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MODULE 2: ARGUMENTATION
PROJECT GUIDELINES

Earth’s Inner Core

 WHY PICK THAT SUBJECT?
Recently, humankind and other species have been suffering because of diseases and climate
change. Humans, their flocks, and fields have been monitored by smartwatches/ chips/ drones
daily. They also receive medical support for any problem or any kind of procedure to maintain
their health. Notwithstanding, they continue to suffer the health impacts and environmental crises
as their forefathers or any Bible character or other oddest book which describes apocalyptic
events. The main contrast is that we have the internet, mainstream media, influencers, and
different sorts of the asset to follow everything in real life, even though humankind has not
brought any solution or a good outlook about the future until now.

After two researchers published an article entitled “Multidecadal variation of the Earth’s inner-core
rotation” on the Nature Geoscience website on 23 January 2023. Various media outlets have
dealt with this issue in divergent ways since then. The human effect can change Earth's inner
core rotations or even stop it. Or, they are just unfortunate.
Author Correction: Multidecadal variation of the Earth’s inner-core rotation | Nature Geoscience

Multidecadal variation of the Earth’s inner-core rotation | Nature Geoscience

 EARTH’S INNER CORE MAY HAVE STOPPED TURNING
AND COULD GO INTO REVERSE, STUDY SUGGESTS
HTTPS://EDITION.CNN.COM/2023/01/25/WORLD/EARTH-CORE-TURNING-SCLI-SCN-INTL/INDEX.HTML
FACTS
• The Earth is formed of the crust, the mantle and the inner and outer
cores. The solid inner core is situated about 3,200 miles below the
Earth’s crust and is separated from the semi-solid mantle by the
liquid outer core, which allows the inner core to rotate at a different
speed from the rotation of the Earth itself.
• In research published in the journal Nature Geoscience on Monday,
Yi Yang, associate research scientist at Peking University, and
Xiaodong Song, Peking University chair professor, studied seismic
waves from earthquakes that have passed through the Earth’s
inner core along similar paths since the 1960s to infer how fast the
inner core is spinning.
• The spin of the inner core is driven by the magnetic field generated
in the outer core and balanced by the gravitational effects of the
mantle. Knowing how the inner core rotates could shed light on how
these layers interact and other processes deep in the Earth.
• Tkalcic, who dedicates an entire chapter of his book to the inner
core rotation, suggested the inner core’s cycle is every 20 to 30
years, rather than the 70 proposed in the latest study. He explained
why such variations occur and why it was so difficult to understand
what happens in the innermost reaches of the planet.
OPINION
• The rotation of Earth’s inner core may have paused and it
could even go into reverse, new research suggests.
• “We show surprising observations that indicate the inner core
has nearly ceased its rotation in the recent decade and may be
experiencing a turning-back,” they wrote in the study.
• However, the speed of this rotation, and whether it varies, is
debated, said Hrvoje Tkalcic, a geophysicist at the Australian
National University, who was not involved in the study,“The
inner core doesn’t come to a full stop,” he said. The study’s
finding, he said, “means that the inner core is now more in
sync with the rest of the planet than a decade ago when it was
spinning a bit faster.” “Nothing cataclysmic is happening,” he
added
• Song and Yang agreed that more research was needed.
• “You can think of seismologists like medical doctors who study
the internal organs of patients’ bodies using imperfect or
limited equipment. So, despite progress, our image of the inner
Earth is still blurry, and we are still in the discovery stage.”
 EARTH’S INNER CORE MAY HAVE STOPPED TURNING
AND COULD GO INTO REVERSE, STUDY SUGGESTS
Headline:
a) may have stopped - The structure may / might + perfect infinitive is
used to talk about the possibility that something happened in the past.
It could also be used to say that something was true in the past.
b) could go into - The modal verb ‘could’ is used for a suggestion (would
be able to). The phrasal verb ‘go into’ means to change to a different
movement, state, or condition /to start moving in a particular way.
c) study suggests – It is a direct reported speech reporting a statement
that maintains the verb because the intention is to make the story more
vivid and dramatic (informal narratives).
Lead: “The rotation of Earth’s inner core may have paused and it could
even go into reverse, new research suggests.”
a) Earth’s inner core - We use apostrophe s (’s), also called
possessive ’s, as a determiner to show that something belongs to
someone or something.
b) even – this adverb used to point out that something is surprising,
unusual, unexpected, or extreme.
The Story
(grammar)
This text has many sentences written in Simple Present tense and Reported
Speech. Sometimes, it is possible to notice modal verbs (could), Simple Past
tense and relative clauses (which / who/ when), adjectives (driven), adverbs
(however); idiomatic expression ‘shed lights on’ (to provide information about
sth or to make sth easier to understand); comparison; and time expressions
(since). Past Perfect tense appears in the sentence: “This, they said, suggested
that the inner core rotation had paused.”
There are some mistakes:
“It consists mostly of iron and nickel, and contains about about one-third of
Earth’s mass.” She typed ‘about’ twice.
“Tkalcic, who dedicates an entire chapter of his book to the inner core rotation,
suggested the inner core’s cycle is every 20 to 30 years, rather than the 70
proposed in the latest study.” She misspelled ‘the’ and it showed an article
usage problem in a possessive case.
She failed to recollect determiners in some phrases.
(understading)
This argumentative text exposes a general view of the issue based only on
facts and mentions famous names and what they said about it. The text has not
any conclusion.
-----
The CNN channel site attached a short video in which they interviewed Michio
Kaku, professor of theoretical physics at – the City University of New York.
There it is possible to understand better the research that was and how it is
possible to recreate a model of the inside of the Earth.
THE INNER CORE OF THE EARTH HAS STOPPED ROTATING,
WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES ON HUMAN LIVES?
SHOULD WE PANIC? INNER CORE OF THE EARTH PAUSES- GIZCHINA.COM

FACTS
• You may have seen or heard of of earthquakes, Tsunamis,
Volcanoes and different forms of natural disasters or natural
occurrences. But one thing you may not have heard of is the
inner core of the earch stopping on its rotation.
• According to news trending online, the inner core of the Earth that
is always in rotation has stopped rotating.
• Geophysicists Yi Yang and Xiadong Song of Peking University in
Beijing have published a new study in nature Geoscience. The
study explains the nature of movement of the earth’s inner core.
The inner core is mostly made of iron and molten liquids.
• They found out that, the inner rotation of the core of the
Earth slowed down until it eventually paused. This pause seems
to be associated with the gradual turning back of the core. This
turn around is what study says happens every 7 decades. The
last time a similar occurrence happened was in the 1970s.
OPINION
• It’s quite obvious because we are all on the surface of this big
ball called earth. Therefore we care about what’s on the
surface not something that is about 5,000km beneath us. Only
few people really care about what goes on beneath us.
Meanwhile, what we have beneath us can have strong impacts
on what is on the surface.
• But this does not call for panic since researchers claim that this
occurs every 7 decades.
• According to Song’s spinning theory in 1996, we don’t have a
strong history of the understanding of the inner core. Some
people in the ancient days believed in hollow core. But current
generation believes that the middle of the earth is made of iron
and molten. We also believe that the core of the Earth spins
differently from the rest of the Earth.

• According to the study, the decate of periodic occurrences

coincides with many geophysical observations. This may include
the length of day and the magnetic field of the Earth.
THE INNER CORE OF THE EARTH HAS STOPPED ROTATING,
WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES ON HUMAN LIVES?
SHOULD WE PANIC? INNER CORE OF THE EARTH PAUSES- GIZCHINA.COM

Headline: There are some mistakes as:

a) has stopped – The present perfect tense is used to mention a “(..) the inner core of the Earth that is always in rotation has stopped
rotating. ” The pronoun ‘that’ was not more appropriate, ‘which’ was the
action that happened in the past and continue into the present correct usage. Also, the article ‘the’ appeared to be missing before the
(continuity) noun phrase rotation.
“ This turn around is what study says happens every 7 decades” (
b) Rotating - it is an adjective that describes moving in a circle round correct: This turnaround is what a study says happens every seven
an axis or centre. decades.) He misspells the noun form with the verb form.
“You may have seen or heard of of earthquakes, Tsunamis, Volcanoes
c) What …?- The interrogative pronoun used to ask for information and different forms of natural disasters or natural occurrences. But one
thing you may not have heard of is the inner core of the earch stopping
about things and actions. on its rotation.” He typed ‘of’ twice and also, misspelled the word Earth.

Lead: “The inner core of the Earth has paused rotating.”

(understading)
a) stopped x paused – The verb stop means to cease to happen,
from doing or being / discontinue. And, to pause used to stop doing
something for a short time, or to make something stop for a short The article communicated the central idea about the issue. The writer
time. called the attention of the public when listed some known events in the
introduction, after he developed his ideas with popular knowledge and
The Story report speech, and, in conclusion, he exposed what could be affected by
it. Apart from some grammar mistakes, I believe this text is better than
(grammar) CNN because the message was picked up more easily.

The text utilized connectors (according to (4x)/ therefore/ meanwhile/

but); the simple present tense, simple past tense, present perfect tense,
modal verbs (may/ may + perfect infinitive,) and phrasal verbs (find out /
slow down/ turn back); possessives with of; prepositions (beneath (3X));
determiner (few/some); adjective (obvious); and adverbs
(always/quite/also/mostly).
EARTH’S INNER CORE MAY BE REVERSING ITS ROTATION
HTTPS://WWW.SCIENCENEWS.ORG/ARTICLE/EARTH-INNER-CORE-REVERSE-ROTATION
FACTS
• Earth’s inner core may have temporarily stopped rotating relative to the mantle
and surface, researchers report in the January 23 Nature Geoscience. Now,
the direction of the inner core’s rotation may be reversing — part of what could
be a roughly 70-year-long cycle that may influence the length of Earth’s days
and its magnetic field — though some researchers are skeptical.
• “We see strong evidence that the inner core has been rotating faster than the
surface, [but] by around 2009 it nearly stopped,” says geophysicist Xiaodong
Song of Peking University in Beijing. “Now it is gradually mov[ing] in the
opposite direction.”
• Evidence for the inner core’s fluctuating rotation first emerged in 1996.
Geophysicist Paul Richards of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth
Observatory in Palisades, N.Y., and Song, then also at Lamont-Doherty,
reported that over a span of three decades, seismic waves from earthquakes
took different amounts of time to traverse Earth’s solid heart.
• Before 2009, seismic waves generated by sequences and pairs of repeating
earthquakes — known as multiplets and doublets — traveled at different rates
through the inner core. This indicated the waves from recurring quakes were
crossing different parts of the inner core, and that the inner core was rotating
at a different pace than the rest of Earth, aligning with Song’s previous
research.
• But around 2009, the differences in travel times vanished.
OPNIONS
• Our planet may have had a recent change of heart.
• Such a profound turnaround might sound bizarre, but Earth is volatile (SN:
1/13/21).
• Future observations will probably help disentangle the discrepancies between
these studies, Vidale says. For now, he’s unruffled by the purported chthonic
standstill. “In all likelihood, it’s irrelevant to life on the surface, but we don’t actually
know what’s happening,” he says. “It’s incumbent on us to figure it out.”
• The researchers inferred that the inner core rotates at a different speed than the
mantle and crust, causing the time differences. The planet spins roughly 360
degrees in a day. Based on their calculations, the researchers estimated that the
inner core, on average, rotates about 1 degree per year faster than the rest of
Earth.
• But other researchers have questioned that conclusion, some suggesting that the
core spins slower than Song and Richards’ estimate or doesn’t spin differently at
all.
• That suggested the inner core had ceased rotating with respect to the mantle and
crust, Yang says. After 2009, these differences returned, but the researchers
inferred that the waves were crossing parts of the inner core that suggested it was
now rotating in the opposite direction relative to the rest of Earth.
EARTH’S INNER CORE MAY BE REVERSING ITS ROTATION
HTTPS://WWW.SCIENCENEWS.ORG/ARTICLE/EARTH-INNER-CORE-REVERSE-ROTATION

Headline:
a) May be x maybe - ’Maybe’ and ’may be’ are used to talk about the
possibility. They are often confused because we use them both when we
think that something is possible but we are not certain. Maybe is an
adverb and it means the same as perhaps. We can use maybe as a
response when we agree that something is possible; at the end of what
we say when we are making a suggestion which we are not very certain
about; or, to express uncertainty in response to a suggestion. Besides,
‘may be’ is a modal verb and ‘be’ is a main verb or auxiliary verb. Usually,
‘may’ to refer to the weak possibility in the present and future. However,
‘may’ in formal writing, especially academic English, to describe things
which the speaker thinks are generally true or possible. In this case, it is a
more formal equivalent of can (general truths).
b) Reversing – The reverse verb is used as an adjective to describe an act of
changing the direction, order, position, result, etc. anything to the contrary.
Lead: “Such a turnaround might sound bizarre, but isn’t likely to have profound
effects on life.”
a) Such – it is a determiner used before a noun or noun phrase to add
emphasis.
b) Turnaround – means any change from one thing to its opposite.
The Story
(grammar)
The news used phrasal verbs as ‘change of heart’ (If you have a
‘change of heart’, you change your opinion or the way you feel
about sth ) and ‘figure it out’; simple present tense, simple past
tense , and future tense (‘Future observations will probably (...)’/
you’ll find a revolving). Presente perfect tense and Present Perfect
continues (“We see strong evidence that the inner core has been
rotating (…)”) figurative language (personification); the structure
may+have+ main verb in the past particle (to make possible
assumptions about the past).Reported speech. Connectors. Many
technical terms. Adverbs and adjectives.
(understading)
This is the most technical item compared with the others. But is
possible to notice that the writer made many reported speeches to
give authority and data. Although, it raises some fun comments
and provides a conclusion on how this event might affect us.

c) Might – For expressing remote possibility

d) Bizarre – An adjective which means very strange or unusual

e) Likely – an adverb which probably (as like as not)

KEEP IN MIND
• “Travel Time (in Seismology) means time for the seismic waves to travel from the focus of an earthquake through
the crust to a certain seismograph station. Travel-time curve is a graph showing the relationship between the distance
from the epicenter to the observation point and the travel time. (…) By examining the travel-time curve, it is possible to
know the seismic wave velocity and the depth of the epicenter and so on. It also provides clues to study the layered
structure inside the earth. For example, by examining the travel-time curve of a teleseism, it can be seen that the earth
consists of the crust, mantle, outer core, and inner core.”

• “A travel time curve is a graph of the time that it takes for seismic waves to travel from the epicenter of an earthquake
to seismograph stations at varying distances away. The velocity of seismic waves through different materials yield
information about Earth's deep interior. IRIS' travel times graphic for the 1994 Northridge, CA earthquake (described in
No.5. Exploring the Earth Using Seismology) is animated to show how travel times are determined. Seismic waves
"bounce" the buildings to merely illustrate arrival times and wave behavior, not to depict reality. The resultant
seismograms show that stations around the world record somewhat predictable arrival times.”
AUTHOR CORRECTION: MULTIDECADAL VARIATION OF THE
EARTH’S INNER-CORE ROTATION | NATURE GEOSCIENCE
MULTIDECADAL VARIATION OF THE EARTH’S INNER-CORE
ROTATION | NATURE GEOSCIENCE
HTTPS://EDITION.CNN.COM/2023/01/25/WORLD/EARTH-CORE-TU
RNING-SCLI-SCN-INTL/INDEX.HTML
EARTHS-OSCILLATING-INNER-CORE-777X438.JPG (777×438)
(SCITECHDAILY.COM)
SHOULD WE PANIC? INNER CORE OF THE EARTH PAUSES- GIZCHINA.COM
HTTPS://WWW.SCIENCENEWS.ORG/ARTICLE/EARTH-INNER-CORE-REV
ERSE-ROTATION
MAY / MIGHT + HAVE + PAST PARTICIPLE (ENGLISHGRAMMAR.ORG)
MODAL VERBS - "MIGHT" AND "COULD" USED FOR MAKING SUGGESTIONS - ENGLISH
LANGUAGE LEARNERS STACK EXCHANGE
GO INTO (PHRASAL VERB) DEFINITION AND SYNONYMS | MACMILLAN DICTIONARY /
GO-INTO PHRASAL VERB - DEFINITION, PICTURES, PRONUNCIATION AND USAGE NOTES |
OXFORD ADVANCED LEARNER'S DICTIONARY AT OXFORDLEARNERSDICTIONARIES.COM
WISE UP LANGUAGE GUIDE BOOK
REPORTED SPEECH: DIRECT SPEECH - CAMBRIDGE GRAMMAR
POSSESSION ( JOHN’S CAR, A FRIEND OF MINE ) - CAMBRIDGE GRAMMAR

HTTPS://WWW.GINGERSOFTWARE.COM/GRAMMARCHECK
ENGLISH GRAMMAR TODAY ON CAMBRIDGE DICTIONARY
MY GRAMMARLY – GRAMMARLY
HTTPS://ANOTHERWAYTOSAYTHAT.COM/
TRAVEL-TIME CURVES: HOW THEY ARE CREATED- INCORPORATED RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS
FOR SEISMOLOGY (IRIS.EDU)
TRAVEL-TIME CURVE - WIKIPEDIA

Bibliographical reference