Du

Charlotte Du

Professor Evans

Writing 2

24 January 23, 2024

Writing Project 1

Proposal

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8306881/

I select the article Persistent Misperceptions about Nicotine among US Physicians:

Results from a Randomized Survey Experiment to be the primary source. Published online on

July 5, 2021, it was co-written by Michelle T. Bover Manderski, Michael B. Steinberg, Olivia A.

Wackowski, Binu Singh, William J. Young, and Cristine D. Delnevo. In this article, a survey

experiment was conducted among randomly selected physicians to assess their reactions to

nicotine. By statistical inferences, it is concluded that misconceptions are popular among U.S.

physicians, and education on nicotine and tobacco should be prioritized. The possible audiences

are scholars in medicine studying more effective communications between patients and

physicians, and hospital authorities looking for more effective operation.

I plan to translate it into a lecture note, a concise note summarizing the main ideas and

key points of the lecture. Usually, this piece is popular among medical students taking a clinical

medicine course. I understand how stressful and frustrating going through every single slide and

memorizing it could be, so I wish a short lecture note would relieve the stress. The lecture note
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will be much shorter than the original essay, with only the main ideas listed. By doing this

translation, I hope to be more proficient in taking notes and become a more effective learner.
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Translation

The test will cover mainly the results and discussions of this study and some information from

background and experiment design. No statistical results or numbers will be tested.

1. Background

 Common misunderstanding of nicotine among the public due to the wide range of

nicotine-containing products

 Varied levels of nicotine in different products have varied impacts on

health

 Many physicians and nurses are also included

 Misconception varies among different physician roles

 It is because of question wording and format when assessing perceptions

 Respondents may have answered by thinking about the health effects of

tobacco use that are mediated by nicotine addiction rather than nicotine

itself

 Survey satisficing: wherein respondents put forth the minimum amount

of effort necessary to provide an acceptable response

2. Experiment Design

 Survey experiment

 Mailing the survey to sampled physicians

 Sample size of 750

 Family medicine

 Internal medicine
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 OBGYN

 All certified in specialty and actively seeing outpatients

 926 respondents were analyzed

 2 versions of the survey

 “Indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree that nicotine directly

contributes to the development of birth defects, cardiovascular disease

(CVD), cancer, depression, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

(COPD) by selecting your choice”

 “Indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree that nicotine ON ITS

OWN directly contributes to the development of birth defects,

cardiovascular disease (CVD), cancer, depression, and chronic

obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) by selecting your choice”

 Choices include “Strongly Agree,” “Agree,” “Disagree,” and “Strongly

Disagree”

3. Results

 Half female, 2/3 non-Hispanic white, median age of 51-year

 Responses differed regarding different surveys

 Lower strong disagreement responses in version 2

 Less strong agreement responses towards direct causation of diseases in

version with marked differences for cancer and COPD

 Model adjusted for gender, age, and specialty

 Less likely to “strongly agree” that nicotine directly caused birth defects,

CVD, cancer, and COPD in version 2

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 Female physicians were significantly more likely to “strongly agree”

that nicotine directly contributes to birth defects and cancer

 Family medicine and internal medicine physicians were more likely than

OB/GYN specialists to “strongly agree” that nicotine directly

contributes to birth defects

 Family physicians were most likely to “strongly agree” that nicotine

directly contributes to CVD, cancer, and COPD

 Model for “strongly agree” versus “strongly disagree”

 Significantly less likely to perceive that nicotine directly contributes to

CVD, cancer, and COPD (not strong) in version 2

 Insignificant association between the question version and agreeing that

nicotine directly contributes to birth

 Attenuated but significant associations between specialty groups and

“strongly agreeing or agreeing” that nicotine causes birth defects, CVD,

cancer, and COPD

4. Discussion

 A follow-up study

 Question version was significantly associated with “strongly agreeing”

that nicotine directly contributes to development of birth defects, CVD,

cancer, and COPD

 Holds true even after adjusting for age, sex, and medical specialty

 Physicians who answered version 2 had lower levels of

misperceptions
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 Holds true when modeling “strongly agree or agree” as the

outcome

 High level of misconception even after accounting for question version

 Participants may conflate the addictive effect of nicotine with the

comparatively more harmful effects of tobacco use

 Differences in nicotine perceptions by gender and specialty

 More “strong agreement” that nicotine directly contributes

to each health effect in females

 Did not persist when modeling the more general “agree vs.

disagree” outcome

 More misconceptions about nicotine as a direct contributor

to CVD, cancer, and COPD in family medicine physicians

regardless of how the outcome was defined

 Consistent with the previous study

 Females were more likely than males to misperceive nicotine as a direct

contributor to CVD, cancer, and COPD

 Weaker in the present study

 Future study is necessary

 Limitations

 Subject to selection bias if physicians who chose to participate in the

survey differ from those who did not with respect to their perceptions

about nicotine
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 Unlikely to threaten the validity of the finding that physician

perceptions are impacted by question version given that random

assignment was implemented

 Inclusion of additional question versions in the experiment may have

been more helpful

 Future qualitative research may be useful for elucidating the underlying

beliefs and reasons for the observed response patterns among physicians

 Results are not weighted to be representative of all family medicine,

internal medicine, and OB/GYN physicians in the U.S

 Question wording is important when assessing physician beliefs about nicotine

health effects

 Common perception that nicotine directly contributes to certain health effects

with differences in sex and specialty

 Education should be provided about tobacco and nicotine

5. Conclusion

 Question-wording is crucial when measuring physician beliefs about nicotine

 The misconception is common

 Misconception varies by sex and specialty

 Education about tobacco and nicotine should be prioritized

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Reflective Essay

In the Writing Project 1 assignment, I have chosen the article Persistent Misperceptions

about Nicotine among US Physicians: Results from a Randomized Survey Experiment as the

primary source. It was published online on July 5, 2021, and written by Michelle T. Bover

Manderski, Michael B. Steinberg, Olivia A. Wackowski, Binu Singh, William J. Young, and

Cristine D. Delnevo. The article presents findings from a survey experiment conducted among a

randomly selected group of physicians to assess their perceptions of nicotine. Through statistical

analysis, the study concludes that misconceptions about nicotine are prevalent among U.S.

physicians, underscoring the need for prioritized education on nicotine and tobacco.

I translated this article into a concise lecture note that helps students who are taking a

clinical medicine class to study the content more productively for tests, and the reason is its

nature of satisfying students' needs. Typically, an essay is written with professional, formal

academic vocabulary and long sentences with complex grammar, which is inefficient for students

to read; the lengthy paragraphs are also exhausting and discouraging for students to read. Clearly,

an essay is never an ideal genre for students to review for tests. However, a lecture note is free

from any sort of conventions—it entirely caters to the need of those who write it and read it.

Specifically, it manifests in a way that facilitates students’ reviewing effectively. In lecture notes,

sentences are short and sometimes incorrect in their grammar since their only purpose is to

present information. In my translation, I rarely write complete sentences with subjects and verbs,

mostly incomplete clauses indicating relationships between subjects from the topic. This type of

writing contributes to a faster assimilation of knowledge. In addition, lecture notes are short and

concise, like the bullet format I used in my translation, alleviating the reading stress for students.
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To integrate information from the original essay into my lecture notes, I first wrote down

the whole structure of the essay--background, experiment design, results, discussions, and

conclusion. Then, I started to add content to each section. For the sake of conciseness, original

contents from each section were paraphrased into one or two simple sentences according to their

main ideas. To this end, some information should be kept out of the note. To be more specific, I

did not include narrations about the prevalence of nicotine and its various harms because

students are already familiar with this piece of information. Benefits of survey methods are also

excluded for the same reason. What I included was the common misconception of nicotine

among physicians and its reasons, which are relevant and lay the foundation for the whole

content.

The most challenging part of this translation assignment is the reading of the original

essay. Just like one must be attentive to lectures in case no important ideas that will appear on the

test will be missed, I must read the essay carefully to make a comprehensive note not missing

any test questions. However, the reading and translation process offer me new insights into

lecture notes. Admittedly, lecture notes are beneficial for students’ high scores. Nonetheless, they

prevent students from exploring further knowledge. This is due to the essential difference

between students(audience of lecture notes) and scholars in medicine(audience of the primary

source).—their purposes of reading are different. In preparation for tests, students would mostly

just write down the experiment results, like female physicians were more likely to strongly agree

that nicotine contributes to birth defects and cancer. When reviewing the notes, they will never

think about the possible cause of those results. On the contrary, medicine scholars reading the

original essays will think carefully about the possible reasons behind those results and even their

further impacts. Their purpose is to draw useful information from the original source to support
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their own research and make inferences. Although it is understandable that students have limited

time and energy to dig in, this test-oriented genre will slowly deprive them of their academic

interests and independent thinking.

Concerning further similar translations, there are some points to be highlighted. First is

how I should perform the translation. By definitions from Discourse Communities and

Communities of Practice, my discourse community is student, which means I prioritize high

scores and do everything to make my assimilation of knowledge more efficient. Therefore, there

is no need for me to behave like a scholar, considering extensively and trying to figure out every

hidden question. Second are useful skills for lecture note-taking: scholarly reading and graph

analysis. Inevitably, essays will be long and almost impossible to read word by word, so reading

strategies will be helpful. According to Reading Games by Karen Rosenberg, simply reading the

abstract, intro, section headings, and conclusions helps to capture the majority of the content

without devoting enormous time and energy, despite that some details may be overlooked. Graph

analysis is also significant since IMRaD essays often involve graphs to present discoveries.

According to Scout McCloud in Writing with Pictures: Clarity, Persuasion, and Intensity,

reading graphs allows for more effective communication with the original text and the

understanding of meanings within it.

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Bibliography

Johns, Ann M. "Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice: Membership, Conflict,

and Diversity." Text, Role, and Context: Developing Academic Literacies. Cambridge,

New York: Cambridge UP, 1997. 51-70. Print.

Rosenburg, Karen. ‘Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Resources.” Writing

Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 2. Parlor Press, 2011. 210-20.

McCloud, Scout. “Writing with Pictures: Clarity Persuasion, and Intensity.” Making Comics:

Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga, and Graphic Novels. New York, New Work:

HarperCollions. 2006. 8-57. Print.