Leading with assertions

This accelerator provides an example of how to turn an outline of points and facts into assertions that will organize and motivate your writing. Ultimately, most scientific writing exists to make an assertion. A paper may assert that a widely held theory needs to be rethought or that an experiment supports a hypothesis. The design context review that you will create in Step 5 of A Guide to Writing a Design Context Review in Bioengineering Design will assert that a problem exists and needs to be solved.

Anyone trained in science knows that assertions mean little if they aren’t backed by evidence. You can use this principle of the scientific method to organize your writing. If your paper exists to assert a particular problem exists, then each section of the paper must make secondary assertions that characterize the problem. Further, within each section, each paragraph must make assertions that together characterize the secondary assertion. Together, this collection of nested assertions comprises your argument.

Here is how the Team Panda team might organize its outline topics into assertions.

Problem Statement: Current research on bone repair and therapy suggests that small, continuous adjustment of fractures can aid healing and improve the quality of regenerated tissue. Making continuous adjustments, however, requires near-constant monitoring that creates a burden for nursing staff and can be onerous for patients receiving fracture fixation. A device that could automatically perform continuous, pre-set adjustments while providing the proven stability of the Taylor Spatial Frame has the potential to shorten treatment times. It also would streamline fracture fixation therapy and cut therapy costs by reducing the need for operator oversight.

Assertions that support the problem statement (these will become the top tier headings or sections in the design context review):

1. Current bone therapy treatment is focused on stabilizing fractures through a course of progressive, manual adjustments that can be onerous to implement consistently and cost effectively in modern medical settings.
2. Current devices (frames) deploy 6 struts that correct bone deformities and fractures in 1 mm increments along each strut, each day. A new theory of bone repair has suggested that smaller, continuous adjustment might improve outcomes.
3. The Taylor Spatial Frame is the current state of the art for fracture fixation. If automated to accommodate this new fracture fixation theory, it could be made into an even more valuable tool.
4. Several aspects of the Taylor Spatial Frame design lend themselves to automation. The human body, on the other hand, provides the most challenging obstacles to automation.