation is a range of the youngest to oldest possible age of a person based on skeletal observations. These observations are made using multiple methods that categorize the condition of bone features into groups based on possible ages that closely match the condition of the skeleton. These methodologies include, but are not limited to, evaluation of the pubic symphysis, cranial sutures and dental wear. However, each method of age estimation is subject to inaccuracy. Due to this, multiple methods must be used in order to narrow down a possible age group. These issues, along with possible solutions, will be discussed

“(Mis)Information Creation as a Process”: A Method for Teaching Critical Media Literacy Designed to Work with Students of All Political Persuasions

After the advent of widespread coordinated disinformation during the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, librarians stepped up to combat misinformation and disinformation in their communities and the larger information ecosystem by applying principles and best practices of information literacy education. However, librarians walk a fine line on how to educate audiences to become critical consumers of information, particularly on politically sensitive topics. It is all too easy to lose audience members’ trust and receptiveness to our message when a component or the entirety of our presentation challenges the beliefs of participants too forcefully. When we teach information literacy sessions to students, we often talk to them about how to tell “good sources” from “bad sources”. However, when discussing misinformation and disinformation in the news and on social media (including “fake news”, as the term was initially defined), the political sensitivity of the topics requires that librarians find different, more subtle approaches to encouraging critical media literacy that educate students and other community members without provoking political defensiveness

Navigating Research Misappropriation and Mischaracterization: Facilitating a Workshop on Strategies

From medicine to medieval studies, there is a growing trend of ideologically motivated individuals and groups misappropriating and mischaracterizing academic research and even intimidating researchers to further political agendas. It is essential that researchers be well prepared in the event that their research gets unwanted attention. To that end, I created and facilitated a workshop for faculty and graduate students on how to prepare for and respond to instances when their research gets misappropriated or mischaracterized to push an unsupported ideological narrative. Strategies covered in the workshop included utilizing undergraduate classrooms to gauge how one’s research might be understood by and explained to a relatively uninitiated audience; employing citation-tracking and social-media tools for keeping current on the research in one’s field; and identifying and explaining the grains of truth in misperceptions of research and the larger social and political context in which misperceptions, mischaracterizations, and misappropriations occur

Radiative corrections for (e,e′p) reactions at GeV energies

A general framework for applying radiative corrections to (e,e′p) coincidence reactions at GeV energies is presented, with special emphasis to higher-order bremsstrahlung effects, radiation from the scattered hadron, and the validity of peaking approximations. The sensitivity to the assumptions made in practically applying radiative corrections to (e,e′p) data is extensively discussed. The general framework is tested against experimental data of the 1H(e,e′p) reaction at momentum transfer values larger than 1.0 (GeV/c)^2, where radiative processes become a dominant source of uncertainty. The formulas presented here can easily be modified for any other electron-induced coincidence reaction

Meteorites on Mars observed with the Mars Exploration Rovers

Reduced weathering rates due to the lack of liquid water and significantly greater typical surface ages should result in a higher density of meteorites on the surface of Mars compared to Earth. Several meteorites were identified among the rocks investigated during Opportunity’s traverse across the sandy Meridiani plains. Heat Shield Rock is a IAB iron meteorite and has been officially recognized as ‘‘Meridiani Planum.’’ Barberton is olivine-rich and contains metallic Fe in the form of kamacite, suggesting a meteoritic origin. It is chemically most consistent with a mesosiderite silicate clast. Santa Catarina is a brecciated rock with a chemical and mineralogical composition similar to Barberton. Barberton, Santa Catarina, and cobbles adjacent to Santa Catarina may be part of a strewn field. Spirit observed two probable iron meteorites from its Winter Haven location in the Columbia Hills in Gusev Crater. Chondrites have not been identified to date, which may be a result of their lower strengths and probability to survive impact at current atmospheric pressures. Impact craters directly associated with Heat Shield Rock, Barberton, or Santa Catarina have not been observed, but such craters could have been erased by eolian-driven erosion.Additional co-authors: DW Ming, RV Morris, PA de Souza Jr, SW Squyres, C Weitz, AS Yen, J Zipfel, T Economo

Beyond Misinformation: Educating Graduate Students about the Mischaracterization and Misappropriation of Research

The contemporary information landscape has produced numerous incidents of researchers having their research misappropriated or mischaracterized—or worse, being subjected to intimidation and harassment—by individuals or groups who seek to cherry-pick evidence in support of ideological agendas or who wish to suppress evidence that counters those same agendas. While the COVID-19 pandemic has elevated these tactics in their frequency, visibility, and intensity, this phenomenon is by no means unique to the pandemic. Medievalists and Classicists have seen their research become politicized by white supremacists, and historians and archaeologists of ancient India have had to push back against religious nationalist narratives that contradict the factual evidence. To help prepare graduate students for the possibility that their research might be mischaracterized, misappropriated, or politicized in other ways by ideologically motivated individuals or groups, I created and taught a workshop geared toward graduate students, entitled “The Public and Your Publications: Strategies for Handling the Misappropriation or Misrepresentation of Your Research”, and offered it as part of Syracuse University Libraries’ Learn@SUL workshop series. The workshop covered how to use social media and tools provided by the Libraries’ databases to keep current on one’s field of research and the public discourse surrounding it. It also covered options for responses to incidents, highlighting examples from the news of successful responses to the mischaracterization or misappropriation of research. This included an activity in which workshop participants viewed videos of experts in various fields testifying before Congressional committees and identified and evaluated how the experts approached the Congresspersons’ or Senators’ slanted questions. Drawing on my own experience as a former community college political science instructor, I encouraged participants to take advantage of teaching assistantships for undergraduate courses as opportunities to have a rehearsal space to apply these strategies by gauging how well a relatively uninitiated audience understands (or misunderstands) their research and testing responses that might clarify misconceptions about their research. The session emphasized that participants should reach out to their current or future institution’s security if they felt threatened and concluded with the caveat that participants must take into consideration the interactions and intersections between aspects of their own identity and the identities of their audience when preparing for and implementing a response to a potential mischaracterization or misappropriation of their research

Beyond Misinformation: The Misrepresentation and Misappropriation of Research

The contemporary information landscape has produced numerous incidents of researchers having their research misunderstood, misrepresented, or misappropriated—or worse, being subjected to intimidation and harassment—by individuals or groups who seek to cherry-pick evidence in support of ideological agendas or who wish to suppress evidence that counters those same agendas. While the covid-19 pandemic elevated these tactics in their frequency, visibility, and intensity, this phenomenon did not start or end with the pandemic. To help prepare current and future researchers for the possibility that their research might be misrepresented, misappropriated, or politicized in other ways by ideologically motivated individuals or groups, Syracuse University Libraries offers a workshop that covers ways to prepare for and respond to the misrepresentation and misappropriation of their research. The workshop offers participants strategies and tools for researchers to stay current on scholarly and popular communication about their research and field of research; suggestions on venues for preparing and testing responses for potential incidents in which their research is misrepresented or misappropriated; and tactics for handling incidents should they arise