12.13 Conventions of Tragedy and Comedy Worksheet

A policy report evaluates claims that replacing street parking with protected bike lanes harms local retail. The report reviews sales-tax receipts, pedestrian counts, and a survey of shop owners. In two corridors, pedestrian counts rose and receipts stayed flat; in a third, receipts declined, but the decline began months before construction and coincided with the closure of a large anchor store. The owner survey reports frustration about loading access, yet it also notes more customers arriving by bike. The report concludes that impacts are context-dependent and that single metrics can mislead if timing and external shocks are ignored.

A science communication lesson analyzes how certainty is signaled in research writing. The lesson contrasts 'X causes Y' with 'X is associated with Y' and explains that association language is used when studies are observational or when mechanisms are not confirmed. In an example abstract, the authors write that a dietary pattern was 'associated with lower inflammation markers,' and later note that the study 'cannot rule out residual confounding.' The lesson asks students to identify how these phrases shape responsible claims and to explain what evidence would be needed to strengthen the language from association to causation.

A historian examines a set of letters attributed to an abolitionist speaker. Several letters describe strategy meetings and contain phrases known from the speaker's published speeches. Yet the historian notes that nineteenth-century speech reports were often edited, and that activists sometimes circulated 'model letters' for supporters to copy. The paper reports that the handwriting of the letters matches a clerk who worked in the speaker's office, not the speaker herself. The historian concludes the letters may reflect the speaker's ideas, but authorship of the specific documents is uncertain.