Using Quotations and Paraphrasing in Journalistic Writing/Post-Class Activities
Post-Class Activities
Version 1
These activities will build on the skills you have already learned. You will be working with another interview transcript to gain more practice in selecting quotes and paraphrasing material, but will begin by considering how to re-order quotes from an interview to make the resultant news article more engaging.
Recall that it is acceptable, and often necessary, to re-order quotes to make them slot in better with the story you are telling; it is very rare that you will receive good, coherent quotes in the order you need when interviewing somebody, and/or you might decide to write your story from a different angle based on what your interviewee tells you. The important thing is to make sure that you do not misrepresent your source.
Questions 1 and 2 (4 marks each, 8 marks total)
For each of the following two questions, try to first choose the most effective opening to the story (1 mark) before ordering the three related quotes in the most effective way possible (3 marks) to make your story interesting and engaging. Copy and paste the opening to the story you like best, and then copy and paste the quotes in the order you think they should appear.
Q1: For the opening, choose either A or B:
A: Astronomers used a high-tech new telescope to take a peek at the coldest place in the universe and were surprised when they found it looks like a ghost.
At -458° Fahrenheit, they originally thought it looked like a bow tie before the greater resolution provided by the new telescope showed a ghost-like shape.
B: Astronomers were shocked to find that the coldest place in the universe (the Boomerang Nebula) looks like a ghost when viewed through a high-resolution telescope.
The Boomerang Nebula, which is about 5,000 light years away from Earth and is in its final stages of life as a star, has a temperature of just -458° Fahrenheit.
Now select the order that the following three quotes (all taken from the lead researcher, Duncan Galloway) should appear in the story:
1: “They’re not just cold at this late stage though as they also emit lots of UV radiation, which is what allows us to see them from so far away.”
2: “What remains of a star at this stage of its life cycle is just the very central component of the original star. They aren’t burning now, which is why they are so cold.”
3: “We’ve seen some funny images over the years, but the ghostly spectre of the Boomerang Nebula was a real shock.”
Q2: For the opening, choose either A or B:
A: Students at the University of St. Andrews have designed a new app that helps schedule the time they keep in hand ahead of their assignments.
Project developer Andrew Stephen explained that the idea sprung from an unhappy classmate who complained about having three essays due in the space of four days.
B: Failing to manage time spent on coursework effectively could be a thing of the past after students from the University of St. Andrews developed an app to help time scheduling.
Project developer Andrew Stephen explained that he hopes the invention will prove useful to fellow students all over the world.
Now select the order that the following three quotes (all taken from Andrew Stephen) should appear in the story:
1: “The basic idea is to help students plan ahead more effectively.”
2: “Although we have road-tested the app, it’ll be a few weeks yet before it’s ready.”
3: “Without good planning, deadlines can often creep up on you and you’ll find yourself with too little time to devote to an assignment worth a lot of marks.”
Writing an Interesting, Relevant Article
Read the interview transcript entitled ‘BC Dinosaur Interview’. A pdf copy of this is available for you to download here. As you read it, try to think what makes the research interesting, and how you should write your article about it (after all, there is no point writing a boring article or one with little relevance to the research that was done).
The questions that follow will give you more practice in using interview material to select an effective angle to take with your article, as well as in extracting quotations and paraphrasing material.
Question 3 (5 marks)
Consider the five following angles that could be taken when you write an entire article about this research. Try to rank these from most interesting to least interesting and remember not to misrepresent the interviewee (Victoria Arbour). Hint: Imagine reading an article framed entirely around each one of these revelations. This should help you decide which angles are more newsworthy, novel, and interesting.
A: It took a long time to work out what sort of animal the fossil came from.
B: There was controversy over the finding and the original collector was very angry.
C: This is the first time a pterosaur fossil has been found in BC.
D: This is the first time a dinosaur fossil has been found in Canada.
E: There should be some dinosaur fossils to find in the area nearby.
Question 4 (3 marks)
Imagine that your editor has asked you to produce a very short article explaining (to the general public) how the researchers figured out that the fossil belonged to a pterosaur. Read the fourth response (at the bottom of the first page) given by Victoria Arbour in this transcript when she was asked this question. Try to paraphrase this. Try to remove all jargon and complex, potentially ambiguous words (1 mark). Do not write more than 50 words (1 mark), but make sure you explain the important elements of Victoria’s answer without misrepresenting her original meaning (1 mark). Make sure you include a word count at the end of your answer.
Question 5 (3 marks)
Now read the ninth response (at the bottom of the second page) given by Victoria Arbour in this transcript (when she was asked about what the finding said about the kind of environment, or about what else existed there at the time). Try to paraphrase this. Try to remove all jargon, and complex, potentially ambiguous words (1 mark). Do not write more than 50 words (1 mark), but make sure you explain the important elements of Victoria’s answer without misrepresenting her original meaning (1 mark). Make sure you include a word count at the end of your answer.
Question 6 (1 mark)
Choose one quote to incorporate into the paraphrased information you have just written to answer Question 5 (1 mark). Hint: There is only one quote that is personable and succinct that you could add to make the article more engaging.
Critiquing Other Articles
Now you have had a good amount of practice in writing interesting articles, selecting quotations, and paraphrasing material succinctly, you should be able to critique articles written by other people. The final activities in this post-class set will require you to do this when referring to the summary article (below) of a recent science discovery that was published in a university newspaper. Hint: All three quotes came from the same person, who was a lead researcher involved in the discovery.
Research involving scientists from Trinity College Dublin has discovered a ground-breaking new technique that will make determining cell membrane protein structure up to 20 times more efficient.
Making use of a highly specialized syringe, researchers will be able to place protein crystals into the path of X-rays at precisely the right speeds to produce diffraction patterns from which the 3-D structures can be interpreted.
This discovery will have major implications for drug research because over 50% of the drugs currently on the market target cell membrane proteins. But scientists can only hope to design new drugs that act effectively if they have accurate protein structure ‘roadmaps’ from which to work from.
Quote 1: “The key is in being able to present the protein crystals at exactly the right speeds, which is what the syringe enabled us to do.”
Quote 2: “It’s a tremendously exciting breakthrough. Instead of waiting for six months to decode a specific protein structure, researchers might now only need to wait for 10 days.”
Quote 3: “We showed in our research how quickly we were able to decode a known protein structure, treating the process as though we were working from scratch and had no idea how this particular membrane protein looked structurally. It was important to work this way because if we had determined an unknown protein structure using a new technique, people might have wondered how accurate our findings were because they had no blueprint to confirm it against.”
Question 7 (1 mark)
Which quote should be used as it is in the article?
A: Quote 1
B: Quote 2
C: Quote 3
Question 8 (1 mark)
Which of the three quotes should not be used in any way in the article? Hint: this one should not even be paraphrased.
A: Quote 1
B: Quote 2
C: Quote 3
Question 9 (1 mark)
Which quote is the best choice to paraphrase instead of using as a direct quote?
A: Quote 1
B: Quote 2
C: Quote 3
Question 10 (2 marks)
Explain your answer to Q9. Briefly state why this quote should be paraphrased (1 mark) and then succinctly paraphrase it yourself (1 mark).
Version 2
These activities will build on the skills you learned previously. You will be working with another interview transcript to gain more practice in selecting quotes and paraphrasing material, but will begin by considering how to re-order quotes from an interview to make the resultant article more engaging.
Recall that it is acceptable, and often necessary, to re-order quotes to make them slot in better with the story you are telling; it is very rare that you will receive good, coherent quotes in the order you need when interviewing somebody, and/or you might decide to write your story from a different angle based on what your interviewee tells you. The important thing is to make sure you do not misrepresent your source.
Questions 1 and 2 (4 marks each, 8 marks total)
For each of the following two questions, try to first choose the most effective opening to the story (1 mark) before ordering the three related quotes in the most effective way possible (3 marks) to make your story interesting and engaging. Copy and paste the opening to the story you like best, and then copy and paste the quotes in the order that you think they should appear.
Q1: For the opening, choose either A or B:
A: Astronomers used a high-tech new telescope to take a peek at the coldest place in the universe and were surprised when they found it looks like a ghost.
At -458° Fahrenheit, they originally thought it looked like a bow tie before the greater resolution provided by the new telescope showed a ghost-like shape.
B: Astronomers were shocked to find that the coldest place in the universe (the Boomerang Nebula) looks like a ghost when viewed through a high-resolution telescope.
The Boomerang Nebula, which is about 5,000 light years away from Earth and is in its final stages of life as a star, has a temperature of just -458° Fahrenheit.
Now select the order that the following three quotes (all taken from the lead researcher, Duncan Galloway) should appear in the story:
1: “They’re not just cold at this late stage though as they also emit lots of UV radiation, which is what allows us to see them from so far away.”
2: “What remains of a star at this stage of its life cycle is just the very central component of the original star. They aren’t burning now, which is why they are so cold.”
3: “We’ve seen some funny images over the years, but the ghostly spectre of the Boomerang Nebula was a real shock.”
Q2: For the opening, choose either A or B:
A: Students at the University of St. Andrews have designed a new app that helps schedule the time they keep in hand ahead of their assignments.
Project developer Andrew Stephen explained that the idea sprung from an unhappy classmate who complained about having three essays due in the space of four days.
B: Failing to manage time spent on coursework effectively could be a thing of the past after students from the University of St. Andrews developed an app to help time scheduling.
Project developer Andrew Stephen explained that he hopes the invention will prove useful to fellow students all over the world.
Now select the order that the following three quotes (all taken from Andrew Stephen) should appear in the story:
1: “The basic idea is to help students plan ahead more effectively.”
2: “Although we have road-tested the app, it’ll be a few weeks yet before it’s ready.”
3: “Without good planning, deadlines can often creep up on you and you’ll find yourself with too little time to devote to an assignment worth a lot of marks.”
Writing an Interesting, Relevant Article
Read the interview transcript entitled ‘Exercise Motivation Interview’. A pdf copy of this is available for you to download here. As you read it, try to think what makes the research interesting, and how you should write your article about it (after all, there is no point writing a boring article or one with little relevance to the research that was done).
The questions that follow will give you more practice in using interview material to select an effective angle to take with your article, as well as in extracting quotations and paraphrasing material.
Question 3 (5 marks)
Consider the five following angles that could be taken when you write an entire article about this research. Try to rank these from most interesting to least interesting. Hint: Imagine reading an article framed entirely around each one of these revelations. This should help you decide which angles are more newsworthy, novel, and interesting.
A: It is important to track motivation changes in follow-up studies to see if people have maintained their commitment to exercise.
B: You must commit more than six months to an exercise regime to change your attitude towards being active.
C: Some people do not enjoy exercise and only do it because they feel they should.
D: A high proportion of Canadians do not exercise.
E: Five different studies were analyzed to assess attitudes to exercise.
Question 4 (3 marks)
Imagine that your editor has asked you to produce a very short article explaining (to the general public) how the researchers measured motivation. Read the first response given by Wendy Rogers in this transcript when she was asked this question. Try to paraphrase how researchers measured motivation. Try to remove all jargon and complex, potentially ambiguous words (1 mark). Do not write more than 60 words (1 mark), but make sure you explain the important elements of the research and do not change the meaning (1 mark).
Question 5 (3 marks)
Now read the second response given by Wendy Rogers in this transcript (when she was asked about how many people were studied, and how they were studied). Try to paraphrase this material and remove all jargon, and complex, potentially ambiguous words (1 mark). Do not write more than 50 words (1 mark), but make sure you explain the important elements of the research and do not change the meaning (1 mark).
Question 6 (1 mark)
Imagine that you have just paraphrased the third and fourth responses given by Wendy Rogers (when asked how she defines long-term exercisers, and how many people fit into these categories in Canada) as:
Wendy Rogers explained that ‘long-term exercisers’ are people who exercise at least three times a week, and who have done so for at least a year.
Worryingly, a small proportion of Canadians fit into this category.
Rogers said: “…
Choose one quote to incorporate into the writing above (1 mark).
Critiquing Other Articles
Now you have had a good amount of practice in writing interesting articles, selecting quotations, and paraphrasing material succinctly, you should be able to critique articles written by other people. The final activities in this post-class set will require you to do this when referring to the fictional summary article (below) of a recent science discovery that was published in a university newspaper.
Students who spend at least one hour a day reading for pleasure are more likely to sleep better at night, according to a recent study published on a Navan University science blog by graduate student Lily Maeve.
Maeve asked students who never previously read non-course-related books to wear sleep monitors for a three-month period in which they agreed to read such material before bed, before comparing their sleep patterns with those of students who only read course notes.
She found that the ‘readers’ slept for longer, and enjoyed less broken sleep than the ‘non-readers’. She also noted from qualitative responses that the ‘readers’ said they felt more awake in class and were better able to relax at night.
QUOTE 1: “We thought that we would consider two groups of students: those who agreed to read for pleasure, and those who either only read course notes or did not want to read other things.”
QUOTE 2: “Most students said afterwards that they weren’t surprised by the results, which makes me wonder why more people don’t read for pleasure all the time.”
QUOTE 3: “I think the results are very reliable because we used sleep monitors that were previously validated in other experiments; values from these were compared with data that people personally recorded about their sleep patterns, such as when they went to bed and got up, and when they woke up at night. The sleep monitor data was very reliable when correlated with these personal observations.”
Question 7 (1 mark)
Which quote should be used as it is in the article?
A: Quote 1
B: Quote 2
C: Quote 3
Question 8 (1 mark)
Which of the three quotes should not be used in any way in the article? Hint: this one should not even be paraphrased.
A: Quote 1
B: Quote 2
C: Quote 3
Question 9 (1 mark)
Which quote is the best choice to paraphrase instead of using as a direct quote?
A: Quote 1
B: Quote 2
C: Quote 3
Question 10 (2 marks)
Explain your answer to Q9. Briefly state why this quote should be paraphrased (1 mark) and then succinctly paraphrase it yourself (1 mark).
Version 3
These activities will build on the skills you learned previously. You will be working with another interview transcript to gain more practice in selecting quotes and paraphrasing material, but will begin by considering how to re-order quotes from an interview to make the resultant article more engaging.
Recall that it is acceptable, and often necessary, to re-order quotes to make them slot in better with the story you are telling; it is very rare that you will receive good, coherent quotes in the order you need when interviewing somebody and/or you might decide to write your story from a different angle based on what your interviewee tells you. The important thing is to make sure you do not misrepresent your source.
Questions 1 and 2 (4 marks each, 8 marks total)
For each of the following two questions, try to first choose the most effective opening to the story (1 mark) before ordering the three related quotes in the most effective way possible (3 marks) to make your story interesting and engaging. Copy and paste the opening to the story you like best, and then copy and paste the quotes in the order you think they should appear.
Q1: For the opening, choose either A or B:
A: Each and every one of us can make a difference when it comes to recycling materials that are harmful to the planet.
That is the message that sprung from a recent research project performed by undergraduate students at the University of British Columbia (UBC).
B: Undergraduate students at the University of British Columbia (UBC) recently performed a research project focusing on recycling.
Their results suggest that everyone can make a big difference in this area as we collectively seek to minimize the damage we cause our planet.
Now select the order that the following three quotes (all taken from the lead researcher, Duncan Galloway) should appear in the story:
1: “It was shocking to note that only one in four people actually put their recyclable containers in green bins.”
2: “Initially, we wanted to quantify the proportion of UBC students who recycle their lunch boxes every day.”
3: “It’s frustrating because it’s so easy to recycle. And if we all did this one simple act, UBC would produce 30,000 tons less garbage every year.”
Q2: For the opening, choose either A or B:
A: Lack of sleep can hinder performance in the classroom, but only if you are really tired.
Students at the University of British Columbia (UBC) found that if they slept for at least six hours each night then their exam performance was not diminished.
B: Performance in the classroom is dependent on the number of hours sleep that you get each night.
However, students from the University of British Columbia (UBC) found that they only started to perform less well if they slept less than six hours each night.
Now select the order that the following three quotes (all taken from lead researcher, Amy Weatherburn) should appear in the story:
1: “If students slept for just five hours a night, they were toast in an exam situation. Yet if they got six hours snooze, they performed as well as if they had much more.”
2: “In my next study, I am going to see whether different mental stimulation before sleep has any effect on exam performance. For example, will it make a difference whether students watch 30 minutes of TV, or if they read class notes before turning out the light?”
3: “What was interesting is that these students said they felt very tired and sluggish if they didn’t get at least six hours sleep.”
Writing an Interesting, Relevant Article
Read the interview transcript entitled ‘Exercise Motivation Interview’. A pdf copy of this is available for you to download here. As you read it, try to think what makes the research interesting, and how you should write your article about it (after all, there is no point writing a boring article or one with little relevance to the research that was done).
The questions that follow will give you more practice in using interview material to select an effective angle to take with your article, as well as in extracting quotations and paraphrasing material.
Question 3 (5 marks)
Consider the five following angles that could be taken when you write an entire article about this research. Try to rank these from most interesting to least interesting. Hint: Imagine reading an article framed entirely around each one of these revelations. This should help you decide which angles are more newsworthy, novel, and interesting.
A: It is important to track motivation changes in follow-up studies to see if people have maintained their commitment to exercise.
B: You must commit more than six months to an exercise regime to change your attitude towards being active.
C: Some people do not enjoy exercise and only do it because they feel they should.
D: A high proportion of Canadians do not exercise.
E: Five different studies were analyzed to assess attitudes to exercise.
Question 4 (3 marks)
Imagine that your editor has asked you to produce a very short article explaining (to the general public) how the researchers measured motivation. Read the first response given by Wendy Rogers in this transcript when she was asked this question. Try to paraphrase how researchers measured motivation. Try to remove all jargon and complex, potentially ambiguous words (1 mark). Do not write more than 60 words (1 mark), but make sure you explain the important elements of the research and do not change the meaning (1 mark).
Question 5 (3 marks)
Now read the second response given by Wendy Rogers in this transcript (when she was asked about how many people were studied, and how they were studied). Try to paraphrase this material and remove all jargon, and complex, potentially ambiguous words (1 mark). Do not write more than 50 words (1 mark), but make sure you explain the important elements of the research and do not change the meaning (1 mark).
Question 6 (1 mark)
Imagine that you have just paraphrased the third and fourth responses given by Wendy Rogers (when asked how she defines long-term exercisers, and how many people fit into these categories in Canada) as:
Wendy Rogers explained that ‘long-term exercisers’ are people who exercise at least three times a week, and who have done so for at least a year.
Worryingly, a small proportion of Canadians fit into this category.
Rogers said: “…
Choose one quote to incorporate into the writing above (1 mark).
Critiquing Other Articles
Now you have had a good amount of practice in writing interesting articles, selecting quotations, and paraphrasing material succinctly, you should be able to critique articles written by other people. The final activities in this post-class set will require you to this when referring to the mythical summary article (below) of a recent science discovery that was published in a university newspaper.
Students who run at least twice a week are less likely to suffer from stress, according to a recent study published on a Kilberry University Science blog by graduate student Lily Maeve.
Maeve gave previously non-exercising students a survey designed to ‘rank’ stress levels from non-existent to very high, both before and after a six-month period in which they either ran at least twice a week or maintained doing little to no regular exercise.
She found that the ‘runners’ decreased their stress levels by a great amount whereas the ‘non-runners’ were just as stressed at the end of the experiment as they were at the beginning.
QUOTE 1: “We thought that we would consider two groups of students: those who decided to take up running, and those who decided not to,” explained Maeve.
QUOTE 2: “Most students said they expected to see these results yet other data shows that less than a quarter of these same students actually run twice a week, so I think it’s time to stop making excuses and get that running gear on!”
QUOTE 3: “I think the results are very reliable because we used a survey that was previously validated in other experiments; values from this survey were compared with medical data from the same people whose stress hormones in the blood were measured. The survey was found to be a very accurate predictor of the real stress levels.”
Question 7 (1 mark)
Which quote should be used as it is in the article?
A: Quote 1
B: Quote 2
C: Quote 3
Question 8 (1 mark)
Which of the three quotes should not be used in any way in the article? Hint: this one should not even be paraphrased.
A: Quote 1
B: Quote 2
C: Quote 3
Question 9 (1 mark)
Which quote is the best choice to paraphrase instead of using as a direct quote?
A: Quote 1
B: Quote 2
C: Quote 3
Question 10 (2 marks)
Explain your answer to Q9. Briefly state why this quote should be paraphrased (1 mark) and then succinctly paraphrase it yourself (1 mark).
BC Dinosaur Interview
BC dinosaur interview: Reporter ‐ Hayley Dunning (HD) and Researcher – Victoria Arbour (VA)
HD:
So
you
(or
someone)
found
the
jaw
of
a
flying
dinosaur
in
BC?
VA:
That’s
right,
although
it’s
not
actually
a
dinosaur,
it’s
actually
like
a
pterodactyl,
and
we
call
them
pterosaurs.
They’re
not
dinosaurs,
but
they’re
the
closest
evolutionary
cousins
to
dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs
and
pterosaurs
have
a
common
ancestor
but
they’re
not
the
same
thing.
The
specimen
was
found
by
someone
called
Sharon
Hubbard,
and
the
place
that
it’s
from
is
called
Hornby Island.
At
that
location
you
find
these
little
nodules,
little
concretions
of
rock
and
people
will
go
out
and
look
for
them
and
crack
them
open
and
sometimes
they
have
fossils
inside.
A
lot
of
the
time
you
find marine
animals
like
clams
or
ammonites
or
crabs
of
things
like
that,
but
this
time
they
cracked
it
open and it
had
this
jaw
inside
of
it‐
That’s
kind
of
unusual
and
that’s
when
it
got
brought
to
our
attention.
HD:
When
was
it
discovered?
VA:
Probably
about
7
or
8
years
ago.
I
got
involved
with
the
project
in
2007.
HD:
I
guess
you
haven’t
been
working
just
on
the
jaw,
are
there
some
other
finds
from
that
area?
VA:
Well
it’s
the
first
thing
I’ve
worked
on
from
southern
BC,
a
couple
of
years
ago
I
actually
wrote
a
paper
talking
about
the
first
dinosaur
remains
from
BC,
and
those
are
from
a
place
north‐central
called
the
Sustut
Basin.
That’s
why
Phil
(Currie)
asked
me
to
be
involved
in
describing
this
specimen.
Even
though
I started
talking
about
it
in
2007,
and
it’s
now
2011,
that’s
because
I
also
work
on
armoured
dinosaurs, that’s
my
thesis,
so
this
has
been
sort
of
like
a
side
project.
It
takes
a
while
to
get
these
things
worked on
sometimes;
we
had
to
prepare
it
a
little
bit
more
because
we
had
to
have
a
bit
more
detail
exposed,
and for
a
long
time
we
didn’t
know
what
it
was,
so
it
took
us
a
really
long
time
to
get
on
track
with
what
kind of
animal
it
was
before
we
even
began
writing
the
paper.
HD:
How
did
you
figure
out
in
the
end
that
it
was
part
of
a
flying
reptile,
especially
when
there
were
no
others
found
in
BC?
VA:
We
basically
just
read
a
lot
of
scientific
papers
over
a
long
time,
and
I
have
a
friend
here, Derek
Larson,
and
he
worked
on
dinosaur
teeth
and
teeth
of
other
things
from
different
places
in
Alberta, and
one
day
he
just
said
to
me
“Well,
have
you
tried
any
pterosaur
papers?”
and
I
said
“No,
but
maybe
I should.”
So
I
did,
and
not
too
long
after
that
suggestion
I
came
across
a
paper
describing
a
pterosaur
from China
from
the
early
Cretaceous,
and
when
I
looked
at
it
I
thought
“You
know
that
looks
pretty
similar
to
what
we
have”.
I
started
to
re‐orient
what
I
was
looking
at
in
the
specimen
–
so
originally
what
I
thought
for
a
long
time
might
be
a
lower
jaw,
when
I
looked
at
that
specimen
I
kind
of
flipped
it
around
and
went
“Aha!
It’s
an
upper
jaw.”
And
then
things
started
to
move
pretty
quickly
and
I
found
more
papers
and
more animals
that
looked
similar
and
it
just
kind
of
went
from
there.
HD:
What
precise
time
period
is
this
pterosaur
from?
VA:
So
it’s
from
the
Late
Cretaceous,
its
rocks
from
the
Campanian,
about
70
million
years
ago.
The neat
thing
is
it’s
about
the
same
age
and
the
famous
dinosaur
localities
in
Alberta
like
Dinosaur
Provincial
Park.
It’s
from
a
similar
time
period
but
a
different
geographic
location,
so
it’s
kind
of interesting
that
there’s
different
things
there.
HD:
I
read
that
it’s
the
first
pterosaur
in
BC,
but
are
there
others
elsewhere
in
Canada?
VA:
We
have
some
really
fragmental
stuff
from
Dinosaur
Provincial
Park,
but
it
belonged
to
a
different
kind
of
pterosaur
which
is
a
giant
pterosaur,
so
this
is
the
pterosaur
that’s
like
the
size
of
a
small
aeroplane.
It’s
really
cool
but
it’s
also
found
in
the
United
States.
So
we
have
some
of
that
species in
Canada,
but
this
one
in
BC
is
the
first
one
that’s
unique
to
Canada,
so
we
were
pretty
excited
about that.
HD:'
I
noticed
also
there
was
a
little
controversy
about
the
finder...
VA:
Yeah,
actually
there
isn’t
much
controversy;
basically
what
happened
was
we
made
a
bit
of
an
error
in
who
actually
collected
the
specimen.
So
in
the
paper
we
said
that
Graham
Beard
collected
it,
he’s the
one
that
brought
in
to
our
attention
because
he
runs
a
museum
out
there,
and
Sharon
Hubbard
is
the collector.
So
we’ve
been
just
working
to
make
sure
that
people
understand
that
she
was
the
one
that
collected
the
specimen.
But
beyond
that
there
isn’t
really
much
controversy
because
it
was
just
a
mistake that
we
feel
bad
about.
HD:
I
read
that
she
was
a
bit
angry
about
it...
VA:
Yeah
and
understandably
so,
it’s
important
that
we
give
the
right
credit.
HD:
As
far
as
being
a
new
species
and
being
a
pterosaur
in
BC,
which
you
haven’t
found
before,
does
it
say
something
unique
about
what
kind
of
environment
or
what
else
existed
there
at
that
time?
VA:
The
reason
that
I’m
really
excited
about
it
is
that
it
means
maybe
we’re
going
to
find
more
land-dwelling
animals
from
that
time
period
in
that
area.
A
few
years
ago
there
was
a
paper
that
talked
about some
fossil
bird
bones
in
the
same
formation,
now
we’ve
got
pterosaurs,
so
we’re
learning
a
little
bit
about
the
animals
that
were
flying
around
that
area,
which
is
pretty
cool
because
we
don’t
normally
find
that,
even
in
Alberta.
If
I
could
wish
for
something
it
would
be
really
cool
if
we
did
start
to
find
some dinosaur
material
in
that
formation.
If
we’re
finding
pterosaurs
and
birds,
there’s
a
good
chance
we’re going
to
eventually
find
a
dinosaur.
But
again
its
marine
sediments
which
means
things
have
to
be
washing
in
or
falling
in.
So
it
just
increases
our
knowledge
of
what
was
living
there
at
the
time,
and
it
was
something
quite
unexpected,
so
that’s
what
got
us
so
excited
about
it.
I
would
never
have
guessed
that
that would
be
what
we
would
pick
up
off
the
beach
there.
HD:
I
noticed
some
press
releases
also
come
with
a
really
nice
picture
[attached],
how
did
that
come about?
VA:
That’s
actually
something
I
drew.
The
reason
we
did
that
is,
when
we
finished
writing
the
paper
I knew
I
wanted
to
do
a
press
release,
because
it’s
a
cool
find
and
I
wanted
people
in
BC
to
know
about
it. But
the
specimen
itself
doesn’t
photograph
really
well;
it’s
actually
not
a
really
pretty
specimen
to
look at.
It’s
cool
if
you
know
what
it
is,
but
it’s
quite
small
and
it
has
long
teeth
but
they’re
also
small,
and
it’s
hard
to
visualise
what
that
animal
would
have
looked
like
from
that
fossil
unless
you’re
a specialist
in
the
field.
So
I
wanted
to
have
a
picture
that
would
give
people
an
idea
of the
shape
of
the animal,
because
all
the
people
know
what
dinosaurs
look
like
but
they
might
not
know
what
pterosaurs
looked like.
The
drawing
is
a
little
bit
of
a
guess,
because
we
only
have
the
tip
of
the
snout,
but
overall
it’s probably
what
the
animal
looked
like
in
shape.
HD:
How
big
do
you
think
the
animal
was?
VA:
We’re
got
the
tip
of
the
snout,
which
is
about
10cm
long,
so
I
would
estimate
the
skull
is
at least
50‐60cm,
and
the
wingspan
was
maybe
around
3m.
He
would
be
a
medium‐sized
pterosaur.
HD:
Is
there
anything
you
wanted
to
add?
VA: It was a lot of fun to work on the project. British Colombia has a lot of really cool fossils that we don’t hear as much about because of course here in Alberta we have Dinosaur Provincial Park and all the great dinosaur finds going on, but this shows us that BC has a lot of interesting things going on as well – we should definitely keep looking for stuff. I hope that people are excited about it because I was and it’s an interesting find.
Exercise Motivation Interview
Exercise motivation interview: Reporter – Hayley Dunning (HD) and Researcher - Wendy Rodgers (WR)
HD: You measured the time it takes to get into exercising in terms of people’s motivation over an amount of time. How did you measure motivation?
WR: We used an instrument that assesses what’s called people’s ‘self-determination’ for exercise. It comes from a theory called ‘self-determination theory’ that proposes people can do things for a variety of reasons that range from very extrinsic pressure; ‘I have to’ kinds of motivation, some call it external, to very internal or more self-determined motives, the highest point being intrinsic ‘I really like it’, and just below that ‘I think it’s important’, ‘I value it’, ‘it’s part of my identity’. It measures the extent to which people endorse all those kinds of motives, and then through statistics we can see how well the different categories of motives associate with their behavior. What we want to see is that the more self-determined motives are the things that are more primarily ass associated with behavior, because that’s associated with longer persistence.
HD: How many people did you study in this, did you study them over a period of time or did you just take a cross-section sample of people?
WR: The particular paper you’re talking about is actually a secondary analysis of five other samples. So, one of the samples of regular exercisers had over 1000 people in it. Then, the five studies that looked at initiate exercisers, so these were people who were previously sedentary who joined a program to become more active, they ranged in size from about 30 to about 300 I think. And we studied all five of those longitudinally, for different lengths, so the longest one was 6 months, which is how we came up with the ‘it takes longer than 6 months’, but there are 2 or so in there that were around 12 weeks, which is 3 months. So the shortest was 10 weeks and the longest was 6 months: there was one 4 month, so that means there was one 3 month. They were all longitudinal analyses, with cross-sectional you can’t come to these kinds of conclusions; with cross-sectional you have to follow the people over time to see how much they change as we’re going along.
HD: How do you define people who have been long-term exercisers?
WR: Those are people who have been involved in exercise or physical activity, so it could be a sport or dance or something like that, regularly for a minimum of 3 times a week for a minimum of one year. But the average time of our people was 8 years I think. You probably know someone like this, who has exercised their whole lives, then there’s the sporadic ones who do something on and off, then there’s the sedentary ones, who never really get into it.
HD: Do you have any statistics on how many people in Canada or in Alberta fit into these kinds of categories?
WR: We know that in Canada about 60% of Canadians are physically inactive, and we know that around 30%, but a little bit less than 30% reach guidelines for physical activity. So that’s one of the reasons why we are really concerned with improving physical activity levels because physical activity is so associated with other positive health states, and physical inactivity means 60% are inactive, which means they’re probably not doing much of anything, and there’s about 20% that are doing a little, and fewer than 30% are doing enough.
HD: So the results of your study are that it takes more than 6 months to be positioned across the spectrum of motivation that associated with long-term exercise. What do you recommend for people who are going into exercise, what advice do you give them: stick at it?
WR: Yup, basically that’s about it, there’s a little bit of a belief system that’s been put forward by older research that by the time you’ve stuck with a new exercise that within 6 months you’d really be in the maintenance stage, so you’d be ready to just carry on, and don’t really need to pay much special attention or do anything special about it. So, one of the strengths of our research is it’s not just one study, it’s 5. It shows that even after 6 months, motivationally speaking, what we have are people who are still in endorsing less self-determined motives, so more extrinsic reasons, ‘I should’, ‘I have to’, ‘because somebody made me’; these kinds of reasons, more strongly than we would like. And those reasons are more strongly associated with their behavior. So everybody goes and exercises sometimes because they should or they have to or because somebody made them or they have an obligation, everybody does that, but in what we call the ‘lifer’ exercisers the main reason that they exercise most of the time, what’s most strongly associated with their behavior is the intrinsic reasons, ‘because I value it’, ‘because it’s important to me’, ‘because it’s part of my identity’, those kinds of reasons. And we’re still not seeing those kinds of reasons endorsed highly enough even after 6 months.
So if you’re just starting off exercising, I would say for probably up to year you’re going to be talking yourself into it a fair bit, it’s going to take a while, you’re probably still going to have some lapses, where something happens, you know exams, holidays, you hurt yourself, anything can happen, too much work to do or something like that, and you fall off, it’s going to be hard to get back going again and you have to expect that and people think they’re going to get to the point where they love exercise and it’s going to be easy, and they’ll really miss it while they were having their exams and be anxious to go back, probably not! You’re going to have to talk yourself into it, try hard, I would say for at least a year, but we don’t have enough data to know, so we don’t really know how long it takes, just that it takes longer than 6 months. Which is a novel finding, because most people would say 6 months is good enough, we would say not, you’ve got to keep working at it.
So yeah, just expect to work at it, for possibly up to a year.<br.
HD: Do you have any plans for follow-up studies to see how long it takes?
WR: Based on this we’ll probably do a lot more longer-term follow-ups of our study participants. So there’s quite a large research group because it was 5 studies, it was myself and some colleagues from the University of Western Ontario, mostly. We do quite a lot of studies where we bring people in and teach them how to exercise, and they’re usually with us for a training program of 10 or 12 weeks: the longer term studies the 4 month and 6 month ones are a little more rare. But even after that we probably need to be checking back in with the people every 3 months or so up to 1 year or 2 years even, to see what’s happening to them motivationally. The risk is if we keep our gaps too big that they’ll fall apart and we’ll lose them before we do the follow-up. And the ones that turn over to those more internal motivations more quickly probably don’t need to hear from us as much, so it’s finding that balance. But we’ll definitely be following people for longer.
HD: Do you have anything you’d like to add?
WR: I’m glad you guys are interested, because people that are right around 20 years old, that’s a nice time to start building on those skills and to not be discouraged, because students also have a very up-and-down schedule where it’s alright for a little while then it’s terrible for a little while,and just understanding that it’s going to be hard to come back from those things, but come back, because it’s important for their long-term health. We say that this is the period when you are gathering life skills that are going to enable you to carry on later.SO encouraging them as much as possible is important I think.