There were times in the past when I needed to address some relatively complex terms to non-technical audience. Even in our major study, we are often required to explain programming languages to each other as testimony to fully understanding of the concepts. I was naturally attracted to the task. It didn’t take me long to choose polymorphism as my target term. Because I recalled my confusion when first introduced to it as an essential component of Object Oriented Programming. Even with the reoccurring and detailed explanation of the concept, my state of confusion lasted quite long until I gained some hands-on experience implementing it in some projects. So I wonder how to facilitate the process for beginner students or general audience without much background knowledge.
It turned out not to be an easy task. Polymorphism is common sense for many in this major, but definitely looks complex at first sight. One of the concerns were that this term is built up on some other basic concepts related to programming. It will no doubt be confusing if I mentioned those as well in the definition. However, skipping them can break the consistency in explaining the target term. So I decided to briefly mention two of the prerequisite terms in support of the main definitions. In addition, I made use of metaphor and visual representations to help build a high level understanding of the concept, with an intention that in the end, readers gain some intuition and feel curious to further explore more on their own.
The peer review process shows me how my way of clarifying ideas looks in the other person’s eyes. I also got the chance to learn a few new concepts from other disciplines thanks to our shared blog posts. Overall, it was an rewarding experience. The reviewer pointed out some of my grammatical mistakes that I probably had overlooked for long. Those problems may keep slipping away and dwell in my future writings, had they not been caught this time.
In explaining the term, I have tried my best to avoid introducing extra technical concepts, however, they are unavoidably to be mentioned in the Parenthetical and Sentence definition section for the completeness and accuracy purpose. I believe that’s why we need the Expanded section for further developing our definitions. As suggested, I will adjust the position of visual representation, and replace or remove “application of the term in other disciplines” part. The original intention of having them was to create a sense of analogy to other contexts. But it actually can add confusion to readers who do not have chemistry or biology background.
The reviewer also suggested using contrast in the expanded definition of two types of polymorphism. However, the term itself usually will not be confused with others; also, there is no such transitions between the static and dynamic forms of the term in applying them as far as I know. So I will keep the examples relatively separate as they are now.
Link to Daryn Mulholland’s review of my work
Link to my review to Daryn Mulholland’s work
Revised three definitions: