Up-Goer Five

Back in January, xkcd did a comic explaining the Saturn 5 rocket in the 1,000 most common words in the English language – xkcd: Up Goer Five. I laughed. It was so clever! I loved the idea. I especially thought it was interesting how many of the concepts were harder to understand when only using common words. It goes to show the power of precise language.

The idea caught on. A lot of people took the challenge to explain what they do using such a small vocabulary (Science in Ten Hundred Words; Ten Hundred Words of Science Blog)

It’s taken me a while, but I finally got around to giving it a try myself. Here’s a brief two sentence summary of my doctoral research in simple terms:

My dissertation looked at third and fifth grade students’ motivation for math. Would teaching skills aimed at improving their self-efficacy help their self-efficacy and achievement or would working in a cross-age peer tutoring situation help more?

And here’s the same summary in up-goer five:

My big study paper looked at third and two years older students’ liking for putting numbers together. Would showing ways for making better their can-do thoughts help their can-do thoughts and numbers on class work or would working in a cross-age friend helping situation help more?

A brief description of what I do now:

I feed, clean, play with, entertain, and teach my daughter. I take care of our house while my husband goes to work to make sure we can afford to take care of our temporal needs. I read, learn, create and love.

And what I do now in up-goer five:

I give food to, clean, play with, make happy, and help to learn my daughter. I take care of our house while the man I married goes to work to make sure we can pay to take care of our needs that take money. I read, learn, make things and love.

Care to give it a try? The Up-Goer Five Text Editor