What’s Inside: Coffee (animation), Wired.com

WIRED

Wired magazine is known for its reports on new technologies as well as investigative reporting on how new technology affects our culture and economy. It is a respected magazine that coined the term “crowdsourcing,” which we now use to describe community-based projects like Wikipedia or Kickstarter. The magazine has won several awards for general excellence and design. Its Web site features a “What’s Inside” series that takes everyday items and explains their contents scientifically. This episode breaks down the ingredients of a normal cup of coffee.

Wired / Condé Nast

Analyzing the Writer’s Technique

After watching What's Inside: Coffee, answer the questions below. Then submit your responses.

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Question 17.45

1. Does the video use the principle of classification or division? What groups or parts does the video use to describe coffee? Use specific examples to support your answer.
Possible Answer: What’s Inside: Coffee uses division to show viewers the ingredients of coffee, and it divides the components—the “good stuff”—into three main groups according to aroma (2-Ethylphenol and dimethyl disulfide), taste (acetylmethylcarbinol and trigonelline), and health benefits (battles streptococcus mutans and protects from free radicals in your brain). Your answer will differ from this one in the way it is written, but it should include roughly the same information.

Question 17.46

2. What other patterns of development does What’s Inside: Coffee use? Include specific details and examples from the video to support your answer.
Possible Answer: Process analysis, cause-and-effect. The video begins by explaining how coffee is made: “grind the beans, load the filter, add water, brew, and enjoy.” The video then organizes its list of ingredients chronologically, in the order of a coffee drinker’s experience. First, it lists the aroma, then the taste of the first sip, and finally the brain’s experience of caffeine after a few sips. The video also explains how the presence of particular ingredients leads to certain smells and tastes, and it describes how caffeine has the effect of “You, awake.”
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Thinking Critically about Classification and Division

Question 17.47

3. What is the purpose of the video, and how does using classification or division help achieve that purpose?
Possible Answer: The purpose of What’s Inside: Coffee is to explore the science behind an everyday substance and make it interesting. The principle of division and explaining the components of coffee achieves this goal, especially because the video explains other, unexpected places where each component can be found.

Question 17.48

4. Does the video provide sufficient detail about each category? What other kinds of details or topics might it have included?
Possible Answer: The video is brief and does not claim to include all the ingredients in coffee. The video is intended to be short and engaging, so the amount of detail was appropriate. The visuals associated with each compound, such as the moving cockroach illustrations for the cockroach pheromone and the earthworm for the earthy taste, provide enough detail to make the science surprising and interesting. The video might have included more detail about the compounds that make types of coffees taste different.
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