Answer: Finding out about a concept (part 2)

Continuing this "new concept" theme…. 

… of how to get to the core concept behind a glob of text.  

Last week we were looking for “compound concept” terms like "beach music," or "summer romance."  

But it often happens that you know a little bit about the concept, but you don't really understand quite enough to understand the concept in that context. 

I gave an example using the word "level."  The actual email I got was from a friend who wrote: 

     "In that game, he really had to level up..." 

And I wasn't 100% sure I knew what he meant.   

As you can imagine, this is an incredibly useful skill as you read.  

Often you’ll see words in your text that you can’t quite figure out from context (especially when you’re reading something in a field in which you’re NOT an expert), so this is a great way to learn how to figure out those complex, hidden, subtle meanings.  

Can you figure out how to pin down the definitions of these terms?  Can you give a succinct definition?  (In this sequence, #1 is easy, but #3 is harder.) 

1.  What is an “object” in computer programming?  

2. What is a “model” when used with a bunch of equations to provide some explanatory structure? 

3. In a book I just read, the author wrote, “Miles really knew how to jam in all those modes…”   What’s a “mode”?  (Don't bother to look for this quote--I've modified it so you can't figure it out that way....)  

Here's what I did.  (And yes, I knew the definitions of all these terms ahead of time, but they're still good examples of the skill & craft of finding out...)  



1.  An "object" in computer programming.  

As several Regular Readers pointed out, the simplest way to get meaning from even a bit of context is to drop the term in with whatever context terms you have, and then skim or read broadly over the results, diving in on occasion to extract out the meaning.  

Notice that there's an inserted quote from Wikipedia at the very top (1) of the SERP.  This is an extract from a highly cited source that's relevant.  In essence, it's a definition of "object" when in the context of programming. 

Looking farther down the SERP, at (2) you can start to scan the snippets describing each of the results pages.  While I don't recommend getting your answer solely from the snippets, they ARE useful as a way to start to scan for surrounding language and context.  Here you can see that some other terms are useful to know--such as "class-based," "instance," "variable," and "data structures."  (You also implicitly learn that many of the terms you're reading--e.g., "instance--have alternate definitions in this world.  

Notice also the "dig deeper" options at (3)--these are collected based on other questions that are asked in this context.  Here you can get a mini-tutorial on "what is object-oriented programming" and start to figure out why the word "class" can mean so many different things!  



Of course, you could always use the define operator in Google, BUT you have to expand the options by clicking on the downward pointing gray chevron (see below) 

Once you do that, you'll find that there's a definition in the context of programming.  

2. What is a “model” when used with a bunch of equations to provide some explanatory structure? 

To understand this, I did more-or-less the same thing.  My prompt for this question came from a message another friend sent to me which said: 

        "... as is obvious from the structural equation modeling of the situation..."  

But it wasn't really obvious.  Somehow I'd missed that class at university, so I had to do a little backfilling in my knowledge of mathematics.  And I did the query: 


     [ model equations structure ] 

Note that I left "explain" out of the query.  (If you include it, you end up with somewhat different results.)  

My query led me to the results: 

... which, handily, includes an entire "Introduction in Structural Equation Modeling."  


Structural equation modeling (SEM) an entire collection of mathematical models, algorithms, and statistical methods that match networks of constructs to data.  (In other words, it's a way to create simple network diagrams that explain what's important in an underying math model of some situation.)  

SEM includes confirmatory factor analysis, path analysis, partial least squares path analysis, LISREL and latent growth modeling. 

Importantly, note that  "The term should not be confused with Structural Modeling in economics..."  




3. In a book I just read, the author wrote, “Miles really knew how to jam in all those modes…”   What’s a “mode”?  (Don't bother to look for this quote--I've modified it so you can't figure it out that way....)  

I admit that I gave you a big hint with the photo at the top of the post.  I realize this is a bit complicated, but here's what I would have done.  

Of the terms in that sentence, the ones that are the most "contextful" are "Miles," "jam," and "modes."  

Putting those into a query:  

     [ Miles jam mode ] 

Gives us a result that looks like this: 

As you scan this, you can ignore the second and third results (the words occur there, but don't have anything to do with music, as the clue suggests). 

Pay attention instead to the words that are associated with your search terms.  In this case, I've highlighted the more salient bits.  "Dorian Mode" or "Miles Davis" or "Myxolydian Mode"

If you don't know Miles Davis, a quick search for [ Miles Davis ] gives a LOT of results, but if you scan (Control-F, of course) through any of the articles about Miles Davis, you'll quickly learn that (A) he was a jazz musician who liked to "jam" (that is, improvise) and play in "modes."  

Okay, so what's a mode in music? 

Again, our friend define helps out here.  

     [ define mode ] 

tells us that a "mode" is "a set of musical notes forming a scale and from which melodies and harmonies are constructed."  

Ah ha!  It's a specific kind of scale!  And taking a clue from above, if you look up 

     [ Mixolydian mode ] 

you'll find out that it's a regular major scale with a flattened 7th note.  (See the Wikipedia article for details about Myxolyidan.)  

More generally, a "mode" is a  particular kind of scale that's used to play a tune, or (often in the music of Miles Davis) to improvise (jam) during the solos.  

But what does it sound like?  Let's do a search for: 

     [ Miles Davis dorian mode ] 

on YouTube, and you'll find his masterwork, "So What?" which gives a great sense for what "jamming in the Dorian mode" sounds like.  

Search Lessons

1.  When searching for contextual definitions, you often need to include "context terms" to refine your search.  And then, you'll still sometimes need to scan the results to get a sense for what the idea is.  

2.  Use define.  It's often really useful, but be sure to open up the hidden options beneath the down arrow.  

3. Dig deeper!  Sometimes you really do need to look a bit farther by doing an additional query or two.  

4.  Pay attention to other words / concepts that you see in association with your target.  Those terms will often give you hints about where to search next.  (e.g., "Myxolydian" or "Dorian" above) 

Teachers 

This is absolutely a skill you should be teaching your students!  Especially when they're in the younger grades, this ability to seek out the deeper meaning of ideas is a powerful tool.  But be sure to work closely with them to verify that they've gotten to the correct meaning.  (Not infrequently, I see students who are doing more-or-less the right thing, but get side-tracked by something interesting and shiny.  You can help keep them on track by showing them a better way to stay on-topic.)  

It's pretty easy to come up with more examples of things like this--just look at almost any news article that's just a bit above your students' reading level and try to spot the terms and concepts that they haven't yet experienced.  From a quick scan of a New York Times front page I found several concepts that students in 6th grade might not know about:  ABM treaty, immigration policy, Sharia law, electoral college, Iditarod, and Hansen's disease.  (Just as a quick check:  Can you give good definitions for all of these concepts??)  

Search on... as always!